Corps de l’article

Peter Low is one of the most significant figures in the area of singable translation: he has published extensively on the problem of singability and translation across many respected journals. It should be of no wonder then that he has decided to sum up his observations and present his expertise in a single volume devoted to translating song texts. The book Translating Song. Lyrics and Text was published as part of the series “Translation Practices Explained,” which leaves the reader with an almost immediate impression as to the expected content. Indeed, with its practice-oriented character, the publication presents hands-on experience illustrated with insightful examples as well as instructions for beginners interested in singable translation.

The book is divided into seven chapters, starting with an informative introduction, in which the author discusses the significance of songs, drawing a distinction between two global approaches: a logocentric and a musico-centric one. Even though he underlines the role of lyrics, he admits that music is what catches the attention and what generally dominates, reiterating the fact that listeners often enjoy the song without understanding the sense of the words (see also Davies and Bentahila 2008: 250; Desblache 2019: 85-86).

The second chapter concentrates on the source text, which unfortunately is not defined precisely (is it about the lyrics or a song text?) and which may be considered one of the shortcomings of the publication theory-wise. The author uses the term lyrics, song-lyrics and songs quite freely and interchangeably, clearly concentrating on the linguistic dimension. Utilising the text typology introduced by Reiss (1971/2001), he states that lyrics are texts of expressive character and, accordingly, the process of translation should be aimed at conveying the intention of creators rather than the informative load. Further on, Low lists several “upstream issues,” i.e. difficulties of the ST, including problems typical of translation in general rather than exclusive to song translation, such as the question of understanding the sense, taboo language, metaphors, cultural issues or non-standard language

Chapter three is devoted to specific cases of translating song lyrics without the intention to perform the song and as such discusses gloss translation, translation for printed programmes, CD inserts, as well as subtitles and surtitles and translation in the form of a spoken introduction. Here, again, Low heavily relies on the concept of skopos and the functionalist framework, highlighting the problem of the change of the medium observed in all cases of “translation to read.” Interestingly enough, the author aptly emphasizes the additive or supplementary character of song lyrics, claiming that “[s]ong-translations are not stand-alone texts but adjunct texts” (p. 48), which clearly indicates that even in the case of readable translations music plays a vital role.

Chapter four seems a logical follow-up to chapter two, since it touches on the question of “downstream” problems connected with creating the target text. Low resorts mainly to structural difficulties resulting from interlanguage contrasts and argues that translation loss seems almost inevitable. What is of importance is the sense of naturalness, which should be the overriding goal of translation (p. 65), unless there is a deliberate use of “creative deviations.” At this point Low refers to the seminal monograph by Nida and Taber (1969) and the concept of the closest natural equivalent. Whereas the avoidance of translationese has obvious merits, the reliance on linguistic theories that have been criticised for their atomistic perspective and ST-orientedness may be a point on which one may disagree with the author. However, Low defends his point of view by resorting to the domesticating-foreignising dichotomy and by concluding that domesticating is the adequate strategy to some degree, since obvious elements, such as anthropo- or toponyms as well as culture-specific references, should be retained, signalling the foreignness of translated lyrics.

The following chapters, i.e. chapter five and six, are solely devoted to the problem of singable translation and are preceded by a short discussion on arguments for and against translating songs in chapter four. The point of departure is the claim that singable translations are required and doable despite numerous constraints. Chapter five presents practical advice and the pentathlon principle put forward by the author in his previous papers. As signalled at the beginning, the principle is not only a tool of instructing the translator but also a tool of assessing the quality of singable translations (p. 80). The author discusses three elements of the principle, i.e. singability, sense and naturalness, and provides a detailed list of practical advice preceded by a brief theoretical grounding. The discussion continues into the following chapter, in which Low discusses the other elements of the principle, i.e. rhythm and rhyme. He underlines the role of the former, indicating that it is a defining feature of songs, whereas rhymes may be frequently omitted and optional (p. 103). Again, he provides the reader with a number of techniques of “tweaking” either words or melody in order to produce a suitable version as well as advice as to how to render rhymes if these are deemed necessary.

The book finishes with a discussion of the problem of adapting songs, which according to the author is another option of “carrying songs across language borders” (p. 114). The final chapter is relatively short when compared to the previous ones, which may be surprising as it touches on one of the most problematic distinctions within the discipline of translation studies, i.e. the polarity between translation and adaptation. Low suggests a simple solution, which lies in the idea of transferring significant details of meaning: translation means being successful at rendering these details, whereas adaption means that despite the possibility of transferring such vital pieces of information we have decided not to reflect them in the TT. The following question arises: how to determine what is significant and what is not? The answer may be provided with the idea of skopos, but it seems that Low dwells somewhere in the area of a fuzzy idea of a subjective sense of interpreting the ST. In the end, it seems that it is translators and their perspectives that really matter: it all depends on how they want to refer to TTs and call them translations, adaptations or versions.

This may be one of the most problematic aspects of the publication: in general, Low differentiates between translations, adaptations and replacement texts, i.e. cases when new lyrics are completely non-derivative, which means neither faithful translation nor adaptation-based translation. The status of the replacement text is fairly clear, but the problem of adaptation and translation is more complex: resorting to the concept of semantic fidelity actually brings us back to linguistic equivalence and the problem of stating exactly where the border is or at least indicating some measures that would introduce some degrees of objective assessment. The translation-adaptation distinction appears questionable also because of another reason, which results from the theoretical framework chosen by the author. Low advocates functionalist theories, which are founded on several rules, including the rule of fidelity. This rule allows for any kind of relationship between both texts, starting from faithful rendering to relatively free one, all determined by the skopos (Vermeer 1978: 100). What is more, Low argues throughout his book that in the case of song translation fidelity is not the most important aspect (often being even undesirable), which approach may well accommodate less faithful translations created with the help of adapting techniques. Therefore, the definitions provided by the author are not precise enough and are not in line with the reasoning presented in the volume.

What seems also striking is the definition of translation provided in the introduction, where the author argues that translating, as discussed in the book, means “the interlingual transfer of content, especially meaning, from one language to another” (p. 3). Low admits that it is a narrow definition (in fact he rejects Toury’s definition, claiming that it is too broad), but at the same time it is a “normal one” used frequently in the profession. This limited understanding of translation viewed as simple cases of translation proper seems wondering, not only for the fact that such self-imposed limits have recently questioned the ontology of the discipline, but even more importantly since the main focus lies in translating song texts, where the intervention of non-linguistic signs is of crucial importance. Another thing is the decision to follow the metaphor of carrying something over (p. 5), which leads the author to the conclusion that in the case of lack of any derivative resemblance we deal with replacement texts mentioned in the previous paragraph. Here, again Low seems to play down the complexity of certain concepts, as the idea of carrying over the meaning has been criticized by translation scholars (see e.g. Pym 2007 or Stecconi 2007) and is a risky framework despite its etymological grounding.

The book is written in a fairly informal style, which indeed makes it into a student-friendly resource. It presents a number of examples along with practical exercises presented at the end of each chapter and a glossary of difficult terms at the end. That is why it seems to be aimed mainly at persons beginning working with songs and students of translation, rather than researchers and theoreticians, as at times it presents too obvious facts (e.g. the discussion of the structure of songs or the abbreviations ST/TT) or appears as being too prescriptive. However, this is the skopos of this publication: it certainly explains the intricacies of translating songs and offers practical advice in an accessible manner.

With its strong focus on the practical dimension and relatively weak on theory, the book is certainly a must-read for students of translation and anyone interested in the practice of translating song texts. Despite the fact that it was published a few years ago it has lost nothing of its pertinence, bridging the gap between translation and music.