Study On The Song Translation In The American Animation Musical Frozen From The Perspective Of Skopostheorie

Music has long been enjoyed by people around the world. From the very ancient times people started to express their emotions, share their ideas and tell stories or legends of their cultures by music. Music and language together produce an auditory art-the art of songs. With the development of technology, instant and direct access to cultural products is given by broadcasting, television, CDs and the new media Internet all over the world. History of song translation in China can be dated back to the late Qing Dynasty and still bears researching significance in modern society. However, the systematic studies focusing on song translation under the guidance of theoretical framework are far from being sufficient. Since the 1990s, there have been Chinese versions of animation songs introduced to the Chinese audience, among which songs in Disney movies took up the biggest proportion. Localization has been a tradition of Disney Company who has spent a huge amount of efforts on translating and dubbing their animation as well as the animation songs. More often than not, the successful translation of an animation musical movie is usually accompanied by the successful translation of its songs. Song translations in musical animations should be synchronized with the plots while being expressive and emotional. The characteristics of animation movie song translation make it attached with research significance. This thesis attempts to make a further study on the Chinese translation of English songs in an American animation musical movie called Frozen from the perspective of Skopostheorie.Skopostheorie was proposed by the German functionalist scholar Hans Vermeer. According to Skopostheorie, a translation process is considered to be a purposeful way of communication between two different cultures. It is also acceptable for the target text to have different purposes with the source text. The purpose, namely "skopos", of the target text is the main factor influencing the choice of translation strategy. Due to the fact that the purposes and functions of translation are highly emphasized in light of Skopostheorie, clarifying the purpose of target text and choosing appropriate translation strategies have both become indispensable processes in translation. Meanwhile, more freedoms as well as responsibilities have been given to translators. Skopostheorie has three rules which are skopos rule, coherence rule and fidelity rule. Among them skopos rule is given the first priority.Under the framework of Skopostheorie, this thesis is aiming at exploring how to employ Skopostheorie and its three rules as theoretical guidance in song translation, meanwhile analyzing the quality of E-C song translation in Frozen. As the primary rule in Skopostheorie, the skopos rule requires song translation to be singable and enjoyable. What’s more, based on the coherence rule, a natural and understandable song translation is desirable, for the efficient understanding is especially important in the movie theater. Finally, under the fidelity rule, the target songs should bear some relationships with the original songs, for songs are the carriers of movie plots. The author concludes that Skopostheorie is feasible and suitable to serve as theoretical guidance in song translation which is a translation activity with specific characteristics and purposes. In addition, under the guidance of Skopostheorie, the author summarized some strategies that should be applied in song translation. Meanwhile, the author analyzes the quality of the song translation in Frozen based on Skopostheorie and discovers that these translated songs basically meet their translation purposes namely singability and enjoyability.