Exploring Skopos in the Dutch Dubbed Versions of the Songs of Disney's Frozen

Abstract

An important part in dubbing an animated musical film – as in any translation – is setting a purpose (perhaps subconsciously) for that particular project and establishing a set of priorities to achieve that purpose. This article investigates the purpose, or skopos, of the dubbing process of the Dutch songs from the 2013 Disney film Frozen, and analyses the effect of those skopi on the songs. This analysis uses the triangle of aspects, a comprehensive model to compare a dubbed version of a song to the original on several important aspects, such as rhythm, lip synchrony, and sense. It is found that the Dutch songs differ most from the originals on semantic aspects, while they are most similar on musical aspects, implying musicocentric skopi. The findings of this study offer a much-needed context for further comparative analyses in the genre of animated musical film dubbing.