Defining translation : a reception study of song translation and beyond

Abstract

This paper examines the definition and reception of (song) translation from two approaches: criterial and relativistic. An audience reception study was conducted on 286 Chinese participants (143 music-major undergraduate students and 143 translation-major undergraduate students), who listened to three versions of Lemon Tree (i.e. the original English version, an almost-all-Chinese version by Joanna Wang, and a half-English-half-Chinese version by Will Jay). The participants were asked whether Joanna’s version and/or Will’s version could be regarded as a translated version. They also provided their explanations of their decisions. The quantitative analysis showed that (a) more than half of the participants believed that neither Joanna’s version nor Will’s version could be regarded as a translation and (b) statistically more music-major students believed that Will’s version could be regarded as a translation. The qualitative analysis discovered three major themes that emerged from the students’ explanations: music, lyrics, and representation. Specifically, “semantic equivalence” in the lyrics was the most frequently cited criteria and “transfer into another language” was the second most frequently mentioned criteria. The students were also keenly aware of the extent to which the lyrics were adapted and recreated, hence a clear preference to make the concept of “translation” distinct from “adaptation” and “recreation”. Building on these findings, the paper discusses the potential issues of the criterial and relativistic approaches to defining (song) translation. The paper also explores the necessity and benefits of combining both approaches so that translation research and practice can be bridged and mutually informing each other.