An-Najah National University 

Faculty of Graduate Studies 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 

 

 

An Analytical Study of Kids' songs translation: 

A Case Study of Baby TV Channel 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
By 

Hayat Hassan Tayyem 
 

 
 

 

 

 
Supervisor 

Dr. Fayez Aqel 
 
 

 

 

 

This Proposal is submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the 

Requirements of the Degree of Master Methods of Applied 

Linguistics and Translation, Faculty of Graduate Studies, An-

Najah National University, Nablus, Palestine. 
2019 





iii 
 

  Dedication 

To my biggest inspiration, my super mother, a lady with a golden 

heart and a truly caring soul. Her compassionate and kind nature brought 

out the best in everyone. She made it her mission in life to care for her 

children who needed love, guidance and support.  

To the man who will give an arm and a leg for his children, my first 

teacher and hero. To my father who taught me that the best kind of love is 

unconditional. For many reasons I truly know, my father is the best and I 

could not ask for a better. 

To my sisters and brothers who were always there when I needed 

them the most. 

To my dear and loving husband and beautiful daughter, Alma.  

To my friends and family, without whom none of my success would 

be possible. 

 

 

 

  



iv 
 

Acknowledgment 

 Firstly, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my advisor 

Dr. Fayez Aqel for the continuous support of my thesis study and related 

research, for his patience, motivation, and immense knowledge. His 

guidance helped me throughout the research and writing of this thesis. 

Besides my advisor, I would like to thank the rest of my thesis 

committee: Dr. Ayman Nazal and Dr. Aysar Yaseen for their insightful 

comments and encouragement, but also for the questions which incented 

me to widen my research from various perspectives. 

Last but not least, I would like to thank my family. 

 

 

  





vi 
 

Table of Contents 

Subject Page 

Defense Committee Members ii 

Dedication iii 

Acknowledgment iv 

Declaration v 

Table of Content vi 

List of Tables viii 

Abstract ix 

Chapter One: Introduction and Research Background 

1.1 Introduction and Research Background 1 

1.2 Statement of the problem 15 

1.3 Questions of the Study 16 

1.4 The purpose of the study 17 

1.5 The Significance of the Study 17 

1.6 Limitations of the study  18 

Chapter Two: Literature Review and Conceptual Framework 

2.1 Introduction 19 

2.2 Song translation 19 

2.3 Different Approaches to song Translation 23 

2.3.1 Direct translation 23 

2.3.2 Linguistic and Extra-Linguistic Translation 25 

2.3.3 Translating songs as poetry 28 

2.3.4 Pentathlon approach 03 

2.3.5 Franzon‘s Approaches to songs translation 32 

2.4 Equivalence 35 

3.4.1 The taxonomic view 36 

3.4.2 The relativist view 37 

3.5 Musical Devices 41 

2.5.1 Rhyme 44 

2.5.2 Onomatopoeia 50 

2.5.3 Meter 55 

Chapter Three: Methodology 

0.1 Introduction 59 

0.2 Research Method 59 

0.3 Data Collection 60 

 



vii 
 

 

Subject Page 

Chapter Four: Analysis 

4.1 Introduction 62 

4.2 Musical Devices 62 

4.2.1 Rhyme 62 

4.2.2 Onomatopoeia 67 

4.2.3 Meter 68 

4.3 Kids' Song Translation Approaches 70 

4.3.1 Direct translation 70 

4.3.2 Linguistic and Extra-Linguistic Translation 79 

4.3.0 Pentathlon approach 03 

4.3.4 Franzon‘s Approaches to songs translation 09 

Chapter Five: Conclusion and Recommendations 

5.1 Conclusion 04 

5.2 Recommendation 09 

References 09 

 ب الممخص

   



viii 
 

List of Tables 

Table No. Title Page 

Table (1) Functional Consequences of Match between Lyrics 

and Music (Franzon 2014) 

34 

Table (2) ―Charlie and the Numbers‖ rhyme scheme 63 

Table (3) "Five little monkeys" song rhyme scheme 65 

Table (4) Animals sounds in English songs and their translation 67 

Table (5) The shortage percentage between Arabic and English 

kids' songs 

83 

 

  



ix 
 

An Analytical Study of Kids' songs translation:  

A Case Study of Baby TV Channel 

By 

Hayat Hassan Tayyem 

Supervisor 

Dr. Fayez Aqel 

Abstract 

The present study explores the role of five translation approaches in 

producing popular children's songs based on Low‘s and Franzon's 

requirements (singability, sense, naturalness and performability). The study 

also illustrates the musical devices (rhyme, onomatopoeia and meter) 

employed in the English and Arabic songs. In addition, it describes the 

approaches the translator used in translating the song which preserves the 

balance between the three types of data (verbal, musical and visuals). The 

study data includes different songs from "Baby TV channel". After 

analyzing the data, the study founds that direct translation is the most 

frequent approach used in translating children's songs, while Franzon's 

approach is the most suitable one depending on the songs collection.  At 

first, Franzon's approach gathers two extremes, not to translate or to change 

the whole song. In addition, between these two extremes this approach has 

other choices which a translator can use to reach the best Arabic version.  

When it comes to musical devices, meter is the most problematic 

device to achieve. While rhyme comes the second as a result of being 

faithful to the original Arabic children song. It is hoped that this study 

brings other researchers closer to the subjects. 



1 
 

Chapter One 

Introduction and Research Background 

1.1 Introduction and Research Background: 

According to the Oxford dictionary (2015, p. 440), language is "the 

system of sounds and writing that human being uses to express their 

thoughts, ideas and feelings". Communication between humans has been 

used for different reasons, such as exchanging goods and knowledge. Now, 

the situation is not that different since people still need to communicate. 

The technological advancements make the task easier. In the presence of 

social media, the chance of meeting a foreigner is high. This means that 

people sometimes find themselves communicating with people who speak a 

different language.  

Communication may not be achieved without understanding other 

people's languages as well as their cultures and traditions. Therefore, the 

need for translation arose to help people in exchanging ideas and thoughts 

regardless of the different languages they use. In fact, translation plays a 

crucial role in intercultural communication as it introduces the audience to 

other peoples' lives, manners and lifestyles through different ways, such as 

art and literature, which present other peoples stories and adventures; 

literature, itself, constitutes a part of cultural communication as it reflects 

the manifestation of social life and expresses values, traditions and customs 

through words. It forms people's thoughts, impression, judgment and 



2 
 

feeling. Literature is important for children as it is important for adults as it 

contributes to the formation of their personalities and shapes their 

upbringing. 

 Childhood plays an important role in the emotional, social and 

physical development of young children. Therefore, any related activity to 

this part of life should be connected to enjoyment, playfulness and 

education. These activities may include reading books, listening to stories 

or singing some songs, i.e. activities connected to children's literature. 

According to Kabir and Hatri (2015), children's literature is defined as a 

linguistic product in the form of art especially directed to an audience of 

children. Tomlinson and Lynch-Brown (1996, cited in Sloan, 2014, p. 2) 

further illustrate children's literature as "a book, prose or poetry that is 

presented through stimulation and attention-grabbing topics". In addition, it 

could be any artistic published materials entailing enlightenment and 

entertainment intended for and used by children from birth to adolescence. 

This genre is also known as a form of literary expression, with its own rules 

and methods that are related to its language and suitability to the child 

language capacity. Children's literature is considered the only genre that is 

categorized by its audience since bringing joy to their hearts and lights to 

their minds are its fundamental aims. The artist creates a good piece of 

literature for children that makes children interested in and interacted with 

through pleasure and enjoyment.  



3 
 

  Children's literature has a versatile subcategory that is kids' songs, 

which are considered as traditional short poems or refined lyrics. They 

often tell a story, set to music, and have a simple vocabulary and catchy 

rhyme. In addition, songs should enrich the children's sense of beauty and 

taste and strengthen their appreciation of goodness and love.  Songs are 

part of many cultures' canons for their role in equipping children with the 

values and attitudes, language and other elements of the culture.  According 

to  Susam-Sarajeva (2008, p. 188), "no other non-religious […] ‗text‘ 

moves people as deeply as the combination of lyrics and music; [it] 

becomes an intrinsic part of their lives, acts as a shortcut to their memories 

(scenes from one‘s childhood, holidays, previous relationships, close 

relatives who passed away etc.) and often bears witness to the various 

stages of their life".  

  Herbst (2005, p. 59) defines kids' songs as "songs sung for or to 

children and those sung by children". He also divided Kenyan kids' songs 

into six categories. 

 Lullabies: songs sung by an older person to soothe the child. 

 Cradle: songs sung by an older person to praise the child and to 

encourage him\her. 

 Activity songs: when the text mentions some action, usually not 

juvenile, although it could be a chore that these singers imitate in the 

course of their singing. 



4 
 

 Singing games: here the text symbolises some childhood activity or 

game that children perform as they sing. 

 Technical songs: also called songs for learning things, where 

children learn to numeracy, pronunciation, colors, geography, civics 

and history, among other things. 

 Mockery songs:  which appear rather heartless, but ridicule the vile 

offenders while praising the well behaved, often blacklisting vice and 

promoting virtue. 

Herbst's (2005) categorization can be applied to other cultures under 

different titles, such as the folk songs of Japanese children according to the 

classification of Berger (1968). 

The classification of kids' songs obviously illustrates how these 

different types of songs engage in children's lives in every stage and 

activity. However, children's literature, including children's songs, as an 

independent art has taken a lot of time to develop. The 18th and 19th 

centuries marked the beginning of the golden age of the genre even though 

the starting point of this art goes even further since children use songs and 

stories in different ways, namely, to play, to express themselves and to 

satisfy their needs. Before that, all publications were directed only towards 

adults. Nikolajeva (2005) argues that it" is impossible to think about 

children's literature as existing before the 18th or 19th century when books 

were targeted children, not written for adults, and appreciated by them" (As 



5 
 

cited in Barone, 2011, p. 9). Zipes (2013) assures that this period had been 

a shift from writing to children only for religious purposes, even that 

religious material that directed to children was rarely found, towards 

writing for enjoyment and enrichment. Since the publication of "Mother 

Goose", the fairy tales and nursery rhymes in the 1970s, which first 

appeared in French then translated to English. According to Athamneh 

(2017) the situation in the Arab world is not that different as the beginning 

of this genre comes as a result of the call which Ahmad Shawqi started to 

establish pure Arabic children's literature. Refaah al-Tahtawi also believed 

in the importance of this subject and he was the first writer who introduced 

a book translated from English into Arabic for children. This attempt and 

some other few individual attempts like Galal (1828 – 1898), Kilani (1897-

1959) and Abu Shanab (1931 - 2012) formed the shy beginnings of this art. 

