A socio-biographical investigation on trajectory and primary habitus of Chinese digitally-born fan translators

ABSTRACT

The dynamic and participatory nature of the Internet has led researchers to examine the role of fast-growing digitally-based fan translation communities. Studies on fan translation are on the rise, but there has been little research on why fan translators inherently engage in translation activity or what social variables drive their participation. The dynamics of translation formation and the power dynamics that emerge at each level of the translation process are thought to be significantly influenced by prior socialisation experiences and historical constructs of translators. Thus, a diachronic investigation of the activity and motivations of fan translators in a specific social setting merits scholarly attention. Adopting Pierre-Bourdieu’s analytical concept of primary habitus, this article sets out to examine whether the motivations of fan translators’ participation in rendering foreign audiovisual materials are related to their early-formed dispositions. By collecting demographic and socio-biographical information through online questionnaires completed by 59 participants, as well as conducting semi-structured interviews with 21 participants, this study indicates that fan translators’ early dispositions, which are shaped by multicultural family upbringings and bilingual school education, contribute to the development of a digitalised and westernised primary habitus. This primary habitus is correlated with their future participation in online fansubbing communities.

KEYWORDS:

• Fan translation
• online translation community
• fansubbing
• translation motive
• translation sociology

1. Introduction

The surge of digital media has enabled a growing number of ordinary citizens and fans to participate in online translational activities. Participants in contemporary communication networks are now ‘prosumers’, as Toffler first coined in 1980, who have the potential to make and transmit their own media in a range of sophisticated styles, forms, and amounts in response to the dynamic media convergence ecosystem (Wang, 2022). Scholarly attention has been paid to the phenomena such as user-generated translation (O'Hagan, 2009; Perrino, 2009), community translation (DePalma & Kelly, 2008), network translation (Li, 2017), or online activist translation (Baker, 2018). Due to the dynamic and interactive nature of the Internet, researchers are further motivated by exploring the activity of translation done by fans for fans in cyberspace, including their production mechanism (Díaz-Cintas & Muñoz Sánchez, 2006; Wang, 2017), mutual engagement (Li, 2019; Lu & Lu, 2021), technological affordances (Díaz-Cintas, 2010; Wongseree, 2020) and neoliberal ethics (Hu, 2013).

As seen in previous studies on fan translation, a variety of methodologies have been used to analyse and characterise a number of fan translation communities and the forces driving their efforts, whether they are quantitative in the form of questionnaires (Lee, 2022), or qualitative in the form of meta-analysis (Luczaj & Holy-Luczaj, 2017), interviews and participant observation (Zhang & Mao, 2013), and textual analysis of translators’ sharing websites (Ameri & Khoshsaligheh, 2019), or mixed-method approaches such as ethnography (Čemerin & Toth, 2017). Despite these studies specifically examining the motivation of fan translators, little scholarly attention has been paid to why fan translators inherently engage in translation activity or what social variables drive their participation. In other words, fan translators’ motivations have primarily been analysed synchronically rather than diachronically. The dynamics of translation production and the power dynamics that emerge at each stage of the translation process are seen as being highly influenced by social actor’s past experience or translator’s historical constructions (Gouanvic, 2014). Given that present circumstances are not just there to be acted upon, but ‘are internalised and become yet another layer to add to those from earlier socialisations’ (Reay, 2004, p. 434), it is thus necessary to look back into fan translators’ past experiences and history to fully understand their current activities and motivations.

In the current contribution, in order to delve into fan translators’ motivations from a diachronic perspective, Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of primary habitus is adopted to map out the social trajectory and early life conditions of digitally-born fan translators in China. The purpose is to address two research questions: (1) whether the motivations of Chinese fan translators’ participation in rendering audiovisual materials online are inherently related to their early-formed dispositions; (2) how the changing social structures of Chinese society have contributed to the formation of fan translators’ primary habitus. In doing so, a designed online questionnaire with demographic and socio-biographical questions and follow-up semi-structured interviews were used. The study can offer valid insights into the under-explored field of online fan translators’ visibility and agency, particularly with relevance to a diachronic sociological analysis of fan translators’ motivations within the Chinese digital media ecosystem.

