A Translation Report Of Forthing M4 Maintenance Manual (Excerpt) Guided By Translation Shifts Theory

With the sustained and rapid development of China’s economy,automobiles are increasingly becoming a daily routine for people.National brands,Chinese foreign joint venture brands,and wholly foreign-owned brand automobiles are all shining,while the Chinese automotive industry is in the ascendant.In addition,the automobile is a composite product that integrates various high-tech achievements,including disciplines such as materials science,aerodynamics,mechanics,ergonomics,dynamics,acoustics,optics,etc.The technical terminology covers a wide range of fields,making automotive production,sales,maintenance,after-sales practitioners and users face significant challenges when reading automotive English Maintenance Manual.China is now a significant source of independent research and creative production,having changed from a passive position in accepting international automobile parts that incorporated production procedures and intellectual property rights.Translation undoubtedly plays a significant role in fostering technical contacts between China and other countries’ research and development.The intersection of the automotive and translation industries has the potential to expand China’s automotive market and create new business opportunities.The translation of automobile items has additionally grown in significance as a result of rising consumer demands and the desire of overseas customers to purchase Chinese goods.This not only enables customers to select reliable automobile brands and models,but it also lets China’s cutting-edge automotive technology and culture travel outside to strengthen the country’s position in the world.Forthing M4 Maintenance Manual is vital in this aspect because understanding vehicle performance is necessary for safe driving.The paper takes the Chinese-English translation of Forthing M4 Maintenance Manual as the case study object,combines characteristics of sci-tech stylistics with Catford’s translation shifts theory to study and analyze the text from the perspective of level shifts and category shifts.The case of level shifts lists the singular form and plural form shifts and tense shifts of words;Structure shifts,class shifts,unit shifts,and intra-system shifts all go under category shifts.Case studies of structural shifts include the shifts between active sentences and passive sentences,the shifts between topic prominence and subject prominence.Class shifts include the shifts between verbs and adjectives,The shifts amongst verbs and nouns,as well as verbs and gerunds.Unit shifts consist of the shifts between small sentences and long sentences,the shifts between phrases and clauses.Intra-system shifts introduce that the target language and the source language have substantially equivalent form structures rather than corresponding “terms”.Sci-tech text attaches great importance to the accurate transmission of meaning.Based on the equivalence of meaning,Catford’s translation shifts theory proposes that translation should abandon the outer shell,pursue the transmission of meaning in the text,and not rigidly adhere to form.Therefore,Catford’s translation shifts theory can guide the translation of sci-tech texts.The paper uses Catford’s translation shifts theory to provide theoretical guidance.Through practice,it has been demonstrated that this theory,which has a strong practicality and operability,may effectively guide the translation of English texts in the automobile industry.