A Case Study Of Translation Shifts Theory From The Perspective Of Logic

This report is on the translation of Plant Pest Risk Assessment of Releasing Genetically Engineered Citrus tristeza Virus to Control Citrus Greening Disease from English into Chinese.The original text presents the protocol and process of using genetically engineered Citrus tristeza virus to control citrus greening disease and the relevant regulations in the United States.It is written in scientific text style containing mainly the transgenic techniques along with relevant administrative regulations,characterized by frequent formal technical terms and expressions,complex sentences in normative language,and strict logic reasoning.In translation the translator was challenged by such problems as the difficulty in comprehending the highly technical terms,the abundant passive voices and nominalizations,the logical implications in phrases and subordinate clauses,and the complex logical relevance among sentences.In search of solutions the translator employed logic analysis as a tool for retrieving the semantic information from original text,followed by taking the methods suggested in translation shifts theory including the class shifts,structure shifts and unit shifts into the translation process.As a result the translator gains the experience as follows.(1)In translation of technical process description,it is often necessary to convert noun phrases into verbs or verb phrases,on the logic basis of equivalent transformation of language components of similar meaning,i.e.the phrases must be of semantic and logic equivalence after transformation.(2)In most cases it is necessary to translate the passive sentence without agent into Chinese active sentence by using amplification to explicate the agent that performs the action.The cautions must be taken in the transformation of predicate(s)in passive sentence to ensure the professionalism and to improve readability of translated version.(3)For the sentences containing logical relations,identifying the logic relations among words,phrases and clauses should be at the top of priority.Then,translation shifts are suggested to be used for reorganizing the sentence structure to ensure the semantic and logical equivalence.(4)In certain context the phrases and subordinate clauses would be converted into equivalent words or phrases consistent with their logic implications as a way of making the translated discourse accurate and concise.In case study,in response to the problems found in translation process,the report discusses the application of translation shifts in the project in principle of logically equivalent transformation,hopefully setting examples for future translation of similar scientific texts.