On Translation Of English Attributive Clauses In Western Philosophical Masterworks From The Perspective Of Translation Shifts Theory

As a special linguistic phenomenon of the English language, attributive clausesare widely used in various written works, conveying strict and complicated logicalrelationship and providing modifying and restricting functions. Considering theimportance and particularity of the attributive clause, many theorists and scholars bothat home and abroad have never ignored their comprehensive researches on E-Ctranslation of attributive clauses. This thesis, still taking E-C translation of attributiveclauses as its research object, is about to conduct a study on the structural shiftsbetween Chinese and English attributive clauses and analyze in detail the measurestaken by translators in dealing with English attributive clauses in the practicaltranslating.The English version of What is Art? is chosen as the material, which is aphilosophical masterwork written by Leo Tolstoy, a well-known Russian writer. Andits vivid description and profound reflection of art has been well received by readers.Besides, it is an extremely informative and absorbing book, which has a high historicaland artistic value. And there are a large number of attributive clauses in Englishversion of What is Art?, which become the major obstacle for translating.This thesis attempts to discuss translating methods of English attributive clausesin western philosophical masterworks from perspective of Catford’s Translation shiftstheory. In this thesis, features of restrictive and non-restrictive attributive clauses arediscussed, and differences between Chinese and English attributive clauses areanalyzed. Finally, this thesis illustrates that translation methods including front-loadingtranslation, post-modifier translation, adverbial method, and blending can be adoptedin translation shifts of English attributive clauses in western philosophicalmasterworks.