An Assessment of the Translations of English Lyrics in World’s Six Different Music Style Based on Hurtado’s Model of Error Analysis

Shimakhabir ,Mohammad Reza Falahati Qadimi Fumani

doi:10.13189/lls.2013.010304

Abstract

The present study aimed to investigate the qualities of Persian translated lyrics originally written in English. In this regard, one-hundred and twenty lyrics out of six music styles (pop, rap, jazz, Latin, metal and rock) were chosen through purposive sampling to be studied. To begin with, each of the lyrics was carefully compared to their corresponding Persian translations in search for any erroneous renderings made while being translated. The researcher used Hurtado's (1995) model of translation error analysis, containing three main categories including 'translation mistakes', 'translation major errors' and 'translation minor errors'. Each of these categories was then given the negative points of 2, 1, and 0.5 to be subtracted respectively. What remained were pieces of translated lyrics graded out of 100. The next step involved the act of calculating the mean scores of each music styles. Finally, a Chi-Square test was applied to see whether the differences among the mean scores relating to each music style were of any statistically significance or not. The results of the study revealed no statistically significant differences among the qualities of the Persian translated lyrics with an insight form the six afore-mentioned music styles.

Highlights

Translation Studies (TS), since its emergence as a discipline (Munday, 2008), has attracted scores of researchers and scholars
As Reiss and Vermeer (1984) believe, all translations have a specific purpose and only by having that final aim or purpose in mind, the appropriate translation procedures must be chosen.Lyrics, on the other hand, have been evolving gradually during the past in terms of their dynamics, contents, styles and all other elements involved. This seems to be true within different music styles, as the purpose, audience and performers of these styles differ in their ideology, race, power, etc
As it was mentioned before, the framework used within the present study was based on Hurtado’s (1995) model of error analysis

Summary

Introduction

Translation Studies (TS), since its emergence as a discipline (Munday, 2008), has attracted scores of researchers and scholars. 10), “The main aim of these studies could be examining the existing translations.”Chesterman (2007) points out that the main aim of conducting a comparative study might be showing the relationship between a translated text and other texts. These texts may include: Source texts (in order to show the equivalence relation); Non-translated comparable texts in the target language (in order to work on the naturalness relation); Other translations (forin order to conduct research on translation universals); or. This seems to be true within different music styles, as the purpose, audience and performers of these styles differ in their ideology, race, power, etc.

Methods

Results

Conclusion