A Report On The English-Chinese Translation Of When Death Becomes Life(Chapter 4)

This report is based on the book When Death Becomes Life written by Joshua Mezrich,a transplant surgeon.The author selected Chapter 4 as the source text to be translated and analyzed.With the special genre and novel topic,the book consists of the history of transplant surgery and stories of patients and donors the writer encountered with.Combined with history and memoir,the book allowed readers to get an overview of the unfamiliar field in a personal and relatable way with the appreciation of life and the incredible gift transplantation is to human beings.Based on Catford’s translation shifts theory,the report analyzes the authors translation specifically from two aspects: level shifts and category shifts.In terms of level shifts,the author analyzes the shifts between tense and aspect and singular and plural nouns in English-Chinese translation.In regard to category shifts,the author analyzes the translation from three perspectives: structure shifts,class shifts,and unit shifts,according to the classification made by Catford.Structure shifts involve the shifts between affirmative and negative expressions,passive and active voice,and the order of components within a sentence.Class shifts mainly involve the shifts made from English prepositions to Chinese verbs.Unit shifts involve the shifts between the English grammatical units,such as words,phrases clauses and sentences.The report consists of five parts.The first part is an overall introduction,including the introduction to the text,language features and the significance of the project.The second part is an description of the translation process from the stage of pre-translation,while-translation and post-translation.The third part is an introduction to Catford’s translation shifts theory,including two aspects of level shifts and category shifts.The fourth part is case analysis.The fifth part is a summary and reflection on this translation practice.Because of the special genre of the text,the translation practice not only requires background knowledge of transplant and verification of medical terminology,but also requires natural and expressive emotional words to resonate with readers.From the practice,the author has improved her translation skills and learned a lot of medical knowledge,which can not only lay the foundation for future translation work in the medical field,but also provide reference to the similar texts.