Abstract

HERNANDEZ GARCIA, Valeria. Forms Taken by Archaisms in Contracts: A Corpus Research. Íkala [online]. 2022, vol.27, n.2, pp.411-429.  Epub June 07, 2022. ISSN 0123-3432.  https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.ikala.v27n2a07.

According to Christopher Williams, contracts tend to display significant use of archaisms which generally take the form of suffixed adverbs. The aim of this triangulated empirical study, of mixed nature, is to verify such phenomenon by analysing a corpus of 80 collaboration contracts -20 joint venture, exclusive distribution, franchise, and technology transfer agreements- undersigned in the United States. To achieve this objective, a lexical inventory of 171 archaisms was compiled. Then, using the AntConc software, the frequency of the anachronistic manifestations contained in the document sample was collected and the most regular ones were extracted on the data obtained on the suffixed adverbs. Results show that the most recurring archaisms in these contracts adopt the form of suffixed adverbs in 11 occasions, and other forms in 26 occasions. Therefore, Williams' statement is not applicable to the compiled corpus. These findings put an end to the association of the concept archaisms to suffixed adverbs, and provide a new detailed perspective on contractual anachronistic features.

Keywords : archaisms; suffixed adverbs; collaboration contracts; legal English; legalese; corpus research.

        · abstract in Spanish | French | Portuguese     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )