AProbeintoShiftingofPartsofSpeechinEnglish-ChineseTranslationⅠ.IntroductionPartsofspeecharethecorecontentofthetraditionalgrammar.Eachlanguagehasbeengreatlyaffectedbyitsownnaturalenvironment,geographicallocation,uniquehistoryandculturaltradition,whichleadtothegreatdistinctinvocabulary,sodifferentlanguageshavedifferentstandardstoclassifypartsofspeech.EnglishbelongstotheIndo-Europeanlanguagefamilyanditspartsofspeecharecategorizedaswordorder,lexicalmeaningandinflectionchanges.1Englishnouns,adjectives,verbsandadverbshavecomplexsystemofendingsorvowelchangesorboth.ButChinesebelongstoSino-Tibetanlanguagefamilyanditspartsofspeechdividedbasedonsentencestructurefunction.2Whenwetranslateonelanguagetoanother,wecommonlyusethetechniqueoftheshiftingofpartsofspeechinordertomakethetranslatedversionmoreidiomatic.EugeneA,Nida,adistinguishedAmericantheorist,reformedthetraditionalpartsofspeechandestablishedanewsystemwhichhasbeenappliedwidelyintopractice.Therearedifferentexpressionsexpressingthesamemeaning,thus,theshiftingofpartsofspeechisbasedonthepremisethatthetargetlanguagemustbefaithfultothesourcelanguage.Therefore,correctlyusingtheshiftingofpartsofspeechcanmaketheEnglishtranslationworksmorefaithful.Soit’snecessaryandimportanttomastertheskillsoftheshiftingofpartsofspeechinEnglishtoChinesetranslation.Thisthesiswillstudytheimportanceofshiftingofpartsofspeechanddiscusssomerulesoftheshifting.Ⅱ.TranslationandshiftingofpartsofspeechItisdifficulttogiveacleardefinitionfortranslation.Translationisjustunderstoodasalinguisticphenomenonwhichisaprocessoftranslatingbetweensourcelanguage(SL)andtargetlanguage(TL).Differentdictionariesgivedifferent1descriptionontranslationas“interpretation”,“conversion”,“transformation”,“transference”,fromonelanguagetoanother.Andsomelinguistsdescribetranslationwithsuchexpressions,“similar”,“comparable”,“equivalenttextualmaterial”,etc.RogerBell,aprofessoroflinguistics,saysthat:“Translationistheexpressioninanother,sourcelanguage,preservingsemanticandstylisticequivalence.”Again,wehaveadescriptivedefinitionfromNida:Translatingconsistsinreproducinginthereceptorlanguagetheclosestnaturalequivalentofthesourcelanguagemessage,firstintermsofmeaning,andsecondlyintermsofstyle.Thetwodefinitionsbothreferto“equivalence”.Butthereisnototalequivalencebetweentwolanguages.SosometimesweneedtoshiftonepartofspeechinSLtoanotherpartofspeechinTL.ShiftingofpartsofspeechisanimportantmethodoftranslationwhichtranslatesonepartofspeechinSLtoanotherpartofspeechinTL.Itisusedforhelpingtranslatorstomakemoreidiomatictranslationworks.Theshiftsandchangesintranslationdonotoccuratrandom.Theyarecausedbydifferentculturesanddifferentlanguages.Differentculturesrefertodifferentreligions,differentlifestyles,anddifferenthistories.Differentlanguagesrefertodifferentstandardstodistinguishpartsofspeechanddifferentlanguagestructures.Theyhavedifferentstandardstodistinguishtheirownpartsofspeech,becausetheybelongtodifferentlanguagefamilies.Translationisnotaseasyasyouimagine.ToreproducethemessageinSL,onemustmakeagoodmanyadjustments.Therearesomeadjustments,suchassemanticadjustment,wordorderadjustmentandgrammaticaladjustment.3Theshiftingofpartsofspeechiswidelyusedbytranslatorsasonemethodofgrammaticaladjustment.Asatranslationmethod,theshiftingpartsofspeechmustobeysomeobjectiverules.First,itmustcorrespondwiththe...