2. Fan translators in the digital media

In the digital era, one with a computer and a network connection may publish their work in the public domain. ‘User-generated contents’ has risen in response to the way where users as both ‘re-mediators and direct producers’ of new media materials engage in forms of large-scale participation (Flew & Cunningham, 2010). The terms ‘user-generated translation’ were initially proposed by Perrino (2009) and O'Hagan (2009) to describe the phenomenon where Internet users, who are typically not professional translators, voluntarily re-mediate and render media content to larger audiences who do not have access to the original source text. These amateur translators work within the genres that appeal to them and rely on familiarity with the target language.

Going against this trend is fansubbing community, a particular form of online fan translation communities that subtitle works for fans by fans. In China, fansubbing performs a unique role in bringing the most recent international media programmes to the general population, especially to the young generation who exhibit a significant interest in foreign cultures (Wang, 2017). Due to its collaborative nature and semi-professional workflow, a high level of efficiency and decentralised organisation are seen as two typical features of fan translation communities (Li, 2019; Shim et al., 2020). As Rong (2015, p. 4) indicates, the difference between digital creation and consumption is eroded, thereby permitting ‘an unparalleled scale of engagement in the production of culture’ in fansubbing communities. Duties and resources are distributed through a decentralised system, which exhibits a high degree of flexibility to complex and fast-paced informational settings. Fansubbing has assimilated the benefits of the industry, but its translation style is typically not constrained by the traditional translation norms that professional translators adhere to. They promote neologisms, multilingual subtitles, colloquial register, and may be assumed to adopt a ‘hybrid proposal’ that draw from the well-balanced materials utilised by both experts and amateurs (Massidda, 2012).

Drawing upon ten years’ of ups and downs in the development of Chinese fansubbing communities, fan translators are regarded as grassroot martial heroes who gather to form an alliance against dysfunctional laws and powerful organisations through acts of chivalry (Li, 2013). Though there are concerns pertaining to fans’ apparent lack of formal training in translating, their domain-knowledge and innovative tactics at both language and typographical level are generally seen as benefits which make their creation outshine the work of professional sectors (Lu and Lu, 2021). Fansubbing’s self-mediation and great efficiency have created a brand-new non-profit digital consuming market that caters to Chinese internet consumers. They have used the Internet to spread a new style of neoliberalism work ethic. Such work ethic ‘contradicts the capitalist logic of profit maximisation’, and peer production and free sharing become ‘immanent practices’ through ‘agonistic giving’, ‘reciprocity-seeking’, ‘altruism’, and ‘companionship’ (Hu, 2014, p. 440). While these are a good pool for possible intrinsic motives that drive fan translator’s sustainable activities in cyberspace, they have mostly been analysed from a synchronic perspective. The next section will then outline how a diachronic analysis of primary habitus can better map out fan translators’ activity and position in a particular social setting.

3. Primary habitus as a conceptual apparatus

To grasp the nuanced ideas of habitus, it is first necessary to briefly sketch out what Pierre Bourdieu referred to as field and capital. In reaction to earlier concepts that attempt to describe social reality, such as the dualism between subjectivism and objectivism, Bourdieu established the notion of field as ‘a network, or configuration, of objective interactions between places’ (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, p. 97) that has been historically established and has its own fundamental laws, conventions, and regulations. Different social positions within a field create opportunities for actors to acquire stakes, or capital (Bourdieu, 1990). Habitus, on the other hand, is both structured by and structuring social fields that are full of relations based on the force of opposing positions and hierarchies. It refers to both the genuine logic of action and the active presence of the entire past, and it is a system of ‘durable, transposable dispositions, structured structures predisposed to functions as structuring structures’ (Bourdieu, 1990, p. 56). Habitus is durable dispositions, which means it is a product of history and developed through multiple ways of learning and socialising in the course of an individual’s personal experience. Swartz (2002) also points out that the idea of disposition is highly significant in defining Bourdieu’s notion of habitus. By using the term of disposition, habitus-shaped behaviours occur in a practical, informal and often unconscious way. It is thus seen as a consequence of socialisation that is embodied in the body of the agent and functions as a bridge between objective social structures and individual agents.