As mentioned above, the first book directed to Arab children was 

translated. The songs were not that different from books, as songs start 

spreading in the Arab world from translation.  

As a matter of fact, songs as an independent form of children's 

literature are a multilateral genre that lies between three major areas:  

1. Lyrics: Having the form and musical quality of a song, and 

especially the character of a songlike outpouring of the poet's own 

thoughts and feelings, as distinguished from epic and dramatic poetry 

(Zapruder, 2012). 



6 
 

2. Music: an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in 

significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, 

and color (Dictionary. com)    

3.  Pictures: The recording, reproducing, or broadcasting of moving 

visual images. 

Adding sound to other visual elements in the 1990's was the 

beginning of the video clips trend, meanwhile, the spread, success and 

profits of these songs that synchronized songs with pictures encouraged 

every production company to produce ones. Since then, a set of 

possibilities and techniques have been in progress to allow everyone to 

access any song 

 This combination between words and other extra-linguistic features 

such as (music and pictures) has led translators to use the audiovisual 

translation (AVT) that discusses the relationship between sound, image and 

language in an audiovisual text.  

Audiovisual Translation (AVT) has been gaining around in 

recent years and is fast becoming the standard reference. 

Since its inception, AVT was used to encapsulate different 

translation practices used in the audiovisual media, cinema, 

television
1
, VHS-in which there is transfer from a source to 

target language, which involves some form of interaction 

                                                           
1
 The Video Home System (VHS).  



7 
 

with sound and image. (Díaz-Cintas and Remael, 2014, p. 

12) 

According to De-linde and kay (2005), audiovisual translation has 

two subcategories:  

1. Subtitling: the translated text is at the bottom of the screen. 

2.  Revoicing: reproducing the dialogue by using other people's voice.  

Over the last few years, there have been some English translated 

songs that Arab TVs presented. There are many reasons why producers 

were encouraged to adopt translated products rather than establish new 

Arabic ones although these songs relate to and build upon other people's 

culture, history and heritage. This is mainly due to the fact that we do not 

have enough Arabic sets of texts for children as Arab writers prefer to write 

about subjects do not directed to children. Adapting the translated texts is 

found in all texts directed to children in the Arab world and not only the 

kids' songs. According to Sehwail (2015), one of the most important 

Palestinian children's literature writers: 

"Most of the texts directed to children in the Arab world are 

similar, related and reproduced, and do not have the 

elements of intelligence, creativity and innovation. I cannot 

generalize but this is due to the concerns we have inherited 

and reflected on all kinds of arts, including children's 

literature",  



8 
 

She also addressed the problem of reading scarcity when saying:  

"Reading scarcity, which is a phenomenon that spreads in 

the Arab society because of several economic and social 

factors and a lack of willingness to read with our children. 

This is due to satellite TV channels and the websites that 

engaged young people by replacing reading with games." 

In addition, we should consider commercial and financial reasons. 

As soon as the English texts or songs are ready and prepared, the writer 

needs only to translate the song, which makes it a shortcut for TV channels 

instead of starting from writing, composing and drawing pictures to the 

video clip. 

 Consequently, nowadays, songs and movies that are connected to 

children are reproduced by using revoicing or dubbing. In this context, 

"Post-synchronization or 'dubbing' can be defined as the technical 

procedure by which a voice, whether of the original performance or of 

another, is "glued" to a visible speaking figure in the image", (Shohat, 

2013, p. 22). In other words, dubbing is reproducing a film or song by 

replacing the original voice with another voice that uses another language. 

As well as translators use this process as an attractive alternative to 

subtitling, which is transferring the source sound into a written translation 

on the bottom of the screen. 

Díaz-Cintas and Remael (2014, p. 10) see this kind of translation as 

an extended form of intersemotic translation, which is one of the oldest 



9 
 

types of translation, which was first introduced by "Jacobson (1959/ 2000) 

who established three types of translation:  

 Intralingual translation - translation within the same language, 

which can involve rewording or paraphrase; 

 Interlingual translation - translation from one language to another, 

and 

 Intersemiotic translation - translation of the verbal sign by a non-

verbal sign, for example music or image. 

Half a century later, this approach needed some revision to 

accommodate other aspect of the song, crucially the audio and visual ones 

in our case, but the essence is there.  

Since songs are supposed to be reproduced as songs, this means that 

translation is no longer about conveying the meaning; translators should 

also produce texts that fit the music. In the field of songs translation, many 

studies have explored the role of words from different perspectives in 

addition to other subjects connected to such as form, content and style 

presuming that words are the most important factor. Hatim and Munday 

(2004, p. 10), for example, focus on the relation between form and content. 

They say translating a song into a song is an impossible mission; it is just a 

process of translating a song to normal text, like the one you find in a 

newspaper or a magazine, not singable. In other words, they limit the 

translation process by translating the content, not the form. 



10 
 

"Sense may be translated, while the form cannot. The point where 

form begins to contribute to sense is where we approach un-transability. 

This clearly is most likely to be in poetry, songs, advertising, punning and 

so on, where sounds and rhymes, and double meaning are unlikely to be 

reached in the TL".  

Hatim and Munday (2004) consider words the dominant component 

of songs in the translation process and give priority to conveying the 

meaning. They ignore any other factor, such as, music as if it has no effect 

on the outcomes as sufficient translations. 

From a similar perspective, at the beginning of her book, Rose 

(1981, p. 1-3) explains the process of a six-step scheme that her team use to 

translate songs: 

(1)  Preliminary analysis, 

(2)  Exhaustive style and content analysis, 

(3)  Acclimation of the text,  

(4) Reformulation of the text,  

(5)  Analysis of the translation,  

(6)  Review and comparison. 

Rose (1981) was questioning whether German or any other art song 

could be translated and if so, the best strategies of translating the songs 



11 
 

should be sought. Her experiments find out that children's songs could be 

translated but the result is not a song, it was a text which you can read, 

understand but not sing. 

 Roda (in Rose, 1981, p.16) continued Rose's efforts in the process of 

translating songs by trying to translate a number of songs by specialized 

translators, such as S.S. Prawe, editor- translation of The Penguin Book of 

Lieder, and Philip L. Miller, editor-translator of The Ring of Words; the 

findings are similar to Rose's.        

Roda and the translators "have provided excellent and faithful 

translations of significant numbers of songs without attempting to make 

them singable. The translations are printed parallel to the original poems, 

and they do not consciously attempt to retain rhyme or even a set of 

metrical pattern.  They convey the meaning faithfully and naturally, line by 

line,…" (ibid, p.165) 

After that, translators concluded that neglecting the musical side, as 

Hatim, Munday, Roda and Rose did, obstruct the translation process, 

especially in conveying meaning and emotion. As a result, many studies 

began to study the role of music in songs and the importance of music in 

convening the whole meaning. Chaume (2004, p. 18) concentrates on the 

interplay of non-linguistic codes in audiovisual translation. He studies the 

influence of such signs on the translation process. "The analysis of the 

lyrics of a song cannot be carried out outside the sheet music that 

accompanies it". 



12 
 

A Chinese study headed by Hu et al (2009), detects the emotions of 

five hundred Chinese songs after translating them into English and 

concludes that translating the words only does not convey the meaning. 

They introduce an original song and its translated version with and without 

musical effects to two groups of children. They emphasize the role of non-

verbal elements in transferring the meaning. They conclude, "Lyrics 

usually don‘t express much about arousal dimension of emotion". In 

addition, the result shows that the group who listen to the songs without 

music shows confusion rate higher than the group who listen to the songs 

with music. 

After a few similar studies, translators realize the importance of 

music, as Gerding-Salas (2014, p.4) comes up with (Translating with the 

ear) "among formal matters, translators should be aware of and control the 

sound effect and cadence of the translated text ("Translating with the ear") 

to avoid cacophonous combinations and calque on the source language." 

 Aminoroaya and Amirian (2016) state that the additional element of 

music puts forward a wide range of requirements for translating songs, the 

most important of which is singability. Low (2016) defines singable 

translation as a translation whose words are easy to be sung to the note 

values of the original music. Therefore, a song definition now is more 

connected to music Fornäs (2010, p. 37) describes songs as "the language 

of music" or "the music of language". 



13 
 

As some scholars give the weight to words, some scholars say that 

the priority should be given to the music, also the translators should pick 

words that only fit the musical sit. Speath (1915) presents that priority 

should be given to the musical set; "In his paper ‗Translating to Music' 

which is included in The ‗Musical Quarterly‘, (Speath, 1915, in Anon., 

1958) sees that it is not possible to imitate the form of the original song 

without sacrificing the message. He maintains that priority should be given 

to the musical setting even if accuracy of details is not accomplished." (As 

cited in Musleh, 2014, p. 10) 

This combination does not cover the three main angles of the 

triangle; pictures are one of the main components of a translated song as 

they play a serious role in conveying the message. All the studies analyzes 

one component as the dominant one, some studies concentrate on lyrics, 

music or picture. After that, focuses on its effects on the target text, without 

considering words, music, and pictures as complementary equal factors in 

the perception process of the target text. Translators should see the 

translation from a new perspective. Translation nowadays is more 

transferring words; it is transferring a whole work considering all the 

elements that form it. In kids' songs case, translation has three aspects to 

consider. In addition, the importance of balancing between these three 

components is to reach all the children with different learning styles, such 

as: 

 Visual (spatial): children who prefer using pictures and images.  



14 
 

 Aural (auditory-musical): children who prefer using sound and 

music. 

 Verbal (linguistic): children who prefer using words. 

Low (2016) and Franzon (2014) express that translating a song is 

more demanding than translating other texts since the target text must be a 

song. According to them, singability is the most difficult condition to be 

fulfilled, on account of its many constraints. Therefore, translating a kids' 

song has special requirements, which are: 

1. Singability: words can be sung smoothly following a musical set. 

According to (Franzon, 2014, p .373) "the ambiguous term 

‗singability‘ can be defined as a musico-verbal fit of a text to music, 

and that this musico-verbal unity may consist of several layers – 

prosodic, poetic and semantic-reflexive. These layers may sometimes 

be modified, or optional, but they would be united in a fully 

functional and singable target text lyric". 

