Application Of Catford's Translation Shift Theory In Academic Translation From English To Chinese

As early as the 1950s,the western world began to study theories about translation shift.In 1965,British linguist John C.Catford first brought up with translation shift theory officially.However,when it was introduced into China in the 1980s,it wasn't taken seriously by Chinese scholars.This thesis mainly studies Catford's theory of translation shift,which refers to the departures from formal correspondence in the process of going from the source language to the target language.Two major types of 'shift' occur:level shift and category shift,the latter of which includes class shift,unit shift,structure shift and intra-system-shift.The translation text used in this thesis is chosen from the academic book Reading YouTube:The Critical Viewers Guide by Anandam Kavoori,a professor in communication at Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communications,University of Georgia.Given that academic texts boast unique linguistic features,such as the high level of language formality,the prominence of nominalization,and the frequent usage of passive structures and complex sentences,together with the difficult points the author met during the translation process,the author believes that Catford's theory of translation shift could be applied to academic translation from English to Chinese.This thesis discusses level shifts,structure shifts,class shifts and unit shifts which occurred in the translation text on the basis of the huge differences between English and Chinese in vocabulary,syntax structure and expressions.After analysis,the author concludes that the translation shift theory of Catford could be applied to academic text translation.Therefore,this report could,to some extent,offer a new perspective into the study of academic translation for other scholars,making my own contributions to improving the quality of academic translation.