Given that habitus is a historical construct, it is vital to delve into an individual's trajectory as an agent across time in order to understand their distinctive dispositions. One must not only synchronically examine an agent’s activity and position in a current social space, but also analyse it diachronically (Bourdieu, 1992). In this sense, it can be seen that habitus is a result of a continuous acquisition process throughout an agent’s life. However, in order to overcome the issue of habitus being over-determined or over-determining, Bourdieu (1992) highlights that habitus can be changed by the shifting structures of a given field. The discontinuity of habitus may occur due to the fact that new dispositions are acquired and embodied into habitus. Although habitus is a product of early childhood experience and socialisation, it can be re-structured when the agent enters a new field or encounters with a new social setting. It is durable but not eternal. When discussing the open system and stability of dispositions, Bourdieu (1992) refers to primary habitus, which is developed during an agent's early socialisation and serves as the basis for the new acquisitions in later life and for any development of other types of habitus. The primary habitus is relatively stable, and it is ‘embodied history, internalised as second nature and so forgotten as history’ that comes from early years of an agent's life, such as the family or the school (Bourdieu, 1992, p. 56).

With its focus on social orientations and early experiences, habitus has often been used in translation studies to analyse the trajectory and genesis of translators. In studies conducted by Kalinowski (2002) and Vorderobermeier (2014), habitus has been used empirically with surveys to examine the activity profiles and social constructions of the profession or personality of literary translators. Habitus is also employed to highlight the intra-disciplinary interrelations of approaches within translation and interpreting sociology, e.g., Pasmatzi (2014), Abdallah (2014) and Hanna (2016). Although there seem to be a limited number of online fan translation research which have applied habitus, the above examples show that habitus has proven to be useful in tracing social-historical processes and examining underlying stable dispositions that affect the translator’s dynamic activities. In the following article, in accordance with the study aim, primary habitus is used as an analytical tool to investigate social trajectory and early life conditions of digitally-born Chinese fan translators.

4. Methods

4.1. Research design

In order to identify fan translators’ inherent motivations diachronically, and address the point that habitus mostly cannot be captured through direct observation, the data used in this study came from online questionnaires and interviews I conducted with participants from three Chinese online-based fansubbing communities. For ethical and confidential considerations, the study uses numbers to represent the three communities. When selecting the potential fansubbing communities to approach, I initially searched ‘fansubbing community’ (字幕组in Chinese) on Baidu Baike,¹ and obtained the information that there were currently around 120 fansubbing communities translating different languages and genre specialities in China. In line with the purpose of this research, I initially narrowed down the communities based on their language pairs (mainly translating between English and Chinese). Aiming to have a panoramic and diverse understanding, I researched the history and background information of several potential communities and tried to select ones that include both well-established and newly-emerged communities. Eventually, Community 1, Community 2, and Community 3 were chosen for the following reasons:

1. Diversity: Community 1 had over 900,000 registered members, Community 2 had over 6,000 and Community 3 had over 750. Established in 2009, Community 1 is one of the most prestigious and established Chinese fansubbing communities, whereas Community 2 and Community 3 were respectively medium-sized and newly-emerged communities. Studying communities with different scales and profiles provides a diverse and representative perspective on them, given their different histories and positions in the field.

2. Activity: as fansubbing communities often have a high turnover rate, I interpreted the recent and regular communications on either the forum or website of the three fansubbing communities as an indication of their active and stable status.

3. Interactivity and Accessibility: as the study involves an analysis of the embedded dispositions of fansubbers, a series of interactions including circulating questionnaires and recruiting participants for interviews were essential. The three fansubbing communities all employ a combination of QQ (an instant messaging software), email, or Sina Weibo (a Chinese microblogging platform), which guarantees my interaction and accessibility with community members.

4.2 Data collection

After gaining the ethics approval, I sent my questionnaire links via WJX, a Chinese online questionnaire and evaluation platform, and interview invitations through QQ messages in the three communities’ QQ groups. As Li (2017) suggests, in order to gain a comprehensive understanding of a cultural community, the potential participants in a survey should correspond to different hierarchies in a group’s organisation. Thus I selected the potential participants based on their different levels of membership. Specifically, all the three fansubbing communities define their newbies as ‘intern members’ and have an ‘intern QQ group [实习组]’ that is created specifically for new members. Ordinary members are based in the community’s ‘official QQ group [官方组]’. Senior members are usually labelled as administrators [管理员] or group leaders [组长], and they are easy to be recognised as they allocate translation tasks or announce rules on a daily basis to the community. Through knowing the different levels of group members, I was thus able to distribute the questionnaires and interview invitations to potential participants of different levels of hierarchies and types of engagement.

