Audiovisual Translation: Translating Song Lyrics from English to Spanish

Abstract

[Abstracts] In our globalised society audiovisual culture is gaining more and more importance. Nowadays, many studies carry out research on the translations of TV series, films, documentaries and all kind of digital content. However, it seems that in some countries artists no longer translate their songs into other languages as they did in previous decades. For instance, some decades ago it was quite common to find Spanish versions of originally English language songs which were made by the artists themselves, but now we only have amateur translators who write the literal translations of the songs on the Internet. The aim of this research paper is to examine the difficulties involved in producing a singable translation in comparison with elaborating a literal translation that it is only meant to be read. Factors involved in achieving a successful singable version will be discussed, using a selected corpus of songs in their original and translated versions.