A Report On E-C Translation Under The Guidance Of Translation Shifts Theory: A Case Study Of The Politicians And Rhetoric(Excerpts)

Translation involves transformation between languages,which is a prerequisite for conveying information and communicating efficiently.In 1965,John Catford proposed the concept of translation shifts,which he defined as the departures from formal correspondence in the process of going from the source language to the target language,including two types of shifts,namely level and category shifts.The theory prominently stresses meaning equivalence rather than formal equivalence,which is in accordance with the principle that content prevails over form in academic translation.The Politicians and Rhetoric: The Persuasive Power of Metaphor is one of academic books on political rhetoric.This report takes several chapters of the book as translation samples and explores the level shifts and category shifts in the translation process from the perspective of translation shift theory.The study finds that due to inherent differences between English and Chinese,translation shift is ubiquitous in the translation process.Specific patterns of each type of shifts used by the translator have been elaborated: In view of level shifts,the tenses of verbs and numbers are transformed into lexical means.And category shifts consist of structure shifts,class shifts and unit shifts,through which complicated problems such as passive voices,attributive clauses and long sentences can be tackled.