On The Shift Of Perspective In Chinese To English And English To Chinese Translation

Translation, as one of the cross cultural activities, is not only a transformation of one language to another, but is also an exchange of cultural information. There are many differences between Chinese and English, the language is different, and the cultural background, customs and the thought pattern are also different. These differences affect a lot the understanding and expressing in translation, which is a natural result of the different forms of these two languages. Even though the translator could get the right meaning of the source language, meaning lost is unavoidable in the translated version because of culture differences.How to deal with this problem? Our answer to this question is the adoption of workable methods. One of these commonly used methods is shift of perspective to seek in the target language the equivalent information of the source language. In this way, content of the source language can be kept in target language, though forms may be somewhat changed.The theories on this shift in perspective are still in their beginning stages. Many problems still need to be solved. That's why it is important to study how to jump from one language to another taking into account this shift in perspective when translating.This paper develops the above notions in six chapters. Chapter one gives a brief introduction to this theory and the scope where it may be applied. The second chapter, Literature Review, lists past achievements in this field and the current status of what motivates further study of this kind. Chapter three is about the shift in perspective and its function in translation. The fourth Chapter is on the basic learning differences between English and Chinese thinking patterns and their impact on language. It also introduces some relevant and some typical translation skills. Chapter five applies the shift of perspective in a practical example by comparing two Chinese versions of Emma. The last chapter summarizes the points made and suggests areas of further studies in this regard.