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Catford’s approach to translation equivalenceApplying a more linguistic-based approach to translation, Catford’s approach to translation equivalence (1965) took another direction from that of Nida and Taber. Influenced by the linguistic work of Firth and Halliday, he refined Halliday’s grammatical ‘rank-scale’ approach to develop the hypothesis that equivalence in translation depends upon the availability of formal correspondence between linguistic items at different structural levels and ranks, particularly at the sentence level. Catford’s main contribution in the field of translation theory is the introduction of the concepts of types and shifts of translation The main translation shifts that may take place in total translation are oftwo main kinds: 1. Category Shifts. 2. Level Shifts.Category Shifts are usually divided into:a- Structure-shift: e.g. The boy went to school (SPC)??? ????? ??? ??????? (PSC).blue car (MH)????? ????? (HM)The structure of the English sentence is (S.P.C.), whereas the structure ofthe Arabic equivalent sentence is (P.S.C.).As for the nominal group “blue cars”, its structure in English is (MH),that is the modifier preceded the head; whereas in the case of its Arabicequivalent, the order is the opposite.b. Class-Shift: i.e. the equivalent TL item is a member of a different classcompared with that of the SL item:e.g.: green cars (M. i.e. modifier).?????? ????? (Q i.e. qualifier).In spite of the fact the both items “green” in English and "?????" in Arabicare members of the grammatical class “adjective” , yet the English oneoperates as modifier in the nominal group structure,; whereas the Arabicone operates as qualifier in the nominal group structure. This is why it isconsidered to be a case of (class-Shift).c. Unit-Shift: By unit-shift is meant shifts at the grammatical ranks; i.e.the translation equivalent of an SL item at a certain grammatical rankhappens to be an TL item at a different rank. e.g.??? ????? ??? ????? The young man went home.The English lexical item 'home' which is at the word rank has its translationequivalent at a different grammatical rank, that of the group. This is a caseof unit-shift.d. Intra-system translation-shifts: i.e. shifts in such grammatical systemsas number, article, etc.e.g.: John and Ali went out. ??? ??? ????They will be back before midnight. ??????? ??? ????? ?????The equivalent of Arabic dual in English is the plural. When it is the casethat a singular in one language is given a plural equivalent in anotherlanguage or vice versa, for instance, one may call such shifts intra-systemshifts. The same in applicable to other systems such as the article. Forinstance.English (SL) A man is an animal. Arabic (TL) ??????? ?????The equivalent of the English indefinite article “A” in this instancehappens to be the definite article in Arabic, whereas the equivalent of thesecond indefinite article “an” in the same sentence happens to be zero.One of the problems with Catford’s formal correspondence, despite its being a useful tool for comparative linguistics, is that it is not really relevant in terms of assessing translation equivalence between ST and TT. This pushed theorists to turn to Catford’s other dimension of correspondence, namely textual equivalence, which he defines as “any TL text or portion of text which is observed to be the equivalent of a given SL text or portion of text" (ibid: 27). Catford goes on to state that textual equivalence is achieved when the source and target items are “interchangeable in a given situation…” (ibid: 49). This happens, according to Catford, when “an SL and a TL text or item are relatable to (at least some of) the same features of substance” (ibid: 50). For this purpose, Catford used a process of commutation, whereby a competent bilingual informant or translator is consulted on the translation of various sentences whose ST items are changed in order to observe “what changes if any occur in the TL text as a consequence” (ibid: 28).Criticism of Catford's approachCatford has faced scathing criticism for his linguistic theory of translation. For example, Snell-Hornby (1988) argues that Catford’s definition of textual equivalence is ‘circular’, and his reliance on bilingual informants is ‘hopelessly inadequate’. In addition, his example sentences are ‘isolated and even absurdly simplistic’ (ibid 19-20). She considers the concept of equivalence to be an illusion. Snell-Hornby does not believe that linguistics is the only discipline which enables people to carry out a translation, since translating involves different cultures and different situations which do not always correlate. Bassnett (1980) also criticized Catford’s theory of translation describing it as restricted since it implies a narrow theory of meaning (ibid: 16-17). Fawcett (1997) believes that Catford’s definition of equivalence, despite having a fa?ade of scientific respectability, hides a notorious vagueness and a suspect methodology, adding that much of his text on restricted translation seems to be motivated by a desire for theoretical completeness, which is out of touch with what most translators have to do (ibid: 56). ................
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