12. 学The Concept shift of expression in trans analysis.doc

12．The Concept “Shift of Expression” in Translation Analysis Anton Popovi? The aim of a translation is to transfer certain intellectual and aesthetic values from one language to another. This transfer is not performed directly and is not without its difficulties. The losses incurred in the process are sometimes such as to shake our faith in the very possibility of translating a work of art.1 Yet the act of translating may also produce the opposite result, that is, bring actual gain. This range of possibilities provides a clear indication that translation by its very nature entails certain shifts of intellectual and aesthetic values. The existence of these shifts can be verified empirically. Everything that takes place in the course of a translation has the character of a process. There are various factors that instigate this process. What are they? Let us start with the first of them. The basic feature from which the problems of the translation performance spring is the dual character of the translated work: A translation is not a monistic composition, but an interpenetration and conglomerate of two structures. On the one hand there are the semantic content and the formal contour of the original, on the other hand the entire system of aesthetic features bound up with the language of the translation.2 A translation, in other words, involves an encounter of linguistic and literary norms and conventions, a confrontation of linguistic and literary systems. The changes that take place in a translation are determined by the differences between the two languages, the two authors, and the two literary situations involved. Taken together, these differences determine the major components of the translation’s structure, the integrative principle of its development which we label “style”.3 The differences in language are unavoidable and cannot be considered significant, as they are the result of disparity and asymmetry in the development of the two linguistic tradition