shifts78

J. C. Catford (1965) A Linguistic Theory of Translation, Oxford: OUP,
Chapter 12, pp. 73-82.
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 viceversa
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 language 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 – in other 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
In English, the (contextually and morphologically) marked term is the continuous;
this explicitly refers to the development, the progress, of the event. The ‘simple’ form is
neutral in this respect (the event may or may not actually be in progress, but the simple
form does not explicitly refer to this aspect of the event).
We indicate these differences in the following diagram, in which the marked terms
in the Russian and English aspect systems are enclosed in rectangles:

1.12 One result of this difference between Russian and English is that Russian
imperfective (e.g. pisal) is translatable with almost equal frequency by English simple
(wrote) or continuous (was writing). But the marked terms (napisal – was writing) are
mutually untranslatable.
A Russian writer can create a certain contrastive effect by using an imperfective and
then, so to speak, ‘capping’ this by using the (marked) perfective. In such a case, the
same effect of explicit, contrastive, reference to completion may have to be translated
into English by a change of lexical item. The following example2 shows this

Cˇto zˇe delal Bel’tov v prodolzˇenie etix des’ati let? Vse ili pocˇti vse. Cˇ to on sdelal?
Nicˇego ili pocˇti nicˇego.’
Here the imperfective, delal, is ‘capped’ by the perfective sdelal. Delal can be translated
by either did or was doing – but, since there is no contextual reason to make explicit
reference to the progress of the event, the former is the better translation. We can thus
say ‘What did Beltov do . . .?’ The Russian perfective, with its marked insistence on
completion can cap this effectively: ‘What did he do and complete?’ But the English marked
term insists on the progress of the event, so cannot be used here. (‘What was he doing’
is obviously inappropriate.) In English, in this case, we must use a different lexical
verb: a lexical item which includes reference to completion in its contextual meaning,
e.g. achieve.3 The whole passage can thus be translated:
What did Beltov do during these ten years? Everything, or almost everything.
What did he achieve? Nothing, or almost nothing?
:

Summary of Translation shifts

This unit describes a theoretical position that promotes the systematic analysis of
the changes that take place in moving from ST to TT. A change, known technically
as a ‘shift’, is generally any translation that moves away from formal correspondence.
Analysis normally first requires identification of the translation unit. The bestknown
work in this area is by Catford, who first used the term shift, and by Vinay
and Darbelnet, whose detailed taxonomy has influenced many theorists. But, as we
shall see in Unit 11, shifts also occur on the higher levels of text, genre and discourse.

Descriptive2

Gideon Toury is the Israeli scholar who
has been the prime proponent of Descriptive Translation Studies, a branch of the
discipline that sets out to describe translation by comparing and analysing ST–TT
pairs. In his work, Toury initially used a supposed ‘invariant’ as a form of comparison
(Toury 1980), but in his major work Descriptive Translation Studies – and
Beyond (Toury 1995) he drops this in favour of a more flexible ‘ad-hoc’ approach
to the selection of features, dependent on the characteristics of the specific texts
under consideration. Importantly, he warns against ‘the totally negative kind of
reasoning required by the search for shifts’ (Toury 1995:84) in which error and
failure and loss in translation are highlighted. Instead, for Toury translation shift
analysis is most valuable as a form of ‘discovery’, ‘a step towards the formulation of
explanatory hypotheses’ about the practice of translation (1995:85)

Descriptive1

Here Holmes uses ‘translating’ for the process and ‘translation’ for the product. The
descriptions and generalized principles envisaged were much reinforced by Gideon
Toury in his Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond (1995) where two tentative
general ‘laws’ of translation are proposed:
1. the law of growing standardization – TTs generally display less linguistic
variation than STs, and
2. the law of interference – common ST lexical and syntactic patterns tend to be
copied, creating unusual patterns in the TT.
In both instances, the contention is that translated language in general displays
specific characteristics, known as universals of translation.

phonetics

The study of speech sounds is called phonetics.

Ideology and translation

For Hatim and Mason, ideology encompasses ‘the tacit assumptions, beliefs
and value systems which are shared collectively by social groups’ (1997:144).
They make a distinction between ‘the ideology of translating’ and ‘the
translation of ideology’.Whereas the former refers to the basic orientation

chosen by the translator operating within a social and cultural context (the
choice, for example, between Venuti’s domesticating and foreignizing
translation), in the translation of ideology they examine the extent of
mediation supplied by a translator of sensitive texts.‘Mediation’ is defined as
‘the extent to which translators intervene in the transfer process, feeding their
own knowledge and beliefs into processing the text’ (Hatim and Mason 1997:
147). In many ways this is a parallel to the translator’s discursive presence in
literary texts discussed in Unit 12.

task2

Translation shifts
In Section A of this unit, we looked at the concept of translation shift and at
some of the taxonomies that have been proposed for describing the changes that
occur in a specific ST–TT pair. The readings in this section are from perhaps the
most noted theorists in this area:J ohn Catford, who was the first to use the term
‘translation shift’ in his A Linguistic Theory of Translation, published in 1965; and
Jean Vinay and Jean-Paul Darbelnet, whose A Comparative Stylistics of French
and English (1958/1995) still remains the most comprehensive categorization of
differences between a pair of languages. The extract from Catford (Text B4.1),
describes the two kinds of translation shifts in his model: level shifts (between the
levels of grammar and lexis) and category shifts (unbounded and rank-bounded

Task B4.1.1
➤ Before you read Text B4.1, look back at Section A, Unit 4 and make sure you
are familiar with the term translation shift.
➤ What would you say would be the aim of translation shift analysis?
➤ What were some of the problems with shift analysis discussed at the end of
Section A of this unit? Do you agree that these really are problems?
➤ As you read the text below, make a list of examples of the different kinds
of shifts described by Catford. Note the difference between level shifts and
category shifts).

diferent kinds of grammar

lingustics

Main Issues of Translation Studies11