Catford and translation

shift
Roll no :226029
Bushra Parveen
8th bridging morning
Charles Frederick ('C.F.') Catford was an influential linguist and translation theorist,
best known for his work in the field of translation studies. Here's a brief biography:
 Early Life: Charles Frederick Catford was born on October 17, 1917, in
Chippenham, Wiltshire, England. Died in 2009.
 Education: He received his education at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he
studied Modern and Medieval Languages.
 Career: Catford's academic career was diverse, spanning various roles and
institution
 During World War II, he served in the British Army.
 After the war, he worked as a lecturer in French at the University of
Manchester.
 He later joined the University of Edinburgh as a lecturer in French
and Linguistics.
 Throughout his career, Catford made significant contributions to
linguistics, particularly in the areas of phonetics, phonology, and
translation theory.
Major Contributions: Catford is perhaps best known for
his seminal work "A Linguistic Theory of Translation"
(1965), which remains a foundational text in the field of
translation studies. In this book, he introduced concepts
such as formal correspondence, textual equivalence, and
translation shifts, which have greatly influenced how
translators and scholars understand the process of
translating between languages
He discusses two key concepts: formal correspondence and textual equivalence.
Formal correspondence refers to the relationship between linguistic elements in the
SL and TL, aiming for similarity in their positions within the linguistic systems of each
language. Think of this as aiming for a match between the structure and elements of
language in the source language (SL) and the target language (TL). It's about finding
linguistic counterparts between the two languages. For example, if the SL has a noun
phrase, you'd ideally want the TL to have a similar noun phrase in the same position
and function.
Textual equivalence, Refers to a TL text that is equivalent to a given SL text in a
specific context. on the other hand, pertains to specific instances where a particular
segment of text in the TL corresponds to a segment in the SL.
Example:

Source Language (SL): "She quickly ran to the store."

Target Language (TL): "She swiftly hurried to the market."
In this example:

"She" (subject) corresponds to "She" (subject).

"quickly" (adverb) corresponds to "swiftly" (adverb).
"ran" (verb) corresponds to "hurried" (verb).
"to the store" (prepositional phrase) corresponds to "to the market" (prepositional phrase)
Textual Equivalence
Textual equivalence focuses on the contextual meaning rather than the exact structure.

Example:

Source Language (SL): "He kicked the bucket."

Target Language (TL): "He passed away."
In this example:

The phrase "He kicked the bucket" (idiom meaning 'he died') is contextually equivalent to "He passed away.".
• Translation Shifts: These are deviations from
formal correspondence when translating from SL to TL,
categorized into:
o Level Shifts: Changes from one language’s
grammatical expression to another’s lexical expression.
o Category Shifts: Divided into structural shifts, class
shifts, unit shifts, and intra-system shifts, each describing
different types of linguistic changes.
When formal correspondence and textual equivalence diverge,
translation shifts occur. Catford categorizes these shifts into two main
types: shift of level and shift of category.
1. Translation Shifts:
 Shift of Level: This happens when something expressed at one
linguistic level (like grammar) in the SL gets expressed at a different
level in the TL (like vocabulary). For instance, a grammatical aspect
in the SL might be expressed as a specific verb in the TL.
 e.g in French :ELLe est intelligent
 In English: she is intelligent
Example:

Source Language (SL): "He is able to swim."

Target Language (TL): "He can swim."
In this example:

The phrase "is able to" (a grammatical construction) in the SL is

expressed as "can" (a single modal verb) in the TL.
Here, we see that the grammatical aspect ("is able to") has been
shifted to a different linguistic level, namely vocabulary (the
word "can").
 Shift of Category:
 Structural Shifts: These occur when there's a change in
grammatical structure between the SL and TL. For example, the
order of subject, verb, and object might change.he goes to school
in English structure change and in urdue change.
 Structural Shifts:
 English: I like jazz.
 Spanish: Me gusta el jazz. (The structure changes from subject +
verb + object to object pronoun + verb + subject)
 Class Shifts: This involves changing from one part of
speech to another. For instance, an adjective in the SL
might become an adverb in the TL.
 Class Shifts:
 English: A medical student.
 French: Un étudiant en médecine. (The adjective
‘medical’ is translated into a prepositional phrase ‘en
médecine’)
Class Shifts:
Example:

Source Language (SL): "She is a quick runner."

Target Language (TL): "She runs quickly."
In this example:

"quick" (adjective) describing the noun "runner" in the SL is shifted

to "quickly" (adverb) describing the verb "runs" in the TL. A class
shift involves changing the part of speech of a word or phrase from
one category to another while maintaining the meaning of the sentence .
Unit Shifts or Rank Shifts: Here, the shift where the translation equivalent in the TL is
the different rank to the SL. Rank refer to the hierarchical linguistic units of
sentence ,clause , group, word and morpheme.
 English: He knows that she is coming. (One sentence)
 French: Il sait. Elle vient. (Two sentences, thus shifting the unit of translation from a single
sentence to two separate clause.
Example: unit shift:
Source Language (SL): "Although he was tired, he kept working."
Target Language (TL): "He was tired. He kept working.“
Intra-system Shifts: These shifts happen when both languages
have similar systems, but the translation selects a different term
or expression in the TL. For example, countable nouns in English
might become uncountable in the TL, or vice versa.
 Intra-system Shifts:
 English: I saw the children.
 French: J’ai vu les enfants. (While both languages have
articles, the use and choice of articles can differ based on
specificity and context)
 Criticism: his examples are all
idealized[invented not taken from actual
translation] and decontextualized