Song translation: Lyrics in context

Abstract

There has been a growing academic interest in the study of song translation in the recent decade. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of such investigation, researching song translation has developed and stemmed from the concepts and notions of various disciplines such as literary studies, music studies, theatre studies, besides translation studies. As a result, the field of song translation seems to be “disparate” and “fragmented” (p. 23). This edited volume of essays in nearly 500 pages is a seminal collection that offers the overview of conceptual theories and the empirical research on song translation from many parts of the world, classifying the studies to systematically offer a clear state of the art as well as to reveal the gaps to be filled by future studies. The editors’ introductory chapter especially provides the theoretical and conceptual framework to study song translation, which is of unprecedented value. As for empirical studies, various chapters are presented under the three categories of Analyses of Popular Songs, Historical Approaches, and Multimodal and Didactic Approaches in English (11 articles) and in German (4 articles). The articles investigate the songs and the translations from the main languages, including English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Greek, Swedish, Norwegian, Turkish, and Finnish.