《J.C.Catford-Translation Shifts》.pdf

Chapter 10 J.C.Catford TRANSLATION SHIFTS Y “SHIFTS” WE mean departures from formal correspondence in the process Bof going from the SL (source language) to the TL (target language). Two major types of “shifts” occur: level shifts (1.1) and category shifts (1.2). 1.1 Level shifts. By a shift of level we mean that a SL item at one linguistic level has a TL translation equivalent at a different level. We have already pointed out that translation between the levels of phonology and graphology—or between either of these levels and the levels of grammar and lexis—is impossible. Translation between these levels is absolutely ruled out by our theory, which posits “relationship to the same substance” as the necessary condition of translation equivalence. We are left, then, with shifts from grammar to lexis and vice-ver sa as the only possible level shifts in translation; and such shifts are, of course, quite common. 1.11 Examples of level shifts are sometimes encountered in the translation of the verbal aspects of Russian and English. Both these languages have an aspectual opposition—of very roughly the same type—seen most clearly in the “past” or preterite tense: the opposition between Russian imperfective and perfective (e.g. pisal and napisal), and between English simple and continuous (wrote and was writing). There is, however, an important difference between the two aspect systems, namely that the polarity of marking is not the same. In Russian, the (contextually) marked term in the system is the perfective; this explicitly refers to the uniqueness or completion of the event. The imperfective is unmarked—ther words it is relatively neutral in these respects (the event may or may not actually be unique or completed, etc., but at any rate the imperfective is indifferent to these features—does not explicitly refer to this “perfectiveness”).1 1965 142 J.C.CATFORD In English, the (contextually