The Realization Of Evocative Functions By Catford’s Shifts Theory In Translating Energy Humanistic Texts

Energy humanities,a new research field,has emerged rapidly,associating energy issues with social development,culture and ecological environment from a humanities perspective.The energy humanities texts not only focus on the energy issues but also show humanistic concerns for energy issues.Thus,the translation of energy humanities texts is supposed to involve the delivery of emotions and the realization of evocative functions.This translation project is selected from Living Oil: Petroleum Culture in the American Century,a foundational work in the field of energy culture written by Stephanie Le Menager,a professor of environmental studies.The texts abound with technical terms,cultural concepts,and compound sentences with relatively complex logic and syntactic structures.Differences in vocabulary and syntax resulting from different ways of thinking between English and Chinese pose great challenges not only to the translation but also to the delivery of emotions.Catford’s Translation Shifts Theory focuses on lexical and syntactic transformations,which are not bound by linguistic forms.Therefore,it can help to realize lexical-grammatical shifts and level shifts at sentential levels,and thus can achieve information transmission,cultural transmission and emotional transmission.This report aims at exploring how Catford’s theory can achieve the evocative functions in the translation process of energy humanities texts by analyzing translation examples.Under the guidance of Catford’s Translation Shifts Theory,this report concludes that level-shifts mainly apply at lexical levels such as those between singular words and plural words,in verb tenses and those vocabulary to enhance sensory feelings,while category shifts are mainly used for conversions between lexical levels and sentential levels,able to convey emotional value through deconstruction and reconstruction.According to Catford’s theory,category shifts are divided into the following four categories: taking the dynamic nature of the Chinese language into consideration,class-shifts are commonly used for conversions between words classes,such as converting English nouns,adjectives and prepositions to Chinese verbs in order to make readers empathize;unit-shifts are conversions between words,phrases,clauses and independent sentences;structural-shifts include changes from passive voice to active voice and conversion between positive and negative expressions and the conversion of inanimate subject sentences into animate subject ones,or vice versa;the shifts,based on the subjective and objective factors,are able to achieve evocative functions without the limitation of the original forms.Intra-system shifts are mainly used for diverse expressions arising from different contexts.Thus,the emotional value of the source text could be conveyed to the target readers with all these shifts.In conclusion,Catford’s Translation Shifts Theory can play a positive role in guiding the translation of energy humanities texts.The adoption of appropriate translation strategies in the process can not only convey the information accurately,but also can express the original emotional experiences in the target language.