A Report On E-C Translation Of Shutdown:How Covid Shook The World’s Economy(Excerpts)

Shutdown: How Covid Shook the World’s Economy(2021),written by Adam Tooze,analyzes the impact of COVID-19 on the world’s economy,policy,and environment comprehensively.The source text is excerpted from “Introduction” of Shutdown.By applying Catford’s translation shifts theory,the translator analyzes cases in a scientific and theoretical manner.The report includes five chapters,namely,introduction,translation process,theoretical framework,case analyses,and conclusion.It puts emphasis on the translation process with three stages and case analyses with shifts theory.During the translation process,in pre-translating,the translator pays attention to the macro background and inquires economic proper nouns of the source text.During translating,the translator applies Catford’s translation shifts theory as a guidance in solving difficulties.By consulting parallel texts,the translator improves the accuracy and the wording.In post-translating,the translator mainly checks whether there are errors,omissions,and grammatical mistakes in translation.In case analyses,the translator finds that the theory fits for shifts of sentences and below levels in two languages.Level shifts are more frequent than category shifts due to the polarity of marking in English,however,only through lexicons can Chinese express tense,aspect,singular,and plural forms in English.Compared with level shifts,category shifts have a more detailed classification: structure shifts happen when a word in English is made as a different component in Chinese;class shifts are reflected in the change of word order and lexicons in Chinese;unit shifts can be achieved by punctuations to segment semantic and logic meaning;intra-system shifts are not frequent between English and Chinese for their different families.By analyzing cases,the translator examines the feasibility of shifts theory to the translated version of the economic type.