The Effect of Translation Shifts on the level of Readability of Two Persian Translations of Novel "1984" by George Orwell

This paper examined how Catford’s translation shifts affect the level of readability in two Persian translations of novel"1984". The main aim of the study was to rank Catford's shifts based on their effectiveness on the level of readability of translation. For this purpose, the typology and frequency of the translation shifts were measured. Then the cloze tests of each translation made by the researcher and checked by experts were given to the junior students to answer. By doing so, the level of readability of these translations were measured and compared with each other. After that, the effect of shifts on the level of readability was clarified. And at last, Catford's shifts were ranked based on their effectiveness on the level of readability. Comparative descriptive approach of the corpora (English novel and Persian translations counterparts) indicated that one of two translators whose translation is more readable than the other, has used Catford's shifts in this form: among 476 language chunks, structural shift was the most frequent type of shift (45.16% of whole shifts occurring in examined segments). 30.46% of shifts were class shift, 9.66% intra-system shift, 9.24% unit shift and 0.84% level shift occurred respectively in sub-corpus. The system of using shifts in the other translation is in this form: 31.09% of shifts were structural shift, 22.05% were class shift, 9.45% intra-system shift, 7.77% unit shift and 0.84% level shift. Based on the comparison of the two translations, it was detected that both translators did not apply the same kinds of shift. The frequency of shifts in each translation was measured and discussed. It was also shown that shifts were inevitable in some places in the translation process and this was because of different natures of languages and variations that existed among them, so the translators are forced to deviate from the source text. The reason of doing this research is that readability as one of the most necessary aspects of translation should be considered especially by translators. In this study, it was shown that the level of readability of translation results from the strategies taken by translators. Translation shifts are those strategies, thus showing this relation of readability and shift could be very fruitful.