2. Sense and naturalness. "Natural language is a language which is 

readable by everybody, however, it is formal". (Newmark, 1988: 87). 

3. Performability: the act of presenting the song or ―from a textual point 

of view, performability is often equated with ‗speakability‘ or 

‗breathability‘, i.e. the ability to produce fluid texts which performers 

may utter without difficulty‖ (Espasa 2000:49). 



15 
 

From a functional point of view, (Franzon, 2014) assumes that a 

song consists of music, lyrics and a perspective performance while the 

music should have melody, harmony and a musical sense. 

To fulfill these requirements, translators should be aware of all 

musical devices, such as rhythm and meter, rhyme, onomatopoeia and 

alliteration. Moreover, translators should decide the degree of faithfulness 

to have an understandable song in parallel with the all requirements. In 

addition, they should attempt to reproduce the English song within the 

constraints of Arabic structures considering the aesthetic value of the 

Arabic song. 

1.2 Statement of the problem: 

All the earlier researches studied the song from a linguistic 

perspective; they tried to see how every element affects the meaning as if 

the lyric is the only element in a song ignoring the non-verbal side of the 

song and its importance. This study seeks to present a comprehensive point 

of view as explaining the word choice and equivalency and its effects on 

the extra-linguistic parts of the song. The study is organized to discuss the 

three sides of the triangle (lyrics, music and pictures) that formulate a song. 

Lyrics are essentially a language in its formulation, so the study will 

discuss the problem of the Arabic equivalence of the English versions 

especially when it comes to language structure, cultural words and word 

count then, how these elements affect the translation and the principles that 



16 
 

govern song production (singability, rhyme, sense, naturalness and 

performability). 

Lyric is not separated from the rules of music, so the research will 

look into the musical devices employed in the English and Arabic versions 

and the role of these devices in producing a song, not a text, especially that 

musical devices play a crucial role in the aesthetic side of the song that 

affects directly singability and naturalness. The study is also going to 

consider another problem that concerns the approaches that the translator 

applied to convey meaning and if these approaches fulfill songs' 

requirements: singability, sense, naturalness and performability. 

1.3 Questions of the Study:  

This study attempts to answer the following questions that the study posits: 

1. What are the most frequent translation approaches applied to 

translate English kids' songs into Arabic? 

2. What musical devices are found in English kids' song and the effect 

of having or not having them in the Arabic translated songs? 

3. How the translated kids' songs messages tend to be affected by the 

use of equivalence in the light of songs' requirements? 

4. To what extent is the tendency of the translators towards the source 

text or being faithful to the source text ST complies with the 

conditions that guarantee the success of any song? 



17 
 

1.4 The purpose of the study: 

 The study aims to examine the challenges that translators might face 

during the process of translating English kids' songs into Arabic.  

The study also seeks to investigate the musical devices that implied 

in English kids' songs and how the translators deal with them. In addition, 

the study intends to discuss the effect of translating these musical devices 

on the singability and the other three requirements of translating kids' song 

into Arabic.  

Finally, the study seeks to evaluate the degree of faithfulness to the 

ST language in the process of translation English kids songs into Arabic. 

Then, to investigate their role in producing a song that meets all the 

requirements, especially in the case when the process gives us the false 

impression of being faithful to the ST. 

1.5 The Significance of the Study: 

The significance of the study lies in its being so helpful for the 

following parties: 

Palestinian TV channels: the study would help the producers in 

Palestinian TV station to assess the presented songs. In addition, it would 

guide them to select songs that are more suitable for Palestinian children in 

the future.  



18 
 

Parents: like the Palestinian TV stations, parents will be able to decide if 

the songs are compatible with their children's mental abilities and cultural 

values.  

Translators: The study will provide the translators with some advices 

about the translation approaches. Moreover, it will recommend some steps 

to avoid producing unnatural songs. 

Other researchers: this study will form out a future reference for them. 

1.6 Limitations of the study:  

  This study is limited to the following: 

 The study only covers English kids' songs that translated into Arabic, 

not the other way around. 

 The study analyses songs that targeted children under twelve. 

 The study is limited to one channel, Baby TV channel. 

 

  



19 
 

Chapter Two 

Literature Review and Conceptual Framework 

2.1 Introduction: 

In the Literature Review, the researcher illustrates the concept of 

translation, song translation, translation approaches, audiovisual 

translation, musical devices, and the concept of equivalence. In this sub- 

chapter, it has also explained the previous studies connected to the subjects. 

2.2 Song Translation:  

Franzon (2014, p.376) defines a song as ―a piece of music and lyrics 

– in which one has been adapted to the other or both to one another – 

designed for a singing performance‖. This definition makes the translated 

song as ―a second version of a source song that allows the song‘s essential 

values of music, lyrics and song performance to be reproduced in a target 

language‖ (ibid). By Franzon (2014) definition, we have two versions of 

the same song, one in the SL or the language that the song was originally 

written in and the second in the TL or the language that the song has 

translated into. 

People transfer songs from a SL to a TL through translation. 

Translation has many different definitions according to different scholars 

based on the text they deal with or the time they live in.  



20 
 

Catford (1965, p. 20), for example, defines translation as ―the 

replacement of textual material in one language (source language) by 

equivalent material in another language (target language)‖. Newmark 

(1988, p.7) also offers a definition for translation as "a craft consisting of 

the attempt to replace a written message and/or a statement in one language 

by the same message and or statement in another language‖. Nida and 

Taber (1969, p. 12) state that, ―Translating consists in reproducing in the 

receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source language 

message‖.  To choose the best translation definition to follow and apply, in 

his article, ―Singable Translations of Songs‖ Low (2016) presents the 

following principles: singability, sense, naturalness, rhythm, and rhyme, 

while Franzon (2014) in his article "Choices in Song Translation" 

illustrates other principles: singability, music (music itself has three 

principles melody, harmony and musical sense), lyrics and prospective 

performance. These principles govern the translation process to produce a 

popular song.  

"It is allowed to pay less attention to a principle if it supports another 

one. With every translation problem, the translator must decide which 

principles are most important and which are less important." Coenraats 

(Newmark, 2007, p.4). The researcher chooses singability, sense, 

naturalness and performability since they support the other principles. 

1. Singability: words should be sung in a smooth way following a 

musical set. Low (2016, p. 91) formulates the four guidelines to song 



21 
 

translation, and the first one is "The target text must be singable – 

otherwise any other virtues it has are meaningless." This principle is 

the hardest one to achieve.  

2. Sense: One Hour Translation, one of the world's largest online 

translation agency," when it comes to conveying the sense of the 

text, it is really important to translate the content from the reader‘s 

point of view. When the reader does not understand what the writer 

has actually written, all effort to get the things done perfectly 

become useless". So conveying the message is an essential action 

during the translation process.   

3.  Naturalness: naturalness is based on overcoming the differences 

between an SL and a TL and produces a text that comes along with 

the TL culture; therefore, the process of translating is a real 

challenge. Nida and Taber (1969) and Venuti (1995) use the term 

‗invisibility‘ to refer to naturalness, also they consider a translation a 

good one when the reader does not feel that the text he reads or 

listens to has been translated, in other words, a covert translation. 

"Beekman and Callow (1983) have offered another criterion for 

assigning the naturalness of translation. Their definition is based on 

the term ‗ease‘. They say: "there is a correlation between ease of 

understanding the meaning of a text and the level of naturalness, 

which it has." (as cited in Hashemi, 2009, p.4). 

4. Performability: the ability to perform a song easily. 



22 
 

Aminoroaya and Amirian (2016) illustrate three constrains of 

audiovisual song translation: 

1. Constraint of Rhyme: it is the hardest task in the translation process, 

"but Apter (1989) explains that a one-to-one equivalence is not 

required." so, the TT should have a rhyme, but it does not need to be 

a copy of the ST rhyme.  

2. Constraint of Rhythm: it is also one of the big problems that song 

translators face, as "translators have to deal with how to match 

foreign rhythms. The problem of rhythm is mainly related to the 

issues of syllable-count, stress pattern, and lengths of notes" (Low 

2005). 

3. Constraint of Image: this is a new problem appeared with the 

appearance of audiovisual translation. "When songs are presented in 

movies, the constraints pertained to audiovisual translations are 

added to the constraints of song translation. Songs which appear in 

movies consist of not only aural elements but also visual elements 

that are inseparably linked to each other." (Aminoroaya and Amirian, 

2016, p. 45) 

So translating a song is more demanding than any regular written 

text. Hence, many approaches towards songs translation and the constraints 

of this type of translation are developed to produce good songs in the TL, 

like linguistic and Franzon's approach which will be discussed later. 



23 
 

"In spite of the increased interest in audiovisual translation and the 

everyday expansion of the discipline, due to the above difficulties, the topic 

of song translation has still remained on the periphery of translation 

studies." (Aminoroaya and Amirian, 2016, p. 45) 

2.3 Different Approaches to song Translation:  

2.3.1 Direct translation: 

 Direct translation or literal translation is based on following the 

original text form closely with or without conveying the sense of the 

original text. In translation studies, a literal translation is often associated 

with scientific, technical, technological or legal texts. It is also known as, 

"a translation which gives priority to lexical correspondences and results in 

ungrammatical sentences, or it could also mean a translation that is as close 

as possible to the original while still ensuring TL grammaticality (but not 

naturalness)". (Barkhudarov, 1993 as cited in Chesterman, 1997, p. 12) 

  Newmark (1988) calls it the best way to reach the closest form of an 

ST ―literal translation is correct and must not be avoided if it secures 

referential and pragmatic equivalence to the original‖ (ibid. p. 68). 

Newmark (1988) agrees that this technique is the best option for translating 

texts where the form is as important as the content. In his opinion, ―literal 

translation is the first step in translation‖ (ibid. p.76). Moreover, it is ―the 

most important of the procedures‖ (ibid. p.81). 



24 
 

Other writers see direct translation as the only valid approach that 

translators should use in the first choice and consider this approach the first 

choice. According to Darbelnet and Vinay (1989), "literal translation is 

correct and must not be avoided if it secures referential and pragmatic 

equivalence to the original." Therefore, the most common feature of this 

process is maximum closeness to the SL form and meaning.  

In the direct translation process of a literary text, translators are 

likely to face common problems as linguistic, aesthetic and socio-cultural 

problems. Hence, a literal translation of literary text produces unclear, 

unnatural and sometimes nonsensical translations and has little 

communication value. Therefore, translators try to develop tests and 

methods to overcome these problems.  

