A Study Of Song Translaton Between English And Chinese Based On The Pentathlon Principle

With the accelerating process of globalization, international communication and cultural exchange permeate various countries all over the world. During this progress, a large amount of foreign songs have been imported into China and vice versa. Song is one of the most significant forms of entertainment. Except for its entertaining role, song can serve to promote language learning, social communication and cultural exchange among nations with different languages. Despite its vital role, researches on song translation, to some extent, have been neglected within translation studies. On the one hand, most of the studies related to song translation focus on translating lyrics, without clarifying the different terms of "song translation" and "song’s lyrics translation"; on the other hand, translating Chinese songs into foreign languages is a much more peripheral branch of translation nowadays, which witnesses merely a few professional song translators and works. The reasons behind these phenomena are complex, one of which is that song translation is a complicated, multidisciplinary task. It requires the translator to have an intimate knowledge of the source language, the target language, translation, and music, etc. With respect to theoretical instructions for song translation, the most frequently applied one is skopostheorie. However, song translation studies are still short for the comprehensive and more practical theoretical instructions. Besides, the current song translation in China sees an aging group of professional song translators who are few in number, among whom the number of professional translators studying song translation from Chinese to foreign languages is fewer. Lastly, comparatively speaking, most of the translated songs available nowadays are old. Currently, young people who are more interested in the hit songs during the recent years account for the biggest proportion of the audience of the foreign songs. In all, a new generation of professional song translators with a systematic and more practical theory is in great need. Peter Alan Low, a veteran translator of songs, proposed firstly in2003the Pentathlon Principle, a skopos-based approach to coping with song translation. Low puts forward five criteria in order to achieve singable translations of songs. In this thesis, the skopos of song translation is to achieve a reproduction singable and performable. Therefore, songs are translated under the instruction of the five criteria of the Pentathlon Principle, which is a comparatively more practical, systematic and user-oriented approach than those applied before. Secondly, tentative exploration of Chinese-to-English song translation has been made in this thesis. After elaborating on the literature review and theoretical framework, the author gives case studies of several songs translated by the author under the instruction of the Pentathlon Principle, intending to illustrate how this approach is applied, which is rarely seen in the previous studies of song translation. Following the case studies, questionnaires have been conducted in order to explore whether the song translations are satisfying, that is, the feasibility of this approach. According to the statistics collected from the questionnaires, in general, the participants hold a positive and satisfied attitude towards the translated versions of the chosen songs.