A Report On The E-C Translation Of Ugly Freedoms(Excerpt) From The Perspective Of Catford’s Category Shifts Theory In Social Science Texts

Social science texts have been an important medium for people to exchange ideas,acquire knowledge,sum up experience,carry out cultural exchanges and promote the progress of human thought.This translation practice uses Ugly Freedoms,published by Elizabeth R Anker in 2022,as its original corpus.The book is a social science text,which mainly expounds the author’s views on the liberal democratic system of the United States and the links between individual freedom and white supremacy,settler colonialism,climate destruction,economic exploitation and patriarchy.The Chinese translation of this text can provide readers with references for the study of American history and politics.The original text of this translation practice report is characterized by rigorous language,strong logic,long and difficult sentences with complex structure,many professional terms related to politics and history,and rich cultural and historical information.Therefore,to translate the original text well,it is necessary to make adequate preparations at both linguistic and cultural levels,and strive to improve the accuracy and readability of the translation.This translation practice is conducted under the guidance of category transformation theory,and the problems encountered in translation practice are divided into three categories,namely,the phenomenon of word class translation occurs frequently,different syntactic categories and the differences in levels of equivalence relations.In view of the above problems,guided by the theory of category transformation,structural transformation,category transformation and unit transformation in category transformation are adopted to solve the problems of non-correspondence between English and Chinese grammatical structures,different usages of English and Chinese word classes and non-equivalence of English and Chinese language units.In the process of translation,proper conversion of the original text can make the content of the translated text more accurate and smooth,and better meet the needs of readers.This translation practice not only improves the translation quality,but also improves the translator’s translation level.It is hoped that this translation practice can provide new reference and help for translators to translate social science texts in the future.