Ten socio-biographical questions, specifically covering 5 multiple choice questions regarding their demographics (i.e., age, gender, occupation, geographical background, education), 2 open-ended questions related to their subject expertise and English proficiency, and 3 multiple choice questions related to the agents’ personal experience in acquiring foreign culture and media were used in the questionnaire. The semi-structured interviews provide opportunities for participants to freely talk about their past experience and share personal memories of early life in relation to the acquisition of foreign languages, media and cultures. The interview questions mainly follow the following themes: (1) self-introduction (e.g., age, location, education background, English proficiency); (2) past experience or memories about factors that may influence their acquisition of foreign languages and cultures; (3) past experience or memories about factors that may influence their participation in translating foreign media.

Based on the participant’s responses, I would also ask spontaneous sub-questions to gain more detailed answers. The use of questionnaires is valuable for gathering the statistical information about participants’ demographics, perceptions or attitudes which are not easy to obtain through direct observation, and the use of semi-structured interviews results in a series of descriptions of their past experiences or memories, offering a potential method for empirically measuring the habitus of fan translators through the repetition of specific perceptions or dispositions. In order to maintain their anonymity, all the participants chose to take a text interview rather than an audio or video interview on QQ. Both the questionnaires and interviews were conducted in Chinese, which is the participants’ mother tongue. This study obtained research ethical approval from the author’s institution and each individual participant’s consent was obtained at the start of the questionnaire and interview. As a result, 59 completed questionnaires (22 in Community 1, 16 in Community 2, 21 in Community 3) were received, 21 fan translators (7 in Community 1, 6 in Community 2, 8 in Community 3) were successfully interviewed.

4.3 Data analysis

The results of multiple choices in the questionnaire were analysed through WJX’s platform evaluation tool, automatically generating statistical tables and figures. To analyse the results of the interview transcripts, a coding-based thematic analysis method was used to extract core meanings and consistencies from the qualitative materials. This involved converting raw texts into specific categories and themes that addressed the two research questions. As Kozinets (2010) mentions, coding enables researchers to turn the collected and various textual materials into a finished research representation. For the purpose of this study, two steps of coding approaches, namely deductive approach and inductive approach, were used.

Deductive approach, as Berg (2001) indicates, refers to the coding where the research has already generated a series of predetermined themes based on the theoretical framework applied; inductive approach, on the other hand, involves the process that categories and themes arise after careful examination of the raw data. The first-level coding used deductive approach by suggesting two pre-determined themes (i.e., early-formed dispositions and the changing social structures of Chinese society) based on the conceptual apparatus of primary habitus. As Miles and Huberman (1994, p. 9) suggests, the analytic arrangements in sequence for the coding involve coding, noting, abstracting and comparing, checking and refining, generalising and theorising. Following these steps, in the second-level of inductive coding, I then read the textual data carefully and used my coloured pen to find sub-patterns, highlighted relevant excerpts, and inserted them into the wider categories as illustrated in the first-level coding. Consequently, three sub-patterns (i.e., media habits of post-90 generation, family upbringing, early education) were identified.

