Catford’s Translation Shift Theory As Guidance In Non-litorary Translation

Translation not only refers to the process of one language being changed into another one; it also serves as a means of communication, in which an accurate conveying of the original text is of paramount importance, especially for non-literary translation. However, due to the huge differences between English and Chinese, it is nearly impossible to achieve absolute equivalence in E-C translation. As a result, departures from formal correspondence are likely to appear in the process of going from the source language to the target language, which is defined as "translation shifts" by Catford in1965.Based on the translation of the preface and Chapter One of Media Ethics, an academic-work of Johan Retief, this research strives to examine the translation shifts on and below the level of sentence in the translation process, including level shifts, structure-shifts, class-shifts and unit-shifts, with the assistance of Catford’s shift model.After analyzing specific examples, this thesis testifies that Catford’s theory is highly-applicable in guiding non-literary translation. What’s more, it’s worthwhile to notice that translators do exert a great influence on translation shifts. Jt is suggested that translators should adopt proper translation strategies in order to achieve a reader-friendly translation.