A Practice Report On The English-Chinese Translation Of Dream Under The Guidance Of Catford’s Translation Shifts Theory

This translation practice report is based on the psychological book Dream,which belongs to the work of informative text.Obviously,the information is greatly accurate.Besides,the whole language is significantly objective and rigorous and there is also a strong logic in this text.As a result,the accurate transmission of content should be placed in the first place,meanwhile,the language style and form cannot be ignored.Most importantly,the conversion of source language and target language is the core problem.Catford’s translation shifts theory includes two aspects:level shifts and category shifts,which provides a theoretical support for this translation practice because it attaches importance to not only the transmission of information but also transformation of language forms.This report makes analysis of the significance of Catford’s translation theory guiding this translation practice from lexical and syntactic aspects through specific cases.In view of the differences between Chinese and English,such as tense and singular and plural in English,level shifts can be used to translate,so as to make it conform to Chinese expression habits.What’s more,for difficult words,class shifts can be used to make the translation readable.Besides,as for the complicated and difficult long sentences,unit shifts can be used to divide the parenthesis,attributive clauses and adverbial clauses into short sentences so that the logic of the article can be manifested to make the translation more rigorous.Eventually,in terms of the complex structures in the original text,structure shifts can be used to make the structures concise and clear for the sake of the target text being better understood.This report summarizes the translation practice of Dream,and discusses the feasibility of Catford’s translation theory in guiding the translation of informative texts,aiming at providing a reference for future translators in translating such texts.