A Translation Report On Selected Part Of The Handbook Of Soap Manufacture:from The Perspective Of Catford’s Translation Shift Theory

Cleaning product plays an important part in our daily life.With the growth of economy and the improvement of people’s living standard,there is a growing demand for the cleaning product in the market and the production of cleaning product is also on increase.According to the data released by China industry information network(www.chyxx.com),from 2011 to 2016,the output of washing products in China rose from 9.341 million tons to 13.9014 million tons,an increase of about 0.49%.Among that,the output of washing powder was 4.4627 million tons,the production of liquid detergent was 8.5287 million tons,and the production of soap was 910,000 tons.Although domestic cleaning products production has been on the rise,there are still many problems in the market of China’s detergent products,such as the shortage of raw materials,the relative backwardness of technology,the low and medium-grade products and so on.In order to solve these problems,one will learn from the advanced technology and experience of the developed countries.Thus,it’s of great importance to translate the English chemical materials into Chinese.The selected message is from the book The Handbook of Soap Manufacture,written by W.H.Simmons.The book introduces various kinds of materials for soap-making,the bleaching and treatment for different materials and ways of soap-making in detail.It is an informative text and belongs to English for Science and Technology(EST).Thus,accurately conveying the information and representing the original textual information is the main goal of the translation of EST.That’s to say,during translation,we should not put much emphasis on the TL’s form or aesthetic effect,but the accurate expression of the original information.This principle coincides with John Catford’s translation shift theory,which also stresses meaning equivalence rather than formal correspondence.Catford’s translation shift theory includes two types of shift:level shifts and category shifts and category shifts include four types-structure shifts,class shifts,unit shifts and intra-system shifts.This paper bases on the translation practice of part of The Handbook of Soap Manufacture,analyses the features of the English for Science and Technology and the application of Catford’s translation shift theory from the perspective of level shifts,structure shifts,class shifts,unit shifts and intra-system shifts.