A QUALITY ASSESSMENT OF THE ARABIC DUBBING OF SONGS FROM DISNEY’S MUSICALS
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Date
2023-03-19
Authors
Marah Rawajbeh
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Abstract
Since its launch in 1995, the field of audiovisual translation studies has been disregarded in Arab academia. At present, there are few studies on audiovisual translation in the Arab world, and most of them employ the linguistic approach, ignoring the non-linguistic elements of audiovisual products. This study is meant to be a contribution to research on audiovisual translation into Arabic and on song translation which is one of the least researched topics in translation studies. The study assesses the quality of the Arabic dubbing of songs featured in Disney’s musical films. By reflecting on the quality of song dubbing into Arabic, it aims at providing some insights into the professional situation of audiovisual translation in the Arab world. The study applies the triangle of aspects to the Modern Standard Arabic and Egyptian Arabic dubbed versions of songs featured in four Disney musical films to determine the success of each dubbed version in retaining the functional musical, visual, and verbal aspects of the original songs. The results of this analysis reveal that the Arabic dubbing manages to somewhat recreate the aspects related to the musical performance, but it fails to preserve key elements related to the visual performance and narrative function of the original songs. This results in a significant loss of narrative elements that contribute to the films’ narratives and characterization in the Modern Standard Arabic and Egyptian Arabic dubbed versions. Thus, from a functional perspective, the Arabic dubbing of songs featured in Disney’s recent musicals is found to be functionally inadequate.
Keywords: Arabic; Audiovisual translation; Disney; dubbing; triangle of aspects; song translation.