Translation Shifts
Shift represents some changes occurring in a translation process. Translation shifts occur both at the lower level of language, i.e. the lexicogrammar, and at the higher thematic level of text. Catford (1978: 73) states that by shift we mean the departure from formal correspondence in the process of going from the source language to the target language. Further, he states that basically, in shift of translation, or transposition he says, it is only the form that is changed. In addition, he urges the translation shift is done to get the natural equivalent of the source text message into the target text (1978: 76). Translation shifts also occur when there is no formal correspondence to the syntactic item to be translated (Machali, 1998: 3). According to Bell (1991: 33), to shift from one language to another is, by definition, to alter the forms.
Catford (1978) divides the shift in translation into two major types, level/rank shift and category shift. Level/rank shift refers to a source language item at one linguistic level that has a target language translation equivalent at a different level. In other words, it is simply a shift from grammar to lexis.
Category shift refers to departures from formal correspondence in translation. What is meant by formal correspondence is any grammatical category in the target language which can be said to occupy the same position in the system of the target language as the given source language category in the source language system (Machali, 1998: 13). The category shift is divided again into structure shifts, class shifts, unit shift, and intra-system shifts. Structure shift is the changing of words sequence in a sentence. Class shift occurs when the translation equivalent of a source language item is a member of a different class from the original item. Unit shift is the changes of rank; that is, departures from formal correspondence in which the translation equivalent of a unit at one rank in the source...