SHIFTS OR TRANSPOSITIONS

A `shift' (Catford's term) or `transposition' (Vinay and Darbelnet) is a translation procedure involving a change in the grammar from SL to TL. One type, the change from singular to plural, e.g. `furniture'; des meubles; `applause', des applaudis­sements; `advice', des conseils; or in the position of the adjective: la maison blanche, ,the white house' is automatic and offers the translator no choice.
A second type of shift is required when an SL grammatical structure does not exist in the TL. Here there are always options. Thus for the neutral adjective as subject, l'interessany c'est que; das Interessante ist, daJS, l'interessante e che . . ., there is a choice of at least: `What is interesting is that . . .', `The interesting thing is that . . ', `It's interesting that . . .', `The interest of the matter is that . . .'. (But for French and Italian, it may be `valuable' or `useful' depending on the various contextual factors.) Again the English gerund (`Working with you is a pleasure') offers many choices. The gerund can be translated by verb-noun (le travail, die Arbeit), or a subordinate clause (`when, if, etc. I work with you'), with a recast main clause, or, in some languages, a noun-infinitive (e.g. das Arbeiten, which is formal style), or an infinitive.
I think the gerund is the most neglected of all translator's transpositions, e.g., Wenn Humboldt den Auftrag . . . erhielt, so waren das mehreren Faktoren zu danken - `Several factors were responsible for Humboldt's receiving the commis­sion'. Note also the English `do' auxiliary, `do come': komm doch (or mal); viens donc. French has `venir de' plus the infinitive: il vient de le faire is usually translated by `recently' or `just'. Again, Italian's reflexive infinitives (per il precisarsi degli effetti negativi, `by stating the negative effects', `when the negative effects are stated'; il suo espandersi, `its expansion', `the process of its expansion'; l'esserci imbattuta in un caso, `since we have come upon a case', `the fact that we have come upon a case') offer several choices. German has active or passive participial con­structions which are normally translated by adjectival clause or non-finite partici­pial clauses. Thus Bei jeder sich bietenden Gelegenheit may be: `At every opportunity that occurs' or `At every available opportunity' or `Whenever the opportunity occurs' or `At every opportunity' (taking sich bieten as an empty verb). Again, Im Sinn der von der Regierung verfolgten Ziele (Wilss, 1982) may be `In accordance with the aims pursued by the government', `In accordance with the aims which the government are pursuing' or `in accordance with the government's aims' - the three translations indicate a different degree of emphasis.
The third type of shift is the one where literal translation is grammatically possible but may not accord with natural usage in the TL. Here Vinay and Darbelnet's pioneering book and a host of successors give their preferred trans­lations, but often fail to list alternatives, which may be more suitable in other contexts or may merely be a matter of taste. (Grammar, being more flexible and general than lexis, can normally be more freely handled.)
Thus, for SL verb, TL adverb: Notre commerce avec I'etranger n'a cesse de s'ameliorer, `Our foreign trade has improved steadily (continuously)', `Our foreign trade has shown continuous improvement'; Il ne tardera pas d rentrer, `He will come back soon', `He'll be back (return) in a moment (shortly)'; La situation reste critique, `The situation is still critical', `The situation remains critical'.
In other cases Vinay and Darbelnet, sometimes rather arbitrarily, offer one out of many possible translations; there is nothing wrong with this, but they should have stated the fact. The translator is always concerned with questions of currency and probability, and there is a great difference between Des son lever, `as soon as he gets up', where lever shows up an English lexical gap and therefore the translation has a high degree of probability, and Des qu'on essaie d'etre arbitraire, on est tout de suite aux prises avec des contradictiono'Any attempt to be arbitrary at once involves one in inconsistencies', where ten translators might produce ten different versions, and the semi-literal translation: `As soon as one tries to be arbitrary, one is immediately faced with contradictions' ought, at first sight, to be the most probable. But Vinay and Darbelnet's prejudice against literal translation (admirably discussed in Wilss, 1982) has become notorious and has had a baneful influence on translation teaching if not translation. Incidentally, the last example contains several transpositions in Vinay and Darbelnet's version:
SL verb, TL noun (essaie, `attempt')
SL conjunction, TL indefinite adjective (des que, `any')
SL clause, TL noun group (des qu'on essaie, `any attempt')
SL verb group, TL verb (est aux prises, `involves')
SL noun group, TL noun (des contradictions, `inconsistencies')
SL complex sentence, TL simple sentence (etc!)
