Walt Disney’s animated feature films have always been internationally a successful commercial product. The presence of songs in these animation films has urged for their translation into different languages. The challenge is to ensure an enjoyable version for the public bearing in mind the specific target language, culture and audience in the process of translation. In this context, translators need to adapt the lyrics taking into account many different aspects, looking for the best option and inevitably prioritizing for some criteria rather than other.
The idea for the present research stems from the analysis by De los Reyes (2015), in which he carries out research considering one of Low’s (2003) Pentathlon Principle, “sense”, among others, in the translation of songs. The present study shows a contrastive analysis of linguistic choices made in the translation of two Disney original songs from the film Frozen, directed by Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck and released in 2013: “Do you wanna build a Snowman” and “For the first time in forever”. The main purpose is to contrast the different strategies of translation employed in the Spanish, German and Italian translated versions of the songs.
With this aim, Baker’s (1992) proposal of translation strategies for dealing with non-equivalence at word level was applied as a framework for the data analysis. This research aims at underlining that the constraints of the song translating process might actually lead to a significant change in the sense or meaning of songs and that these changes in meaning vary considerably depending on the target language.
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Salud Adelaida Flores Borjabad
Comentó el 10/12/2020 a las 13:33:17
Congratulations for your presentation. It is really interesting. I am a Disney fan and I know all the disney songs in Spanish, English and Arabic. I agree with you. I think translation is related to the rythm of the song. From my point of view, it is very difficult. For example, Frozen have different translations into spanish. For example, we can find "séltalo" and "libre soy". However, my nephew didn't like "suéltalo" because the rythm is not really good. It is the same with the Little Mermaid. I grew up with the latin american version and the songs are different. So, I have a question: why does disney make two different version for Spanish language?
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Alicia Ricart
Comentó el 11/12/2020 a las 12:50:45
Dear Salud,
thank you so much for your observations and comments. I wish I could understand Arabic to be able to compare with Arabic songs, how enriching and beautiful it would be. I wonder if there is a translation in Arabic as well and how much it differs from the original content. As for the two versions in Spanish, I think the reason is that despite sharing the same language, as you know there are differences between Spanish in Latin American Spanish and peninsular Spanish, in terms of vocabulary, pronunciation, etc. In fact, as a Spanish speaker I find Latin American Spanish sounds different to me, which is possibly similar to what happens to your nephew when you state he does not find "suéltalo" attractive. Translators must adapt the versions to all the different public, in the same way they dub films in both languages, don't they? It is a very interesting question, thanks a million.
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ana ANDÚGAR SOTO
Comentó el 10/12/2020 a las 10:42:11
Dear Dra Ricart, congratulations for your research. I would like to ask you if you think it could applied to younger learners and how to apply it? I mean primary and pre-primary students. thanks
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Alicia Ricart
Comentó el 11/12/2020 a las 13:10:13
Dear Ana,
thank you so much for your comments. I would say that songs MUST be used with younger learners, as it has been proved they are extremely useful to learn , and what is even more relevant, they learn by singing and copying in an entertaining and practically unconscious way. As for the part of translation, they might be too young to understand the strategies, maybe I would apply this part only with older students, I'm afraid.Thans a lot for your question.
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Silvia Helena Benchimol Barros
Comentó el 06/12/2020 a las 23:17:19
Dear, Dra. Ricart, I would like to congratulate you for the wonderful research. I completely agree with the points you make. My question is: according to your slides, you considered the translation process taking into account aspects such as the time and lip movement of the characters while singing in the movie screen. Besides trying the strategies of comparing the song translations (in different languages)in classroom context (and exploring contrastive analysis), did you try out the song performance with your students or did you work only with the written text?
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Alicia Ricart
Comentó el 11/12/2020 a las 13:14:27
Dear Silvia, honestly, I did not put it into practise in terms of acting it out yet. However, I am using other Disney songs and Martí Ferriol's translation techniques in three second year graduates from Translation Studies at the Universitat de València and I have asked them to create a video clip singing the new versions themselves. However, performance is only volunteer, as you know some might feel embarrased. Thank you so much for your question and idea.
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Robert Martínez Carrasco
Comentó el 03/12/2020 a las 21:57:09
Buenas tardes, Dra. Ricart. Enhorabuena por el vídeo y la presentación. Muy interesante. Me preguntaba si ha llevado esta experiencia al aula o alguna otra en la que se trabajen traducción y canciones. ¿Qué que su estudio se podría explotar en su vertiente didáctica?
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Alicia Ricart
Comentó el 04/12/2020 a las 00:38:40
Estimado Robert, muchas gracias por su comentario y su pregunta. El presente trabajo lo llevamos el año pasado al aula la profesora Diana González y yo misma con un grupo de Traducción 3 en la Facultad de Filología, Traducción y Comunicación con un grupo de alumnos reducido de TMI con itinerarios en francés y alemán. La experiencia fue muy enriquecedora ya que trabajamos en la plataforma de google drive, en equipo, comentando las soluciones y propuestas de los alumnos. Creo que fue gratificante para todos y que aprendieron mucho. Este año, por otro lado, estoy llevando a cabo un trabajo de Traducción Automática dentro del proyecto de PostediTRAD en la asignatura de Lengua 3 de la Facultad de Filología, en el que estamos probando la utilidad de la TA a la hora de traducir canciones. También las actividades presentadas hasta el momento parecen prometedoras pero todavía no tenemos todos los trabajos entregados.
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