Graedler (2000, p. 3) also lists four procedures that a translator may 

follow in the process of translating culture-specific concepts: 

1. Making up a new word. 

2. Explaining the meaning of the SL expression in lieu of translating it. 

3. Preserving the SL term intact. 

4. Opting for a word in the TL which seems similar to or has the same 

"relevance" as the SL term. 

The purpose behind all these tests is to reproduce a song that 

―respects the norms of the target language, that has vis à vis sentence 



25 
 

structure, terminology, cohesion of the text and fidelity to the author and 

his/her intention" (CIOL, 2006, p. 16 as cited in Valles, 2012, p. 3) . These 

norms lead to two concepts: faithfulness and transparency.  

 Faithfulness: can also be called as fidelity, translate the source text 

without adding or removing details. 

 Transparency: transparency is connected to the audience when they 

read the target text; they should feel like it has been written in their 

own language.  

2.3.2 Linguistic and Extra-Linguistic Translation: 

The existence of audiovisual materials makes the translator pay 

attention to every detail in a song even the one that he/she does not use to 

consider in other types of arts. Mayoral et al mention in their article(1988) 

that for translation of the texts that are in association with other media 

(image, music, oral sources, etc.) the translator task would become more 

complicated since in addition to linguistic features, the translator needs to 

take into account the extra-linguistic features of the text".(as cited in 

Pedrami, 2011,p. 3). 

 Dubbed songs are a mix of words, music and pictures. Pictures in 

other types of literature are taken for granted, but we cannot ignore the fact 

that a colorful picture is worth a thousand words especially when it comes 

to capturing kids' attention. Producers of kids' songs want to take full 

advantage of every picture to communicate the message, according to 



26 
 

psychologists, 93% of all human communication is nonverbal. So, using 

effective visuals illustration to power up the communications is necessary 

in translated songs.  

Jacobson (1959/2000) in his paper "On linguistic aspects of 

translation" provides three manners of interpreting a linguistic sign: 

1. Rewording or interpreting linguistic signs by means of other signs 

from the same language. 

2. Translation or interpreting linguistic signs by means of signs from 

another language, a traditional concept. 

3. Transmutation or interpreting linguistic signs by means of signs 

from non-linguistic sign systems, considering words as linguistic 

signs and other signs like pictures as extra-linguistic signs. 

Transmutation embodies the relationship between artificial non-

linguistic and linguistic signs. Jacobson states that non-linguistic sign can 

interpret the meaning of linguistic signs. In fact, pictures, the non-linguistic 

signs in songs, are the fastest element to comprehend by children as human 

brain processes visuals 60,000 times faster than text; 90% of the 

information sent to the brain is visual. In other words, according to Pant 

(2015) a picture worths 60,000 words. As well as, the human brain is more 

accustomed to processing images in no time since 90% of the information 

sent to the brain is visual, and 93% of all human communication is visual. 

In addition, 40% of the people respond better to visuals. According to 



27 
 

Wechsler (1896, as cited in Goudis, 2015), an American psychologist 

whose work frequently specialized in intelligence testing for children, 

children's mind connects the series of pictures to form a story, even before 

understanding the words. Thus, the pictures should parallel with the words, 

in the songs under investigation. Although, sometimes translators benefit 

the presence of pictures in some cases and ignore it in others.  

Translators should use the entire element provided by the video clips 

to help children who have difficulty in understanding what they are 

listening to. A picture is an important tool that assets any child to figure out 

the meaning of a song. Otherwise, if the song is telling a story and the child 

has gaps in understanding the vocabulary, pictures stimulate its imagination 

to fill these gaps.  Mayoral et al (1988, as cited in Pedrami, 2011, p. 12) 

believe that "the message in the songs is composed of other systems in 

addition to linguistic one. Consequently, the translated text should maintain 

content synchrony with the other message components." 

Pictures are not the only extra-linguistic component in a song; music 

also is a very important part of the message.  

"Peter Low maintains that (2005:188) even when a poem, which is 

written as a poem (and not as lyrics) is arranged with music, then the 

translator can no longer disregard this fact when translating that poem. In 

other words, in such cases the translator should not translate the poem as a 

poem (which only consists of verbal codes). Rather he should translate the 

poems (song-lyrics) in order to take into account the non-verbal (musical) 



28 
 

codes in the process of translation as a determining factor. In short, in song-

lyrics, the music is regarded as one of the two communication channels that 

transmit the message. Many foreign listeners claim that they can relate to a 

song even when they do not understand its words. This is exactly because 

of the fact that the message is not communicated only through the verbal 

channel in a song." (As cited in Pedrami, 2011, p. 8, 9) 

2.3.3 Translating songs as poetry: 

Starting from the fact that the poem has some elements in common 

with the lyrics of a song, such as rhythm, meter, rhyme and parallelism; 

translators deal with songs as poems and translate them in the same way. 

Keeping the semantic elements of the original text is the main 

concern of a translator, as the same case in literal translation. According to 

Bly's (1982, p. 67-89) a translator has "Eight Stages of Translation":    

1. Literal (word for word) translation of the source text: this comes in 

parallel with Liddy (2002) first step of the "Five Tips on Translating 

Poetry" which is to "Stay Close to the Poem". This step forces the 

translator to be as faithful as he/she could. "The author in this stage 

pays close attention to the whole message embedded within the 

source text and will translate the words accordingly. The result 

would be something like a rough translation." (Pedrami, 2011, p. 14) 

2. Uncovering the real meaning of the original poem:  the translator's 

understanding of the ST is an essential step in the translation process, 



29 
 

as all the following changes depend on the translators' 

comprehensive look at all the text aspects.  "The translator uses all of 

his knowledge of the source language in order to dismantle the 

linguistic and aesthetic features of the source takes as he unravels the 

message embedded within them. This is the stage, in which the 

translator gets the idea of the poem, which will be the groundwork 

for translation." (ibid)    

3. Comparison of the literal translation and the meaning of the original: 

In this step, the translator should adjust the text produced in step one 

to fit the target audience taste and language background and make it 

more accessible to the audience.  

4. Applying the form of the language of the original to translation: the 

TT style and language should harmonize with the ST style and 

language.   

5. Attention to the mood of the source text: according to Bly (1982, p. 

77) "a translator needs to have written poetry himself; he needs the 

experience in writing from the moods, pleasant or sad, the elegance 

and sensitive or rough, high or low, etc." (ibid) 

6. Attention to the sounds and rhythms of the source text: the ST may 

or may not transfer the original rhythm, but Bly (1982) insists on the 

importance of having musical devices, such as rhythm and 

assonance.  



30 
 

7. Asking the native speaker of the TL to read the translation: the native 

speaker is more capable of observing any odd detail connected to the 

style or language. 

8. Reviewing the translation and making the final revision:  the last step 

is to put the final touch and change any unwanted detail. 

  Matthews (1912) in his book (Navajo Myths, Prayers, and Songs 

with Texts and Translations) translated the song as poetry. According to 

Parker (2003),'' the reception history of Matthews's translation of songs and 

prayers conflated them both into poetry almost indiscriminately". Flintlock 

(2017) goes even farther and rejects calling lyricists as poets "lyrics are not 

poetry and lyricists are not poets." 

"By following the aforementioned steps one can produce a 

translation that conveys the semantic content of the original; however, it 

should be again pointed out that this approach does not account for the 

extra-linguistic features of the original (mainly its music) and the final 

product will be in the form of a blank verse rather than a lyric."(Pedrami, 

2011, p. 16) 

2.3.4 Pentathlon approach:  

Many approaches, such as literal translation and word-for-word 

translation try in producing a text that a singer can perform and sound like 

an original song. From this point, Low (in Gorlee ed. 2005) presents a five-

step approach to song translation (The Pentathlon Approach). 



31 
 

The pentathlon approach addresses songs' translation from a 

functionalist point of view which relies on the importance of text type, 

which aims "to produce a text which a singer can sing to an audience" Low 

(in Gorlee ed, 2005, p. 185). Low (2005)  identifies five criteria that should 

be in balance to produce a song that fits the original music. "The five 

criteria proposed by Low in pentathlon approach are in order of priority. 

Thus, the first criterion that regulates and manipulates the other four is 

Singability" (Pedrami, 2011, p. 8) 

1. Singability. 

2. Sense. 

3. Naturalness. 

4. Rhyme.  

5. Rhythm. 

"Such a skopos (producing a target text which will be fit to the 

preexisting music and also have all the musical characteristics of the source 

text) will allow the translator to foreground the musical aspect of a text 

while putting other verbal features even the semantic content of the text in 

background. Then, Low (in Gorlee ed. 2005) invokes Christiane Nord's 

functional approach in translation in which Nord suggests that the 

translation should fulfill its intended function in the target situation 

(1977:92) in his pentathlon".  



32 
 

Low (2016, p.185) insists on a flexible and pragmatic approach to all 

those features, paying special attention to the overall effect of the translated 

song, which should create the illusion that the source music was actually 

devised for the target lyric. He says the target translation ―must give the 

overall impression that the music has been devised to fit it, even though 

that music was actually composed to fit the source text.‖ 

Low (2005, p. 2016) sets that translators should ―score highly in the 

overall effect of the text, without insisting on unbeatable excellence on any 

single criterion.‖ 

In my opinion, this approach is more suitable to the songs than other 

ones like literal and poetry translation. As the pentathlon approach cares 

about the meaning and music.   

2.3.5 Franzon’s Approaches to songs translation: 

Franzon‘s (2014) assumes that any song has three properties (music, 

lyrics and prospective performance). Based on these three components, he 

suggests that a translator has five options to translate a song. These options 

are:  

1.  Leaving the song untranslated. 

2.  Translating the lyrics without considering if these words will fit the 

music  

3.  Taking the musical set then writing a new song in the TT based on it.  



33 
 

4.  Translating the lyrics and adapting the music to the TT words to the 

extent that a completely new song is created.  

5.  Adapting the translation to the original music. 

  Translators undergo the limitation of music; the music affects the 

translators' word choice. 

The translator's decision to give priority to either words, music or to 

create a singable text in the TT, i.e. writing new lyrics, adapting the music 

to the translation of lyrics, and adapting the translation to fit the music 

depends on his/her intention. Then, to achieve singability and 

performability, translators may follow the last three options mentioned 

above. In order to have a singable translation, there should be a match 

between lyrics and music depending on three steps ‗the three layers of 

singability‘. To achieve a singable lyric there should be a match between 

the layers. 