However, the fact that it is not possible to strictly standardise transpositions in the way that Vinay and Darbelnet do, since so many overlap and convert to lexis (what Catford calls 'level-shifts' e.g., apres sa mort, `after she had died'), in no way detracts from their usefulness, and you should become sensitised to their possi­bilities.
Further, there are a number of standard transpositions from Romance languages to English which are worth noting even though they all have alternative translations:
SL adjective plus adjectival noun, TL adverb plus adjective: d'une importance exceptionnelle, `exceptionally large'
SL prepositional phrase, TL preposition: au terme de, `after' (cf. dans le cadre de, au niveau de, d 1'exception de, au depart de)
SL adverbial phrase, TL adverb: d'une maniere bourrue, `gruffly'
SL noun plus adjective of substance, TL noun plus noun: la cellule rterveuse, `nerve cell'
SL verb of motion, with en and present participle of description, TL verb of description plus preposition (Vinay and Datbelnet's `criss-cross' transposition): Il gagna la fenetre en rampant, `He crawled to the window'
SL verb, TL empty verb plus verb-noun: Il rit, `he gave a laugh'
SL noun plus (empty) past participle or adjectival clause (etc.) plus noun, TL noun plus preposition plus noun (the `house on the hill' construction): Le complot ourdi contre lui, `the plot against him'; la tour qui se dressait sur la colline, ,the tower on the hill'
SL participial clause (active and passive), TL adverbial clause or (occasionally) group
The fourth type of transposition is the replacement of a virtual lexical gap by a grammatical structure, e.g. apres sa sortie, `after he'd gone out'; il le cloua au pilori, `he pilloried him'; il atteint le total, `it totals'; `he pioneered this drug', il a Jte Pun des pionniers de ce medicament.
Certain transpositions appear to go beyond linguistic differences and can be regarded as general options available for stylistic consideration. Thus a complex sentence can normally be converted to a co-ordinate sentence, or to two simple sentences: Si lui est aimable, sa femme est arrogante- `He is (may be) very pleasant, but his wife is arrogant'- `He is pleasant; his wife, however, is arrogant'. This also works the other way round, although some would say that English, influenced by the King James Bible (Hebrew), prefers simple or co-ordinate to complex sentences.
Again many languages appear to be capricious in converting active verbs to animate nouns, thus: `He is a heavy drinker' - Il boit sec; La t8che d'un executeur fidele d'instructions regues -'The task of someone (one) who faithfully carries out the instructions they (he) have (has) received' (note the attempt to de-sex language); Une equipe de preleveurs- `A staff team to take (blood) samples'.
A group of typical transpositions centre on a Romance-language subject:
M. Tesniere, grammarien, m'a aide `M. Tesniere (who was) a grammarian, helped me'
Une fois parti, M. Tesrriere . . . `once (when) he had left, M. Tesniere . . .'
Ce livre, interessant, m'est venu a l'esprit - `The book, which was (as it was, though it was) interesting, came to my mind'
L'homme, qui faisait . . . -'The man doing ...
The last point I want to mention about transpositions is that they illustrate a frequent tension between grammar and stress. To take an example, should you translate Seine Aussage ist schlechthin unzutreffend by `His statement is (a) com­pletely false (one)' or `There is absolutely no truth in his statement'? My only comment is that too often the word order is changed unnecessarily, and it is sometimes more appropriate to translate with a lexical synonym, retain the word order and forgo the transposition in order to preserve the stress.
Transposition is the only translation procedure concerned with grammar, and most translators make transpositions intuitively. However, it is likely that comparative linguistics research, and analysis of text corpuses and their trans­lations, will uncover a further number of serviceable transpositions for us.