Formal Shifts On EST Translation Into Chinese

An important translation skill, e.g. formal shift, in a special register of English-EST is systematically developed based on relevant translation theory. In EST translation into Chinese, content takes precedence over form. Formal shift is employed to render faithfully the content at the expense of formal correspondence. Formal shift covers a wide range of translation skills, which are well integrated in this paper to hopefully offer some help to translators who are bound by formal correspondence. Besides the rules of formal shifts summed up in this paper can be applied to machine translation. By applying the theory of formal shifts to specific SL and TL (that is English and Chinese) and to specific language register-EST, this paper also contributed to the development of this fundamental translation theory.