Introduction
Inversion, as one of the translation techniques, means the necessary or even inevitable change of word order in a sentence according to the convention of the language to be translated into. It is something different from the one in a grammatical sense where inversion means that the order of the subject and the predicate is changed. Here, inversion refers to the process of translation in which the word order of a sentence in the source language is changed or inverted in the target language. Eg:
1) He is not happy, though he is rich. 他雖富有，但不幸福。
2)It was a keen disappointment that I had to postpone the visit which I had intended to pay to China in January.我原打算在1月訪問中國，後來又不得不予以推遲，這使我深感失望.
This “change of word order” is necessary because, first of all, each language has its own “natural word order” and its own peculiarities in word order. Secondly, “inversion”, as a stylistic device, is often used for emphasis. Thirdly, in one sentence the words having different order may have different meaning. Last but not least, the conscientious translator or interpreter has to keep in mind that “word order” is capable of given rise to distorting meaning of the original speaker or author. in Chinese, “我晒太陽。”and “太陽晒我。”The two sentences have different meanings, so does the sentence in English. “Speech by the Chinese Representative at the U.N.6th Committee on the Convention against the Taking of Hostages.” In Chinese, it means“中國代表在聯合國6委關於反對劫持人質公約的發言。”However, if we change the word order of the English sentence like this: “Speech by the Chinese Representative on the Convention against the Taking of Hostages at the U.N. Committee it could mean that the incident of the Taking of Hostages occurred at the 6th Committee, or that the Convention is rather a limited one, only opposing the Taking of hostages at the 6th! Or if the word order is changed like this: “Speech on Convention against the Taking of Hostages by Chinese Representative at the U.N. 6th Committee" it could mean that the "Convention" is directed against the Chinese Representative who has taken somebody as "hostage" and that the incident occurred at the U.N. 6th Committee! . Hence, word order is essential in the process of organizing sentences. “Though inversion belongs to the formal thing, if we don’t deal with the specific ‘change of word order’ well the expression of original meaning or content would be affected, which is the counteraction of form to content.” Only if we know the rules of inversion well, can we organize the order of words elastically and make the version faithful, smooth and graceful.
