Low, Peter (2017): Translating Song. Lyrics and Text. London/New York: Routledge, 132 p.

Peter Low is one of the most significant figures in the area of singable translation: he has published extensively on the problem of singability and translation across many respected journals. It should be of no wonder then that he has decided to sum up his observations and present his expertise in a single volume devoted to translating song texts. The book Translating Song. Lyrics and Text was published as part of the series “Translation Practices Explained,” which leaves the reader with an almost immediate impression as to the expected content. Indeed, with its practice-oriented character, the publication presents hands-on experience illustrated with insightful examples as well as instructions for beginners interested in singable translation. The book is divided into seven chapters, starting with an informative introduction, in which the author discusses the significance of songs, drawing a distinction between two global approaches: a logocentric and a musico-centric one. Even though he underlines the role of lyrics, he admits that music is what catches the attention and what generally dominates, reiterating the fact that listeners often enjoy the song without understanding the sense of the words (see also Davies and Bentahila 2008: 250; Desblache 2019: 85-86). The second chapter concentrates on the source text, which unfortunately is not defined precisely (is it about the lyrics or a song text?) and which may be considered one of the shortcomings of the publication theory-wise. The author uses the term lyrics, song-lyrics and songs quite freely and interchangeably, clearly concentrating on the linguistic dimension. Utilising the text typology introduced by Reiss (1971/2001), he states that lyrics are texts of expressive character and, accordingly, the process of translation should be aimed at conveying the intention of creators rather than the informative load. Further on, Low lists several “upstream issues,” i.e. difficulties of the ST, including problems typical of translation in general rather than exclusive to song translation, such as the question of understanding the sense, taboo language, metaphors, cultural issues or non-standard language Chapter three is devoted to specific cases of translating song lyrics without the intention to perform the song and as such discusses gloss translation, translation for printed programmes, CD inserts, as well as subtitles and surtitles and translation in the form of a spoken introduction. Here, again, Low heavily relies on the concept of skopos and the functionalist framework, highlighting the problem of the change of the medium observed in all cases of “translation to read.” Interestingly enough, the author aptly emphasizes the additive or supplementary character of song lyrics, claiming that “[s]ong-translations are not stand-alone texts but adjunct texts” (p. 48), which clearly indicates that even in the case of readable translations music plays a vital role. Chapter four seems a logical follow-up to chapter two, since it touches on the question of “downstream” problems connected with creating the target text. Low resorts mainly to structural difficulties resulting from interlanguage contrasts and argues that translation loss seems almost inevitable. What is of importance is the sense of naturalness, which should be the overriding goal of translation (p. 65), unless there is a deliberate use of “creative deviations.” At this point Low refers to the seminal monograph by Nida and Taber (1969) and the concept of the closest natural equivalent. Whereas the avoidance of translationese has obvious merits, the reliance on linguistic theories that have been criticised for their atomistic perspective and ST-orientedness may be a point on which one may disagree with the author. However, Low defends his point of view by resorting to the domesticating-foreignising dichotomy and by concluding that domesticating is the adequate strategy to some degree, since obvious …