Translating emotions: a netnography of affect in a conference interpreting case during COVID-19

ABSTRACT

Conducting a netnography of affect from a participatory interface on bilibili.com, this article explores emotion transmission in an interpreting task. A parallel corpus was transcribed from an interpreting assignment in a press conference led by a China–WHO joint expert team during COVID-19. Drawing on the appraisal model proposed by Martin and White, I compare the speaker's and the interpreter's attitudinal lexis, and conduct an ethnographic study of online viewers' affective comments. The findings reveal that the interpreter accentuates the force and focus of emotions in her renditions through intensification and quantification, triggering ripple emotions manifest in onscreen remarks. To understand such affect, the study examines the semiotic resource of Danmu (live comments) on the participatory website along three affect dimensions. Drawing on the audience’s verbalized emotions, this research demonstrates that the interpreter foregrounds her visibility and effectively affects audience by performing as affective labor. This study contributes to empirical studies in interpreting reception by categorizing affect and broaden its application in the field of communications.

KEYWORDS:

• Appraisal
• emotion in translation
• netnography
• interpreting reception
• affect

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the editors and anonymous reviewers for their insight and patience on an earlier version of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 It still ranks the 51st most popular on bilibili.com (accessed on October 23, 2021).

2 http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-02/25/c_138814701.htm (accessed on October 15, 2021).

3 Yan Fu (1854–1921) was a prominent Chinese translator.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ran Xi

Ran Xi is a Ph.D. student from the University of Hong Kong. She is a Fulbright Alumna (2016–2017). She obtained her master degree in translation and interpreting studies in 2014. Her research interests include translation studies, discourse analysis and gender studies.