ABSTRACT
In the context of business transactions there is a commercially important if hitherto little-studied genre, that of invitations for bids (IFBs), which have found to enjoy some interesting characteristics. This chapter presents a description of the genre IFBs, concentrating on specific linguistic features, starting by showing that it belongs to the class of 'colony texts' proposed in Hoey and moving into a description of its components and lexical features. The IFBs studied are from four countries namely, Bangladesh, India, Jamaica and Brazil, and include texts in English and Portuguese. The aim of the bidding process is to acquire goods and/or services. There is the aspect of intertextuality which is also characteristic of IFBs, since they make a number of references to other documents, which the bidder must purchase in order, first, to be able to prepare a bid and, second, to make the bid effective
