A Report On The Translation Of The Dead Secret(Excerpts)

The Dead Secret,a mystery novel,was written by the English detective novelist William Wilkie Collins.Collins characterizes various figures and intricate plots in his novel,attracting the readers.However,due to the differences between Chinese and English,translating the original text from word to word,the characters and plots of the novel could not be conveyed to the reader vividly and exactly.Linguist Catford believes that in order to achieve the equivalence of text in translation,translator needs to choose appropriate translation strategies and change the form of the original text.And the departures from formal correspondence are the “translation shifts”.Therefore,this report adopts Catford's translation shifts theory as the theoretical guidance and analyses the differences between English and Chinese as well as their features.Then through the level shifts and category shifts,the author changes the form of the original text to enhance the fluency and readability of the translation.The report analyzes the examples,aiming to give references the further studies of translation shifts theory and provide inspiration to the translation of mystery novels.Through the practice,the author finds that Catford's translation shifts theory could help the translator to overcome the obstacles between different languages.And the translation will be more in line with the expression of the target language without losing the art and information of the original text.Also,the acceptability of the target language readers will be improved.