Catford's Translation Shifts Theory As Guidance In The Translation Of Report

Since Chinese and English are affiliated to different language families,there is a huge distinction of grammatical structure and of changes from lexis.Thus,the forms cannot be fully corresponded in translation between the two languages.It is inevitable to break the original forms of better understanding of the target readers.On this account,this report focused on how to deal with formal departures in a report text.This report consciously adopted the theory of translation shifts in her translation of preface and the first six sections of Brookings Annual Report in 2017.It is an annual report that covers the study results of economic studies,foreign policy,global economy and development,governance studies,Metropolitan policy program and strategic plan.The language of this annual report is rather objective and serious.This report discussed Catford's translation shifts and illustrate,through this theory,the law of shifts in lexis,sentence,and other micro level.The examples of translation shifts in this report are analyzed on the two levels:level shifts and category shifts.The latter includes class shifts,structure shifts,unit shifts and intra-system shifts.On each shift,specific translation methods are presented with examples,including nouns to verbs,prepositions to verbs,etc.On the level shifts,translation shifts are classified into plural forms,tenses and aspects.On the class shifts,translation shifts mainly occur in nouns,prepositions,adjectives and verbs.The structure shifts are divided into shifts in passive voice,postpositive attributive and hypotaxis.On the unit shifts,translation shifts occur in lexis and phrase as well as phrase and sentence or clause.Since the intra-system shifts are few in this translation,this report did not discuss it.This report provided detailed classification of translation shifts combining with the chosen text and also provided a new perspective for the translation of report.Besides,this report found the translation shift theory has significance in translation of annual report.It is hoped that translators can have a better understanding of this theory and make translation more concord with the characteristics of target language so as to present a target text easier to get.