Catford’s approach to translation equivalence
Applying 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 of
two 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)
‫( ذهب الولد إلى المدرسة‬PSC).
blue car (MH)
‫( سيارة زرقاء‬HM)
The structure of the English sentence is (S.P.C.), whereas the structure of
the 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 Arabic
equivalent, the order is the opposite.
b. Class-Shift: i.e. the equivalent TL item is a member of a different class
compared with that of the SL item:
e.g.: green cars (M. i.e. modifier).
‫( سيارات خضراء‬Q i.e. qualifier).
In spite of the fact the both items “green” in English and "‫ "خضراء‬in Arabic
are members of the grammatical class “adjective” , yet the English one
operates as modifier in the nominal group structure,; whereas the Arabic
one operates as qualifier in the nominal group structure. This is why it is
considered 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 rank
happens to be an TL item at a different rank. e.g.
‫ ذهب الشاب إلى البيت‬The young man went home.
The English lexical item 'home' which is at the word rank has its translation
equivalent at a different grammatical rank, that of the group. This is a case
of unit-shift.
d. Intra-system translation-shifts: i.e. shifts in such grammatical systems
as number, article, etc.
e.g.: John and Ali went out.
‫خرج جون وعلي‬
They will be back before midnight. ‫سيعودان قبل منتصف الليل‬
The equivalent of Arabic dual in English is the plural. When it is the case
that a singular in one language is given a plural equivalent in another
language or vice versa, for instance, one may call such shifts intra-system
shifts. The same in applicable to other systems such as the article. For
instance.
English (SL)
A man is an animal.
Arabic (TL) ‫اإلنسان حيوان‬
The equivalent of the English indefinite article “A” in this instance
happens to be the definite article in Arabic, whereas the equivalent of the
second 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 approach
Catford 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 1920). 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
façade 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).