Decision-making in Song Translation: An Approach to the Spanish Translation of David Bowie´s Song ‘Space Oddity’
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24310/TRANS.2019.v0i23.4206Keywords:
song translation, music-text linkage, singable, David Bowie, Space OddityAbstract
Theoretical background on the topic of ‘song translation’ shows complexity in the approach and difficulty in achieving solid singable translations, particularly in canonized songs, without reducing their original values. In this article, the issues to tackle and decisions to make are classified in a 3-level scheme. That model is applied to a corpus of Romance language translations of David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ song lyrics, after analyzing the original song. Particular focus is put on singable ‘proper’ translations into Spanish. The results show the consequences of different choices at each level in the translatological characteristics of the final product.
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