A Study On C-E Essay Translation Under Catford’s Translation Shifts Theory

Catford’s translation shifts theory involves the translation shifts of words,grammar and syntax,etc.It is divided into two main types—level shifts and category shifts,and category shifts include structure shifts,class shifts,unit shifts and intra-system shifts.Under the guidance of Catford’s translation shifts theory,the translator translates Eternal Figures,a collection of literary essays written by the contemporary literary writer Wang Chonglv,and analyzes the translation methods and translation effects.The book introduces the stories of Chinese people with different identities,which vividly shows the patriotism and immortal feelings of the Chinese people.The book is divided into ancient compilation and modern compilation.The source text of the translation report is selected from chapter three in ancient compilation,chapter twentyfive and chapter twenty-six in modern compilation.Translation of the work is of great significance to enhance the cultural confidence of Chinese people and show the Chinese national spirit to foreign countries.Language in this book is characterized by expressions of modern Chinese and ancient Chinese,and a great number of fourcharacter phrases are used in the book.Sentence structures in this book are not constrained by grammatical rules or fixed patterns,but a combination of short sentences and long sentences is adopted.Parallel sentence pattern is also adopted in the essay collection.In addition,the writer also quotes sentences and epigrams from ancient Chinese poetry and prose,which contribute to the literary flavor of the book.In order to retain the language characteristics of the source language to the greatest extent and further improve the readability of the target language,the translator adopts the five translation methods in Catford’s translation shifts theory.Level shifts are used to transform Chinese lexical expressions to English grammatical expressions;structure shifts are adopted to change the positions of the grammatical components in the sentences;class shifts are utilized to convert the parts of speech of words or phrases;unit shifts are employed to the transformation between words,phrases,clauses and sentences;intra-system shifts are implemented to translate the non-equivalent expressions between the source language and the target language.The thesis proves the readability of the translation under the guidance of Catford’s translation shifts theory and confirms the guiding role of the theory to essay translation.The translator hopes that the translation report can provide help and reference for translators of modern Chinese essays.In addition,the translator also hopes to contribute to the Going-out strategy of the excellent Chinese essays.