Exploring the singability of songs in A Monster in Paris dubbed into Persian

Abstract

Translation studies (TS) seems to have lagged behind in research in music and translation (MAT). This paper attempts to shed light into the translation of songs through dubbing, paying special attention to the singability of songs which illustrates the theoretical posits. This study consists of two core parts as in the theoretical part, the latest developments in the field of MAT are taken into consideration; then, in the empirical part, through the close study of examples from the dubbed version of an animation, A Monster in Paris, the notion of singability is investigated. Drawing on the new model of singability as the conceptual framework of the study, which was a merger of two models, with consideration of preexisting music and lip-synchronization, the study demonstrated that attempts to preserve the components of singability were very frequent, highlighting the potential capability of the translation team, and even though some deviations were observed, they were of low frequency. As a pioneering study on MAT in the context of Persian, it is hoped that it brings other researchers closer to the area of common ground and shared knowledge between musicology and TS.