  



34 
 

Table (1): Functional Consequences of Match between Lyrics and 

Music (Franzon 2014) 

A singable lyric 

Achieves 

by observing the 

music’s 

which may appear in 

the text as 

1. a prosodic match melody: music as 

notated, producing lyrics 

that are comprehensible 

and sound natural when 

sung 

syllable count; rhythm; 

intonation, stress; 

sounds for easy 

singing 

2. a poetic match structure: music as 

performed, producing 

lyrics that attract the 

audience‘ attention and 

achieve poetic effect 

rhyme; segmentation 

of phrases/ lines/ 

stanzas; parallelism 

and contrast; location 

of keywords 

3. a semantic-

reflexive match 

expression: music 

perceived as meaningful, 

producing lyrics that 

reflect or explain what 

the music ‗says‘ 

the story told, mood 

conveyed, character(s) 

expressed; description 

(word-painting); 

metaphor 

 (Aminoroaya and Amirian, 2016, p. 47) say that Low "asserts that 

the need for a poetic or semantic-reflexive match varies depending on the 

characteristics of the song. Song Translation and the translated songs which 

appear in movies are an interdependence of words, music, and image. Each 

of these elements creates several constraints for translating a song. Words 

bring with them the problems of linguistic and cultural references, while 

music leads to the problems of rhyme, rhythm, prosody, and so forth. 

Image also contributes to a wide range of constraints, the most prominent 

of which is synchrony between the words and image." 

  



35 
 

2.4 Equivalence: 

Translators expect to have some problems in translating an English 

song into an equivalent Arabic one; there is no one-to-one correspondence 

between these two languages. Translating a song is mainly based on 

replacing the source text's words with suitable ones in the target language, 

or giving equivalents to the foreign words. 

Equivalence is an ambiguous word; the Oxford dictionary defines 

equivalence as presenting the same, similar or interchangeable value of 

something with something else. Jacobson (1957) identifies it simply as 

‗Unity in difference‘ or ‗Sameness in difference‘. 

Different scholars such as Darbelent and Vinay have tried to define 

the concept of equivalency. They give a definition based on the text they 

are dealing with and the translation level they focus on. Darbelnet and 

Vinay (1989, p. 342), for example, state that equivalence "replicates the 

same situation as in the original, whilst using completely different 

wording"(As cited in Shuttleworth, 2011, p. 51). In other words, 

equivalence is a term used to refer to the nature and extent of the 

relationships between SL and TL texts or smaller linguistic units 

(Firmansyah, 2013). Theorists classify equivalency from two points of 

views: 

 The taxonomic view 

 The relativist view 



36 
 

2.4.1 The taxonomic view: 

 Nida and Taber (1969) present two types of equivalents: formal and 

dynamic. According to Nida (1969, p. 159), Formal equivalence 

"focuses attention on the message itself, in both form and content". 

They (2003, p. 12) call the dynamic equivalence "the closest natural 

equivalent to the source-language message". 

The equivalent effect is based on the ―four basic requirements of a 

translation‖: 

1. Making sense; 

2. Conveying the spirit and manner of the original; 

3. Having a natural and easy form of expression; 

4. Producing a similar response. 

  Newmark (1988) as well mentioned two types of equivalents: 

communicative (Nida's dynamic equivalence) and semantic (Nida's 

formal equivalence). 

 Koller (1995) distinguished between six different types of 

equivalence: 

1. Denotative equivalence: related to the extralinguistic content of a 

text (―content invariance (;  



37 
 

2. Connotative equivalence: related to the lexical choices, 

especially between near-synonyms (―stylistic equivalence”) 

3. Text-normative equivalence: related to text types; 

4. Pragmatic/communicative: equivalence that oriented towards the 

receiver of the text or message; 

5. Formal equivalence: related to the form and aesthetics of the text, 

includes word plays and the individual stylistic features of the ST 

(―expressive equivalence‖). (as cited in Arjuna,2013)  

2.4.2 The relativist view: 

Moisa (2013) titles this view "Campaign against equivalence" then 

she lists some theorist as, 

 Snell-Hornby (1988) who rejects identity assumption; equivalence is 

an illusion 

 Holmes / Toury (1988, 1980) who list three main lines of arguments:   

1.  Rejects sameness as a criterion for any relation between SLT and 

TLT. 

2.  Equivalence is to be replaced by a more relative term: similarity, 

matching, family resemblance (a number of resemblances).  

3.  Translator‘s rationality is descriptive (more than one possible 

solution); using norms TLR is to find the most suitable solution.  



38 
 

 Toury (1980) believes in comparative literary studies:  

1. TL culture is the starting point, not SL culture  

2. start with existing translations and study the resemblances 

existing between these and their SL texts;  

3.  deduce what TR strategies have been used (throughout history);  

4.  establish various constraints & norms impinging on the TLR‘s 

decision-making  

  Reiss (1983) states skopos theory, which does not seek to achieve 

the same skopos as the original, but what the skopos of the 

translation is (e.g. poetry, purpose, etc.) 

Baker's (2006) demonstrates an equivalence typology: 

1. Equivalence at word level: the meaning of single words and 

expressions; 

2. Equivalence above word level: explores combinations of words and 

phrases (stretches of language); 

3. Grammatical equivalence: deals with grammatical categories; 

4. Textual equivalence: discusses the text level (word order, cohesion, 

etc.); 



39 
 

5. Pragmatic equivalence: how texts are used in communicative 

situations that involve variables such as writers, readers, and cultural 

context. 

Most scholars in translation theory reject the idea of equivalency. 

According to Bell (1991:6(―the ideal of total equivalence is impossible. 

Languages are different from each other; they are different in form having 

distinct codes and rules regulating the construction of grammatical 

stretches of language and these forms have different meanings.[...]There is 

no absolute synonymy between words in the same language, so why should 

anyone be surprised to discover a lack of synonymy between languages?‖ 

According to Catford (1965, p. 21), equivalency is the main problem 

of translation. "The central problem of translation-problem is that of 

finding TL (target language) equivalents. The central task of translation 

theory is finding the nature of conditions of translation equivalence." 

Equivalency is also a crucial topic to discuss when a translator needs to 

analyze any translated text. "The concept of equivalence is also the basis of 

translation criticism and it is the fundamental criterion of translation 

quality." (Frank et al, 2004, p.710. as cited in Leonardi, 2014, p. 6)   

The problem of equivalence of translated lyrics lies in words, which 

are included as the content word: verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs, as 

well as the effects caused by the translation of the song. According to Reiss 

(1986), picking a suitable equivalence should be adequate to the target 

audience and TL so adequacy is the principle, which governs the process. 



40 
 

"Adequacy is simply appropriateness. Appropriateness is nothing in itself: 

it has to be seen in relation to action. You do something appropriate in 

relation to the purpose of what is done. Every time a translator takes a 

decision, the dominant factor is the purpose of translation, so translational 

decision must be appropriate for this purpose. Adequacy is thus a relation 

between mean and purpose, and is thereby process-oriented."(ibid, p. 301) 

Nida (1969, p. 64) states that the rate of adequacy of different 

translations of the same text "can only be determined in terms of the extent 

to which each translation successfully fulfills the purpose for which it was 

intended." 

Translators must take into consideration the different dimensions of 

a text since it has linguistic, semantic and pragmatic context. In brief, there 

is not a perfect equivalent, but the translation should be direct and simple 

as possible since the translator's main duty is to make his version a little 

more accessible to the reader (Baker, 200). In addition, "the translator 

should be able to translate the text naturally. Even if that means the 

translator changes the structure of the sentence, adds, or erases one or more 

words into the translation. If necessary, the translator needs to look for 

synonymies or paraphrase the sentence for the text, in order to make the 

whole text natural"(Pudgiono, 2017). Leaving out some shade of meanings 

occasionally is acceptable, in my point of view, when this would serve the 

other principles (Singability, Sense, Naturalness and performability).  



41 
 

2.5 Musical and acquisition: 

Music is an invisible element to children they cannot see it as the 

pictures or read it as the lyrics. However, they recognize the melody of a 

song long before they understand the words. They often try to mimic 

sounds and start moving to the music as soon as they are physically able. 

According to the Oxford dictionary (2015, p. 509) music is "an 

arrangement of sounds in patterns to be sung or played on instruments. 

The musical part is taken for granted though according to Bright 

Horizons Family Solutions Organization, the role of music is paramount to 

the kids' life. A 2016 study at the University of Southern California‘s Brain 

and Creativity Institute found that musical experiences in childhood play an 

important role in the child's brain development, particularly in the areas of 

language acquisition and reading skills. It also helps in expanding the 

child's imagination and enhancing his creativity . 

Brown (2016) emphasizes the link between language acquisition and 

music. He publishes an article in which he discusses how it is more than 

just music. Brown (2016) mentions six benefits of "Music Education", the 

main three the study is interested in are: 

1. Language Development 

“When you look at children's age of two to nine, one of the 

breakthroughs in that area is music‘s benefit for language 

development, which is so important at that stage,‖ says Pearson 



42 
 

(2016, p. 2). While children come into the world ready to decode 

sounds and words, music education helps enhance those natural 

abilities. ―Growing up in a musically rich environment is often 

advantageous for children‘s language development,‖ she says. 

However, Pearson (2016, p. 2) adds that those inborn capacities need 

to be ―reinforced, practiced, celebrated,‖ which can be done at home 

or in a more formal music education setting. 

2. Increased IQ 

Numerous studies suggest that young children with early exposure to 

music acquire increased social behavior benefits as well as higher IQ test 

scores. For example, a study by Schellenberg (2004) at the University of 

Toronto at Mississauga discusses the effect of music on children. 

 Schellenberg's study (2004) provides nine months of piano lessons 

to a dozen six-year-olds, drama lessons (to see if exposure to arts in general 

versus just music had an effect) to the second group of six-year-olds, and 

no lessons to a third group . 

Surprisingly, the children who were given music lessons over the 

school year tested on average three IQ points higher than the other groups.  

3. The Brain Works Harder 

Research indicates the brain of a musician, even a young one, works 

differently than that of a nonmusician. ―There‘s some good neuroscience 



43 
 

research that children involved in music have larger growth of neural 

activity than people not in music training. When you‘re a musician and 

you‘re playing an instrument, you have to be using more of your brain,‖ 

says Dr. Eric Rasmussen (as cited in Brown, 2016:2), chair of the Early 

Childhood Music Department at the Peabody Preparatory of The Johns 

Hopkins University, where he teaches a specialized music curriculum for 

children aged two months to nine years. 

