A Study On Translation Strategies In English-Chinese Translation From The Perspective Of Translation Shifts Theory

As a kind of artistic genre that uses writing as the creation and aesthetic object,prose plays an important role in human's lives.It has a wide selection of materials,diverse writing styles,flexible structures,concise languages,and unrestricted expressions.Moreover,prose uses imagination and association to express far-reaching ideas by combining emotion with scenery and prose translation is becoming increasingly important.In the process of prose translation,English-Chinese language conversion is one of questions that translators pay special attention to.In order to fulfill the work,Translation Shifts Theory is adopted as the theoretical guidance for prose translation practice.Based on M.A.K.Haliday's system-functional linguistics,Catford firstly put forward “translation shifts” and classified the types of translations,analyzed the differences between word formation and group sentences in different languages in detail and cited the corresponding conversion methods.Meanwhile,he expounded the guiding function and applicability in translation practice.The theory is clear and structured with a strong practicality,further enriching and developing the content of translation theory,and having a far-reaching influence.As a result,the thesis chooses Translation Shifts Theory as the guidance for the translation practice.The thesis is set on the basis of translation of Bless You,My Father and draws a conclusion that prose translation should be done to match the demands of the contexts.Bless You,My Father is written by Robert Wayne Hamblin,who is a research scholar of William Faulkner,a poet,a professor,as well as a writer.Robert Hamblin's works are mostly centered on the Mississippi River,describing many scenes of the nature of the Mississippi River and scenes of daily life.There are a lot of lyrical expressions in Robert Hamblin's works to express the love and thoughts for his hometown and his loved ones.During the translation,the writer of this dissertation found that there were many differences between the two languages of English and Chinese when making translation conversions,whether in vocabulary,grammar,collocation or syntax.If blunt literal translation was used,the translation would have an obvious “translational cavity,” and as a result,the translation would be hard to understand and completely loses the charm of the original.Therefore,the author used Translation Shifts Theory of Catford to guide and modify the translation,making it consistent with the Chinese language norms,and easy to read and understand for readers.This thesis is based on a lot of readings and translations of Robert Hamblin's works,deepening the understanding of Robert Hamblen,and having a deeper knowledge of his literary works.The dissertation will be of great significance for the translation studies of Robert Hamblen's other literature.According to a lot of research,this dissertation summarized the main research on translation shifts theory both at home and abroad.Through a detailed analysis of examples,and after taking the impact of cultural linguistic differences on translation into account as much as possible,the writer of this dissertation translated under the guidance of Translation Shifts Theory to make the text smoother.The dissertation aims to provide more examples for the practice of English-Chinese translation under the guidance of translation theory to further enrich the content of English-Chinese translation.