Introducing a Chinese Perspective on Translation Shifts

The term translation shifts was first suggested and defined by Catford as “departures from formal correspondence in the process of going from the SL to the TL” (1965:73). However, theories of linguistic changes that are equivalent to translation shifts can be traced back as early as the 1950s, during which period both Western and Chinese scholars proposed taxonomies to describe changes effected in the process of translation. These theories contributed to elaborating the concept of ‘shift’ in translation studies. And yet, only Western scholars’ theories of translation shifts – most notably those elaborated by Vinay & Darbelnet (1958) and Catford (1965) – have been discussed in the literature, with very little mention of the relevant discourse elaborated by Chinese scholars. This study introduces the model of translation shift proposed in 1958 by a Chinese scholar, Loh Dian-yang, and compares his taxonomy with that outlined by Vinay & Darbelnet in the same year. The authors hope that the findings of the research may provide a set of data for enriching shift-based studies with a Chinese perspective.