According to the Children‘s Music Workshop
1
, the effect of music 

education on language development can be seen in the brain. ―Recent 

studies have clearly indicated that musical training physically develops the 

part of the left side of the brain known to be involved with processing 

language, and can actually wire the brain‘s circuits in specific ways. 

Linking familiar songs to new information can also help imprint 

information on young minds,‖ the group claims. 

This relationship between music and language development is also 

socially advantageous to young children. ―The development of language 

over time tends to enhance parts of the brain that help process music,‖ says 

Dr. Kyle Pruett, clinical professor of child psychiatry at Yale School of 

Medicine and a practicing musician. ―Language competence is at the root 

of social competence. Musical experience strengthens the capacity to be 

verbally competent”. 

                                                           
1
 Children’s Music Workshop is a music education company which specializes in custom designed band 
and orchestra method books, Emmy award winning music videos, music education advocacy and more. 



44 
 

This fact does not mean that parents can introduce children to any 

kind of music. It is important for children to be consulted about the kind of 

music they prefer to listen to. It is important that parents test their children 

to see which music suits them and affects their behavior. 

The study is interested in three musical devices rhyme, meter and 

onomatopoeia. Since rhyme and meter are the most distinguished character 

in a song. While onomatopoeic sounds are picked as they are used in many 

songs. 

2.5.1 Rhyme: 

Rhyme is the correspondence of sound between words or the endings 

of words, especially when these are used at the ends of lines of poetry, for 

example: buy and shy. Rhyme is a very important feature of songs.  

According to Coenraats (2007:29) "rhyme might help the singer; it might 

make the song more singable to preserve rhyme. Also, rhyme seems to me 

one of the main features of a song, though is not strictly so that songs have 

to rhyme."  

There are four types of rhyme, according to their position in the verse: 

1. End rhymes: 

It is the rhyming syllables that appear only at the end of the verse. It 

is the most used form of rhyme. For example, the following verses 

from  "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost: 



45 
 

Whose woods these are I think I know 

His house is in the village, though 

According to Low (2016, p. 7) 

"This rhyme is more prominent and audible than the ‗passing 

rhymes‘ which the singer does not dwell on. Now a weak 

clinching rhyme can be a serious defect, in a song or any 

rhyming verse. In a rhymed quatrain, therefore, I consider the 

final rhyme the most important." 

2. Internal rhyme: 

It is the rhyming syllables that appear within the lines. For example, 

Looking for dinner around the river. 

Poetics and lyricists use internal rhyme to upgrade the musical level. 

3. Slant rhyme: 

It is also known as approximate rhyme or imperfect rhyme. In this 

case, the syllables sounds are similar, but they are not close enough to 

make a full rhyme. For example, 

Like the grown-ups we will all put 

On our plates some fresh and sweet fruit 

4. Rhyming couplet 



46 
 

The AABB rhyme scheme is one of the most used rhymes scheme 

that lyricist and poets follow while writing to children. This form also 

called a rhyming couplet; a rhyming couplet is two lines of the same meter 

that rhyme. In English, for example, "Morning Song"   

Come on children, let's get up 

It is time for washing up 

Don't forget your teeth to brush 

Even when you're in a rush 

Wash your face and comb your hair 

Now let's pick out what to wear 

Another Arabic example from, )1)أنا النحمة
 which is originally written in 

Arabic 

 انا النحمة زنانة 

 شو أموره وحنانة

 نشيطة كتير وما بمل 

 ألصنع اطيب عسل

These verses in both languages are following the AABB rhyme 

scheme, rhyme does not have to be an AABB rhyme scheme, Arabic kids' 

                                                           
1
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqaBwnmexKo  



47 
 

song may have different types of rhyme but all the songs do have rhyme 

take 
1 ة()انا الجزر  , for instance, 

 انا انا الجزرة

 دوقني ما بتنسوني

 أكون مقشرة  الم

 ما احال طعمي ولوني

  The previous song follows the ABAB rhyme scheme, but the AABB 

type of rhyme scheme is more preferable as it produces catchy and 

interesting music. According to Sinha (2018): 

 Even though most rhyme schemes produce a kind of rhythm in 

poems, it is AABB rhyme that gives them a musical touch that is 

instantly catchy and effectively attention grasping. 

 It is this rhyme scheme that makes it easiest for the kid to memorize 

the poem. Moreover, any text (even if it is not poetry), if constructed 

in this pattern of rhyme can be easily memorized by the kid. 

Therefore, knowledge of it comes in use regardless of the kid‘s area 

of interest. 

 This rhyme scheme is easy to identify and even compose. Kids can 

be given an exercise to find certain rhyming words and compose a 

poem of their own. 

                                                           
1
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvZNPFUFq_s 



48 
 

 Rhymes are often composed to create a certain kind of mood and 

AABB rhyme scheme creates a mood of fun and frolic especially 

suitable for kids. It is often used in verses meant for adults as well 

especially when it has to convey something comic or pleasant. 

Low (2016, p. 6) believes a translator should ask himself three 

questions before starting the translation process about rhyme:  

1. Are rhymes frequent in the source text? 

2. Is rhyme important in the source text? 

3. Is it a comic song? 

These questions lead the translators to other questions as: 

1. Should a translator stick to the original rhyme scheme? 

2. Should a translator change the meaning to follow the rhyme scheme? 

3. How leaving the rhyme scheme affects the nature and sense of the 

song? 

These questions and other push the translator to a bigger question, 

namely, what is more important to preserve meaning or music? 

Many theorist and translators try to answer these questions. Finally, 

all of them agree on the importance of rhyme, but they illustrate different 

ways to convey it between languages. Dyer-Bennet (2011, as cited in Low, 

2005, p. 190) presents four guidelines to produce a singable translation of 



49 
 

songs in which he demonstrates that the original rhyme scheme should be 

preserved, as it is the feature that gives a song its shape: 

(1)  The TT must be singable otherwise, any other virtues it has are 

meaningless;  

(2)  The TT must sound as if the music had been fitted to it, even 

though it was actually composed to fit the source text; 

 (3)  The rhyme-scheme of the of the original poetry must be kept because 

it gives shape to the phrases; 

(4)  Liberties must be taken with the original meaning when the first 

three requirements cannot otherwise be met. 

Fadaee (2011, p. 201) points of view proved Dyer-Bennet's theory 

wrong, as the TT including the rhyme should be following the TL rules not 

the SL to produce a natural song since "There is no universal naturalness. 

Naturalness depends on the relationship between the writer and the 

readership and the topic or situation. What is natural in one situation may 

be unnatural in another, but everyone has a natural, 'neutral' language 

where spoken and informal written language, more or less, coincide". 

Being natural to the TL makes the other principles such as 

singability and performability more reachable. This comes along with 

Anani's (2003) two-phase process of translation, which translators should 

use while translating a literary text. These phases are:  



50 
 

1. Interpretation: when a translator translates the text only within a 

linguistic framework, he/she transfer the text according to his/her 

word capacity, thought and feelings. 

2. Drafting: the translator in this phase is a writer not a conveyor, 

he/she writes as if the text his/her own creation. While drafting 

translator should pay attention to other factors, which makes the text 

more acceptable and likeable to the target audience. 

According to Annani's process, translators should follow the TL 

culture and background in every aspect even the musical one. 

2.5.2 Onomatopoeia: 

Onomatopoeia is a word that imitates or suggests the source of the 

sound that it makes. For example, ding- dong that refers to the sound of 

bells or boom, which reflects the sound explosion or crash. Garcés de 

Diego (2008, p. 241-243) distinguishes between four onomatopoeic forms:  

1. sounds produced by animals (e.g., tweet-tweet and pío-pío), 

unarticulated, 

2. sounds produced by humans (e.g., smack and plaf),  

3. sounds expressing feelings or attitudes (e.g., phew and uf)  

4.  artificial sounds (e.g., band and pum) (as cited in Regot, 2015, p.1) 



51 
 

The classification could be simpler as Rozmej and Drabikowska 

(2015) have classified two general types of onomatopoeia. Those are 

imitative onomatopoeia and echoic onomatopoeia. This classification is not 

based on what is designated but on what is imitated. Imitative 

onomatopoeia refers to the sounds that are produced by human‘s vocal 

apparatus or by other animate beings. For example, it could be human‘s 

mouth productions (stutter and mumble) and animal‘s cries (bark, chirp, 

and others). (As cited in Mansur et al, 2018, p. 129) 

Onomatopoeic sounds mimic different sounds in different languages. 

In the case of children's song, animals' sounds are a universal example of 

onomatopoeic sounds that found in many songs.  

In the case of animal sound, you may ask yourself are we supposed 

to translate these sounds? Do animals make different sounds in different 

languages?  According to Okrent (2016) starting from the fact that 

languages have different words to represent the same object a rooster can 

be (ilgallo) or (ondori) depending on whether you speak Italian or 

Japanese. However, the sounds that animal make should be the same, 

regardless of the language is. Actually if we are just imitating a sound, that 

is the same all over the world, finally, we will all come up with the same 

thing. If we were just imitating a sound, that is probably what would 

happen, but we are not just imitating sounds. We also give a sound a name. 

(ku ku ku ku) is what a person here, the real sound, but cock a doodle –do 

is a word or the name which people use to refer to the rooster sound. 



52 
 

Peoples do this to be able to talk about the sound more easily. In exchange, 

the sounds give up its naturalness and follow the language rules.  

According to (Regot, 2015, p. 5) "Onomatopoeic forms change 

across languages because of phonetic differences". The phonetic rules, in 

coining a word to represent a sound or a word in the process of translation, 

will be different for different languages. Okrent (2016) states that Japanese 

word cannot begin with /ku/ sound so the duck cannot say quack. Japanese 

also does not allow consonant cluster when it comes to /d/ and/l/ sound, so 

cock a doodle –do is out of question.  It is not just, what a language lacks of 

that determines phonetic differences, but also what is also does have. A 

language that makes good use of nasal vowels likes (oin) or guttural /r/ is 

better able to capture some features animals sounds that one does not. 

