An E-C Translation Practice Report From The Perspective Of Catford's Translation Shift Theory

Translation shift,which was on the basis of Halliday's systemic grammar,was first proposed by Catford in his book A Linguistic Theory of Translation in 1965.Catford deems that translation shifts which fall mainly into level shifts and category shifts,refer to the most basic method of translating one language into another,which deviates from formal correspondence during translation.Based on some sections of DEED OF AGREEMENT FOR PROJECT CONSTRUCTION translated by herself,the author discusses the application of Translation Shift Theory in the practice of English-Chinese translation from two aspects: level shifts and category shifts.DEED OF AGREEMENT FOR PROJECT CONSTRUCTION is an engineering construction contract signed by the employer from Britain and the contractor from China on June 28,2018 to complete the agreed construction project in Laos and clarify their mutual rights and obligations voluntarily,which is concluded through legal consultation.The source text has about 18,000 English words in total which consists of comprehensive content,unequivocal rights and responsibilities,and law with strong binding force.At the lexical level,it focuses on the use of written words and formal words especially the archaic words,terminologies,and modal verbs,which are rigorous,standardized,professional,concise and nominalized.In the syntactic aspect,long and complex sentences,passive voice,non-personal sentences and attributive clauses are employed frequently,which are objective and accurate.In the aspect of grammar,tense is generally present tense and present perfect tense.The modal verbs “shall” and “may” are frequently and rationally used.In conclusion,the source text is exceedingly objective,professional and formal,with rigorous logic and strong organization.On the basis of an analysis of the translation shift phenomena in the grammar,vocabulary and syntax of the engineering construction contract during E-C translation,the author concludes that Catford's Translation Shift Theory has significant value for the translation of engineering construction contracts.At the grammatical level,the grammatical meanings of gender,number,case,tense,aspect,voice,person,part of speech and other grammatical representations are generally conveyed by means of Chinese function words,word order,implied meaning and so on;on the lexical level,there are discrepancies in the number and scope of parts of speech between English and Chinese,which show diverse usage frequency and preference of parts of speech.The necessary shifts of parts of speech in English-Chinese translation facilitates the expression habit of the target language;at the syntactic level,when there is no correspondence between the target language and the source language about translation units,the translator is obliged to consider the unit shift and search the appropriate translation units from the morpheme,word,phrase and clause.In translation practice,the author fully adopts appropriate shift strategies according to the actual situation and create excellent translations that are favorably accepted by the readers.Therefore,the translator's personal selectivity has a certain impact on the occurrence of shift types.In addition,through the E-C translation of the engineering construction contract,it is expected to provide readable translation version and certain references for the students majoring in engineering construction or foreign-related enterprises.