A Comparative Study Of The Two Chinese Versions Of Jane Eyre From The Perspective Of Translation Shifts

This thesis, by making use of Catford's theory of translation shifts, attempts to analyze, in specific ways, the various shifts needed for the successful production of adequate Chinese versions of English literary works, with two Chinese versions of Jane Eyre as source materials for study. Though studies on translation principles or strategies have prevailed in China for decades, few people have made substantial researches into the actual changes or shifts in translation between English and Chinese, at grammatical, syntactic and semantic levels. It is Catford who systematically introduces a linguistic approach to translation procedures and uses the term"translation shifts"to refer to those changes or shifts that occur in the translation process. In this thesis, detailed analyses of translation shifts are provided for comparison and contrast, to illustrate how translation shifts, both as a theoretical notion and a translation procedure can help contribute to the naturalness, idiomaticness as well as smoothness in the target text. Since Catford's theory of translation shifts mainly targets at Indo-European languages, this thesis borrows his notions and extends them to a comparative analysis of English and Chinese languages by looking at examples at phrase and sentence levels. As a result, such shifts as structure-shifts, unit-shifts, class-shifts and the combination of the three shifts are included for discussions at length. Through the comparison and the analysis of the two Chinese versions of Jane Eyre, we can see that translation shifts play an important role in yielding adequate Chinese versions of English literary works.