A Practice Report On The Translation Of Obesity(Excerpt) Into Chinese Under Guidance Of Catford’s Theory Of Translation Shifts

Translating consists in reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source language message,first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style.If the meaning and form cannot be taken into account at the same time,the form should be abandoned to reproduce the original meaning.In 1965,in his book,A Linguistic Theory of Translation,the British linguist Catford first proposed the theory of translation shifts.He believes that the function of language communication is achieved through different levels and in order to achieve the original and the translation of the semantic equivalence,it is necessary to carry out translation shifts,which is “departures from formal correspondence in the process of going from SL to TL”.The medical English text,as one of the scientific and technological text,belongs to the expositional information text.Its style is not to pursue the artistic beauty of language,but to pay attention to the logical accuracy and objectivity in the expression,As the translation of such articles pay more attention to the expression of meaning,the principle that “content is more important than form” is one of the important criteria in the translation of science and technology.This report aims to discuss the application of the theory of translational shifts during translation practice.This theory solves the problems of translation practice from English to Chinese,and guides the author’s translation practice.Following the theory,the author studies the grammatical differences between English and Chinese from the microcosmic aspects of vocabulary,phrases and sentences to complete the shift from the parataxis to the hypo taxis,the passive voice to the active voice,the static to the dynamic,and subject-prominent to topic-prominent.After analyzing the application of the theory,the author draws the conclusion: the principle of Catford’s translation shifts theory,which departs from formal correspondence and focuses on the textual equivalence,accords with the characteristics of scientific and technological text.Therefore,the theory plays an important guiding role and has practical values in the translation of scientific text from English to Chinese.