The linguistic approach to translation has aroused interest among translation theorists and language researchers. As one of the very first pioneers of the linguistic model, J.C. Catford, in his volume A Linguistic Theory of Translation[2], [3] attempts to bring new lens into the nature of translation by looking at different aspects of translation, and by providing a model to analyse what is involved in the act of translating. In his view, translation is ‘the replacement of textual material in one language by equivalent textual material in another language' [2, 100]. Catfordian linguistic model analyses language as communication operating functionally in context, basing on different levels and ranks. Catford also distinguishes between formal correspondence and textual equivalence, and identifies deviations from formal correspondents for equivalence in translation as shift. This paper gives a critical evaluation of Catford's linguistic model of translationusing bi-lingual data with source text-target text pairs being analysed to show the relevance of Catford's model.