French can play up different aspects of the sound with the inventory of its 

sounds capacity, so the pig in French can say (groin groin). Not every 

language has a word for every animal sound; to coin a word for an animal 

sound, the animal should have a least a spot in the child's life. It might just 

not be important to a culture to sum up a word for every sound as a raccoon 

or a fox sounds like. Turkish does not have a pig sound for that reason, but 

with its high rounded vowel, it has the most faithful sound for a roster (ü 

ürüü ü). Onomatopoeia is not limited to animals' sounds that differ from a 

language to a language; words for all kind of sounds expressed differently 

for the same reasons.  We laugh, cry and cough in the same way. However 



53 
 

we have different ways to represent these sounds, just as there are many 

ways to translate them. 

(Regot, 2015) focuses on the translation of onomatopoeia in different 

contexts, of those onomatopoeic forms with no direct equivalent in the 

target language and the specific case of m? context: depending on the 

context and language a translator deal with, he /she should react according 

to the language has, for example, translating English onomatopoeic sounds 

into Spanish onomatopoeic forms make the text sound more colloquial, so 

when a translator faces an English onomatopoeic sound he/she transfers it 

without a change. English onomatopoeic sounds are hardly ever translated 

as the people all over the world understand them easily.  

1. Translating onomatopoeia with no direct equivalent in the target 

language: "One of the best solutions is to select an onomatopoeic 

form which is used in similar situations or for similar sounds and 

which evokes a sound that we could associate with that situation. In 

the case of English and Spanish, the former is clearly more varied in 

onomatopoeia, and it has, for instance, an onomatopoeic form for the 

sound of rabbits: snuffle-snuffle (Riera-Eures and Sanjaume 2010, p. 

20). Spanish does not have this level of specificity and, therefore, 

probably the best solution would be to use the onomatopoeic forms 

―hi hi‖ or ―iii‖, which are used for other rodents such as rats or 

hamsters. Another six popular strategies that have also been favored 

by the influence of English in comic books is the adaptation of the 



54 
 

form in the source language to the spelling of the target language. 

This already happens between English and Spanish with 

onomatopoeia like a sniff, which is translated as ―snif‖ or ―esnif‖. 

(ibid, p. 5,6) 

2. Translating "mots expressifs": This French phrase literary means 

―expressive words‖ and refers to phonosymbolic nouns and 

verbsusually monosyllabicthat evoke a sound due to their 

phonological form (Gasca and Gubern 2008,p.  8). Spanish 

translators cannot use this procedure as it is not as dynamic as 

English. So, mots expressifs are not used as onomatopoeia form. For 

example, Take, the Spanish onomatopoeic form tintinear (―to 

jingle‖), the morphological ending cancels the possibility to use this 

word as a proper onomatopoeic form. Other languages take Arabic, 

for instance, is so dynamic it could derive many forms from an 

onomatopoeic word such)دندن, يدندن ) these words are a present and 

past form of the onomatopoeic sound )دندنة(. 

Phonetic differences are responsible for having different 

onomatopoeic words across languages. But this is not the only reason. 

According to Riera and Sanjaume (2011, p.14) claim that the complexity of 

natural sounds and our individual hearing abilities also influence how 

people verbalize sounds (as cited in ibid, p. 5).   "The constraints appeared 

may lead the translator to apply some direct translation as borrowing 

techniques either pure or naturalized. Although the translation techniques 



55 
 

tremendously affect the result of the translations, especially in case of the 

shifts occurred, the meaning and the intention including the sense and the 

nuance are persistently preserved." (Mansur et al, 2018, p. 133) 

Onomatopoeic sounds are a major character in kids' song. T  

herefore, "the translation of onomatopoeia deserves more attention than it 

actually gets. Their differences in form and number across languages make 

their translation a subject of debate in which there are no infallible 

strategies. These differences also prove that their translation involves the 

same problems as the translation of language in general". (ibid, p.10)  

2.5.3 Meter: 

"Meter is what gives a poem its unique rhythm. In traditional English 

poetry, the meter has two main parts. The first part is the number of 

syllables in each line. The second part is when syllables sound stronger 

than others do. Because it depends on both of these factors, English poetry 

is often called accentual-syllabic verse. When we scan a line of poetry, we 

are looking for the smallest pieces of the pattern. These pieces are called 

metrical feet. A metrical foot is simply a grouping of strong and weak 

skyllables."  Sinclair (2014, p. 2) 

Therefore, a meter is the measurement of poetry based on the 

structural rhythm of verse.  A meter is a collection of feet; they are the 

basic component of a meter. According to the sequence of stressed 



56 
 

(accented) syllable and unstressed (unaccented) syllables, we have six 

types of feet as classified by Eidelberg (2014): 

1. Iambic: (a rising foot) one unstressed syllable (U) followed by a 

stressed syllable (X) as,  

 Delight   De-light  UX 

It is a very common meter in English language; this type is usually 

used in our daily conversation. 

2. Anapest: (a rising foot) two unstressed syllable followed by a 

stressed one as, 

 Understand   Un-der-stand  UUX 

Almost used to express comic felling. 

3. Trochee: (a fallen foot) one stressed syllable followed by one 

unstressed syllable as, 

 Lover   Lov-er  XU 

4. Dactyl: (a fallen foot) one stressed syllable followed by two 

unstressed syllables. 

 Poetry   Po-e-try  XUU 

5. Spondee: only two stressed syllables as, 

 Football   Foot-ball  XX 

6. Pyrrhic: two unstressed syllables as, 

When the blood creeps and the nerves prick. 



57 
 

"When the" and "and the" may be considered as pyrrhic. 

The number of feet in each line determines the type of meter as: 

 A meter with two feet is called 'diameter. 

 A meter with three feet is called 'trimeter.'  

 A meter with four feet is called 'tetrameter.' 

 A meter with five feet is called 'pentameter.'  

 A meter with six feet is called 'hexameter.' 

For example, 

Rabbit jack / just came back, (This is a diameter line with two feet.) 

The rest of the song follows the same meter. 

Palestinian Arabic has an especial meter for kids' songs )بحر اليزج( 

which consists of one stressed syllable followed by three unstressed 

syllables (XUUU). 

Gibbons (1985, p. 667) states that translators choose to treat the 

lyrics as a regular text and ignore the meter in the translation process beside 

other musical devices. "Too many English-language translators (and I 

speak mostly of Americans, whose work I see more frequently) have, 

however, decided to abandon overt formal devices altogether. I say "overt" 

only because it seems necessary to emphasize that rhyme and meter, formal 



58 
 

devices of great traditional importance, are only special and obvious types 

of formal techniques among the many at work throughout the body of a 

poem." According to him, translators do that "as if the absence of these 

were itself a sign of their affinity with the original, or of the original poem's 

intrinsic worth." Therefore, "it is no accident that in our age of mostly 

unrhymed and un-metrical poetry (such as my own, in large part), most 

translation of formal poems are neither rhymed nor metered." (ibid, p. 667) 

 

  



59 
 

Chapter Three 

Methodology 

3.1 Introduction:  

This chapter discusses in detail the research methodology that has 

been adopted in this study. The first section describes the research method 

and the steps involved, followed by the data collection.  

3.2 Research Method: 

This study starts as a descriptive qualitative one since the researcher 

collects a group of English kids' song with their corresponding Arabic 

translations then describes the translation strategies used in the translation 

process. In order to do that, the researcher classifies the collection 

according to the most frequent translation strategies applied in the 

translation of songs: direct translation, poetry translation, Pentathlon 

approach, linguistic and extra-linguistic translation and Franzon‘s 

Approaches.  

The study also explains the effect of using these strategies in 

producing Arabic kids' songs depending on the four requirements produced 

by Low (2016) and Franzon (2014): singability, sense, naturalness and 

performability. 

The first step in the pre-analysis phase was to select the texts and 

decide on the translation strategy the translator follows, then compares the 



60 
 

lyrics with the music and sees if the words fit the music and fulfills the 

songs requirements depending on the presence of the three musical devices: 

rhyme, onomatopoeia and meter. Finally, the researcher picks out some 

pictures to test the relation between the linguistic and extra- linguistic data. 

After that, the study switched to be a qualitative one as the researcher 

starts to compare the lengths and words numbers between the two versions 

of the same song between the two languages; each song was counted by 

using the word count function in Microsoft Word processing program. 

Finally, the researcher compares between two Arabic translations for the 

same song to see the effect of changing the translation strategy on 

producing a successful song.     

3.3 Data Collection:  

The collected data is a number of songs that are retrieved mainly 

from a "Baby TV" YouTube and television channel. As of December 2018, 

the channel has 1,084,201 followers on YouTube. According to the channel 

website, Baby TV is a television and YouTube channel for children, 

distributed worldwide by Fox Networks Group. Launched in 2003 in Israel, 

Baby TV is distributed in over 100 countries, such as Japan, Italy, Spain 

and India and broadcasting in 18 languages. 

The research has three types of data: textual (lyrics), non-textual 

(music) and visual (picture). The data is gathered from a number of popular 

English animated songs that were already translated into Arabic by the 



61 
 

same channel. The duration of each song ranges from 1:34 minute to 2:45 

minutes. The subjects of the songs vary according to the story that the song 

tells. They are presented with a colorful series of pictures. The songs topics 

cover all early learning skills and developmental milestones for the toddler 

in an interesting way, such as: nature, animals and guessing games. 

The researcher chooses songs to analyze according to three criteria:  

1. Popular songs, such as 'Old MacDonald', 'Twinkle Twinkle Little 

Star' and 'The Itsy Bitsy Spider.  

2. Songs published on Palestinian TV (Mada TV).  

3. Finally, the study chooses the songs provided by the Arabic version. 

  



62 
 

Chapter Four 

Analysis 

4.1 Introduction: 

In this chapter, the researcher discusses the retrieved data. The 

discussion focuses on the research questions and objectives and lists the 

necessary examples to be examined in relation to the objectives of this 

research.  

4.2 Musical Devices: 

4.2.1 Rhyme: 

Rhyme in songs is the repetition of similar sounding at the ending of 

words.  All the English songs under study use a series of rhyming couplets 

that are organized like AA BB CC…etc. This is an example of rhyme 

found in both the English and translated version of "Charlie and the 

Numbers‖ 
1
song. 

