A Report On E-C Translation Of Creative Economy Outlook 2022 (Excerpt) In The Light Of Translation Shifts Theory

The translation material,Creative Economy Outlook 2022 published by UNCTAD,is an economic text.Chapters one to five of the source text have been translated and studied to complete this translation practice report.The selected sections involve the definition of creative economy,the current state of international development,development models,frameworks,problems encountered and recommendations to promote the development of creative economy.In the process of translating economic texts,it is necessary to ensure the accuracy of the original message,as well as to ensure that the translation is both smooth and expressive.In order to reproduce a translation that conforms to the linguistic conventions of the target language,Catford’s translation shifts theory is applied as the theoretical foundation for this translation practice.The core concept of the theory is the word “shifts”.“Shifts” refers to “departures from formal correspondence in the process of going from the SL to the TL”.Catford divides category shifts into class shifts,unit shifts,structure shifts and intra-system shifts.In this report,class shifts,unit shifts and structure shifts are adopted as the theoretical framework.When the source language and the target language have roughly corresponding surface structures,intra-system shifts will be involved.However,English and Chinese differ greatly in form,so this report does not include intra-system shifts in its framework.The translator adopts the shifts of adjectives and nouns according to class shifts.Word-to-phrase,phrase-to-sentence and sentence-to-sentence group shifts are discussed according to unit shifts.According to structure shifts,the translator focuses on the shifts from passive voice to active voice and from impersonal subject to personal subject.Catford’s translation shifts theory effectively addresses the difficulties at lexical and syntactic levels encountered in the translation practice,thus reproducing a translation that is more in line with the conventions of the target language.