  

                                                           
1
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srEviGzg53I 



63 
 

Table (2): “Charlie and the Numbers” rhyme scheme 

The English Song The 

English 

Rhyme 

The 

Arabic 

rhyme 

The Arabic 

Translation
1
 

My name is number one A A واحد ىو أسمي 

–and I can reach the sun, A A في المقدمة أمشي 

My name is number two B B أسمي اثنان 

How do you do? B C اميرة عمى الدوام 

I am number three C D  اليانضموا 

Look at me C E أنا الرقم ثالثة 

As the table shows, the English version follows the AABB rhyme 

scheme, which is the rhyme that English lyricists often use to write 

children's song. This can be seen from (one /wʌn/ and sun /sʌn/) and (two 

/tuː/ and do /duː/. However, the Arabic version violates the AABB rhyme 

scheme. The Arabic lyrics rhyme pattern is AABD and this can be seen in 

 the rest of the song clearly highlights the lack (اثنان و الدوام( and )أسمي و أمشي(

of rhyme pattern. In other words, it does not follow any rhyme. This comes 

as a result of using direct translation process to produce an equivalent 

meaning by the translators while ignoring the rhyme. The Arabic lyric is 

equivalent to the English one since it conveys the English meaning only 

without considering the style. The Arabic translators are as faithful to the 

ST as they also use formal equivalents. The following example from 

"Tommy the Elephant" song expresses how these devices affect the 

singability and performability of the translated song. 

                                                           
1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcJBsW4T1tI&list=PLY0piYPLmuBirndwb1B7KoHgp3l

qwYuKX&index=3  



64 
 

The English song
1
: 

My elephant is small. His name is little Tommy 

Each day when he wakes up. He is looking at his mommy. 

The Arabic song: 

 اسمو توميفيمي الصغير و 

 .يستيقظ كل يوم و يذىب الى ُأمو

It could be noticed that the rhyme that occurs in the source songs 

was not transferred to the translated version. In order to have these musical 

additions, translators may review the translation strategies. Translators may 

give up the literal translation for "Tommy" and adapt the name to rhyme 

with "أمو" or transfer the word "mommy" to "مامي". One of these solutions 

will not affect the meaning; the translation strategies that the translator 

decides to use and the degree of faithfulness he/she chooses to follow affect 

the translated message from musical and aesthetic sides to produce a song 

that children enjoy. These slight changes could change these lines to a 

successful song from different angles not only the content.   

 

It is clear that all the English songs under study are following a 

rhyme scheme while the majority of the translated Arabic ones ignore the 

                                                           
1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcJBsW4T1tI&list=PLY0piYPLmuBirndwb1B7KoHgp3l

qwYuKX&index=3  



65 
 

rhyme. This might happen because the translators wanted to convey the 

meaning above all and present the equivalent meaning across the two 

languages. For example, the ―Five little monkeys‖
1
 song: 

Table (3): "Five little monkeys" song rhyme scheme 

The English song The 

English 

rhyme 

The 

Arabic 

rhyme 

The Arabic song
2
 

Five little monkeys 

jumping on the bed 

One fell off and bumped 

his head 

Mama called the doctor, 

And the doctor said 

No more monkeys 

jumping on the bed 

A 

A 

A 

A 

A 

B 

C 

A 

خمسة قرود صغيرة قفزوا 
 عمى السرير

 أحدىم وقع و أصيب برأسو
 فجاء الطبيب ونظر وقال 

 ممنوع القفز عمى السرير

In this example, the translator tries to translate every single word 

literally. In other words, the translator uses direct translation to transfer the 

whole story without missing a detail. In the example above, the English 

words (Bed, head, said and head) are called a perfect rhyme AAAA as the 

end of each word sounds like the others. In spite of the fact that their 

Arabic counterparts do not employ any kind of rhyme ABCA.  In general, 

ignoring the rhyme does not affect the translation. In other words, rhyme 

does not affect the sense of a song. Although keeping the rhyme scheme 

makes the song more memorable, this helps the children to memorize more 

vocabulary. Brown (2016) emphasizes the link between language 

acquisition and music. He publishes an article titled of "The Benefits of 

                                                           
1
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7d91afld15I&t=5s 

2
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ4Np9T1-cg&list=PLY0piYPLmuBirndwb1B7KoHgp3l 

qwYuKX&index=18 



66 
 

Musical Education" in which he discusses how music is more than just 

music to dance on or enjoy. Brown mentions six benefits of "Music 

Education", the one which is of our concern is language development.   

It is obviously seen that translators do not care much about the 

rhyme, but it is important to consider the audience that this song is 

presented to benefits and enjoys the rhyme. Also, translators must focuses 

of the main goal of the translation process which is presenting a song not a 

text. Children, like adults, love Songs that rhyme. As well as, songwriting 

has always been known from the rhyme. Without the rhyme the naturalness 

of a song is missing, therefore performability is not possible. Although 

these songs already have been sung, from a musical point of view, Assmar 

(2018) assures that, these unrhymed verses could not form a song.  

It is shown that there are many differences that take place in the 

translating Arabic songs compared to the English ones. These differences 

are causing a problem in the naturalness, singability and performability of a 

song. Rhyme in the first place affects the aesthetic part of the song not the 

meaning so "rhyme might be an essential to a song, but when it came to 

translation of song, rhyme is a musical device that is ignored easily." (Aji, 

2016, p. 49). Menacho stipulates that (2017) "If the original song rhymes, 

the translation should also rhyme even if you have to use different words 

that carry the same basic idea". 



67 
 

4.2.2 Onomatopoeia: 

  "Woof", "ding-dong" and "crunch" are examples of onomatopoeic 

words. Therefore, onomatopoeia is the sound made by an animal or an 

action. Onomatopoeic words are found a lot in kids' songs since the songs 

presents many sounds especially animal sounds because animals are almost 

found in every song. Songs also favor the use of onomatopoeia, unlike 

other genres like books that use words that are more related to formal 

language. The following examples explain how translators deal with 

onomatopoeia.  

Table (4): Animals sounds in English songs and their translation 

The 

strategy 

Animals sounds 

in the translated 

songs 

The literal 

Arabic 

translation 

Animals 

sounds in the 

English songs 

The song's 

name 

Direct 

transfer 
 Baa baa Baa Baa مأمأة 1با با

Black 

Sheep
2
 

Direct 

transfer 

مو مو3  
 أوينك
 نيو نيو

 خوار
 قباع

 صييل

Moo 

Oink 

Neigh 

Old 

MacDonald
4
 

As the examples suggest, Arab translators prefer keeping the English 

animals' sounds, for example, as the Arabic animals' sounds are hard to 

pronounce and remember for a child, they do not fit singing and hard to 

understand by children at an early age. Table (1) shows that, Arab 

                                                           
1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G85AqI5sjqs&list=PLY0piYPLmuBirndwb1B7KoHgp3lq

wYuKX&index=1 
2
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZm9imuAp6o 

3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPzsIiVc8CQ&index=5&list=PLY0piYPLmuBirndwb1B7

KoHgp3lqwYuKX 
4
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4k9MWdeSX8 



68 
 

translators usually keep the English words, which indicate animal sounds 

and do not substitute them with the literal Arabic equivalents. According to 

Darbelnet and Vinay (1989), "using source language terms in the target text 

are the best and simplest strategy to use especially when translators face 

meta-linguistic words". 

 Translators transfer the English sounds without a change since they 

are easy, catchy and closest to the natural sound as Regot (2013, p. 3) 

states: "English onomatopoeia are not translated because people understand 

them". Therefore, attracting children's attention and making them happy is 

more important than being accurate. Shaheen (1991) illustrates how 

theorists insist on paying attention to the audience and take in consideration 

that the audience is the only judge. "Nida and Taber (1969, as cited in 

Shaheen, 1991, p. 28), for example, have pointed out that the old focus on 

the form of the message in translating has shifted to the receptors, i.e. the 

readers. Therefore, it is the reader's response to the translated message that 

determines the correctness of that message." In other words, the sense, 

naturalness, performability and singability by keeping the onomatopoeic as 

presented in the original song are well fulfilled. 

4.2.3 Meter: 

Meter is the song rhymic structure.  Almost all English songs under 

study follow a meter. This is an example of meter found in both the English 



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and translated version from "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"
1
 song. English 

song: 

Twinkle/ twinkle /little/ star 

XU/XU/XU/X 

The song follows a trochaic tetrameter with an incomplete ending 

foot. From the definition and the example, it could be seen that meter is 

defined by the rhythm, which is the stressed and unstressed syllables in 

words in a verse. The following example illustrates all the data 

 Lyric 

English Baa baa black sheep/ have you any wool/ yes sir yes sir//                

Arabic صوف /نعم نعم// خرافنا ال/ديكم  
English Three bags full /one for the master/ one for the dame// 

 Arabic //أكياس ثالثة/ واحد لمعم /و واحد لمعمة 

These two lines have the same number of feet -trimeter- but the 

stress between the two versions differs, this technique was used to preserve 

the note duration of the original song in the translated song so singers use a 

melisma.  A melisma occurs when one syllable is spread over two or more 

notes in order to preserve the length of note. According to Low (2016), 

having the same lengths of notes is one of the requirements for having 

identical rhythm in a source song and its translation. Therefore, melisma 

can be considered as one of the techniques for retaining the rhythm of the 

original song. 

                                                           
1
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYfHqoAn_eQ 



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4.3 Kids' Song Translation Approaches: 

"To begin with, the approaches used for translating lyrics really 

depend on how the lyrics will be used" (Gorlée, 2005, p.1) 

4.3.1 Direct translation: 

Newmark (1988) Darbelnet and Vinay (1989) and other translators 

see songs translation demands a high level of respect for content starting 

from the idea that translating a song directly will produce a song. The 

example below indicates a song that uses direct translation.  This example 

is taken from "The Cat on the Fence"
1
 song, 

Example (1): The English song: 

On the fence the cat has blinked at me 

Singing a song with sweet melody. 

Not long and not short, a perfect song. 

Sing cat and I‘ll join you right along. 

The Arabic song: 

 قطة و نظرت الي عمى السياج وقفت

 اغنية لحنيا جميل تغن  

 لحن مثير ليس طويل وليس قصير

 سأنضم وأغني معك

                                                           
1
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_htajrOaus 



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As can be seen in example one, the English lyric has been translated 

directly into Arabic. The Arabic version is somehow acceptable if we 

consider the words as a text, not a song, so applying this approach to 

produce a song depending on Newmark's (1988) assumption that direct 

translation of a specific literary genre will produce the same literature genre 

fails. The Arabic text lacks for main musical devices that formulate the 

original song, such as, rhyme and meter and other minor ones like 

alliteration and assonance.  

English song rhyme:  

Me (mi:) …………A 

Melody (mɛlədi) ………..A 

Song (sɒŋ) ……….. B 

Along (əˈlɒŋ) ……