5. Findings and discussions

5.1 The changing media dispositions of post-90s generation

Among the total 59 questionnaire respondents (see Table 1), the main cohort of fan translators in the three communities (90.91% in Community 1, 87.5% in Community 2, 81.82% in Community 3) were aged between 18 and 26. Regarding location, 6 participants in Community 3, 2 in Community 2 and 6 in Community 1 were based in overseas countries including the UK, USA, Canada and Israel. This number of fan translators (28.57% in Community 1, 12.5% in Community 2, 27.27% in Community 3) based in overseas countries (mostly English-speaking countries) is chiefly because obtaining raw material in a fan translation community normally needs to be completed through recording an original video by a fan translator living abroad. The remaining fan translators² who were not living abroad (71.43% in Community 1, 81.25% in Community 2, 67.97% in Community 3) were predominantly made up of social agents living in provincial capital cities in China, or the so-called first-tier cities.³ This geographical distribution of respondents is related to the fact that first-tier cities in China are more likely to be influenced by foreign cultures and media, which in turn contributes to the accumulation of embodied cultural capital and the formation of fan translators’ primary habitus that will be discussed in more details later. The results relating to the education of respondents indicate a prevailing trend of university education background, with 95.45% of fan translators in Community 1, 93.75% in Community 2, and 95.24% in Community 3 have a bachelor’s degree or above. The command of English tends to be characterised by a high level of competence, given the results that 85.7% in Community 3, 75% in Community 2 and 95.4% in Community 1 have advanced abilities in English.⁴

Table 1. Demographic profile of fan translators in three online communities.

		Community 1	Community 2	Community 3
Age	Under 18 18–22 23–26 27–30 31–35 Above 35	0 54.55% 36.36% 9.09% 0 0	6.25% 56.25% 31.25% 0 6.25% 0	4.55% 40.91% 40.91% 9.09% 4.55% 0
Gender	Male Female	9.09% 90.91%	25% 75%	20% 80%
Geographical Background	Overseas First-tier cities Others	28.57% 71.43% 0	12.5% 81.25% 6.25%	27.27% 67.97% 4.76%
Education	High school Bachelor’s degree Master’s degree Doctorate Others	4.55% 59.09% 22.73% 13.64% 0	6.25% 68.75% 25% 0 0	4.76% 57.14% 28.57% 9.52% 0
Level of Competence in English	Advanced Intermediate Basic	95.4% 4.6% 0	75% 25% 0	85.7% 14.3% 0

Socially, the results show a trend towards young agents, metropolitan-based, highly educated and with a high level of competence in English. This type of demographic data is helpful as a starting point to analyse fan translators’ social trajectory and primary habitus. As reviewed in the previous section, habitus is a system of durable and transposable dispositions through which an agent thinks and acts according to their life conditions and social trajectory. Primary habitus, however, is the most long-lasting and ‘implanted’ habitus that is formed in fan translators’ early processes of socialisation. Agents who participate in online fan translation activities are mostly between the ages of 18 and 26, born after the 1990s. They thus belong to the first generation in China that had comparatively more access to the Internet since childhood. The socialisation process of fan translators in this period is marked by their internalisation of various new social beliefs and values generated by the Internet era, which are dramatically different from those held by older generations. Scholars labelled them as the ‘post-90s generation’ (Bin & Yum, 2021; Lee, 2020; Lian, 2013). Although the term ‘post-90s generation’ literally refers to the people born after 1990, it is mostly used to refer to young people raised in urban areas and coming from well-off households as a result of the rapid process of urbanisation in China since 1990.⁵ In fact, the post-90s generation was born in an era marked by ‘abrupt social changes’ caused by the opening-up reform in mainland China and represents a ‘distinctive generational entelechy’ (Lian, 2013, p. 965). As Wilson (2011, p. 38) notes, this generation is less traditional, ‘more liberal in attitudes to divorce and cohabitation, more inclined to be fun-loving and apparently lacking in work ethic’. As Chu and Ju also argue (1993, p. 320), these new values are not only contrast with those of previous generations, but also depend on the younger generation’s degree of consumption of western media that highly focuses on urban individualist values and differs from traditional Chinese norms. Such views highlight the role of an increasing exposure to western media in China since the 1990s, with vast changes in media industry, including extensive commercialisation such as the proliferation of semi-independent broadcasting stations, the rise of private Internet content providers and the joint ventures with international media giants.

The results in Table 2 show that the majority of Chinese fan translators (i.e., 54.55% in Community 1, 87.56% in Community 2, 63.64% in Community 3) began to watch foreign media in the years between primary school and junior school, namely during the late 1990s and early 2000s. The frequently-mentioned American TV series by participants during that time, such as Friends (1994–2004), Sex and the City (1998–2004), and Desperate Housewives (2004), were broadcast by private Internet content providers and beat other domestic TV series in the ratings, although they were subjected to severe cuts and deletions of scenes due to censorship. Such exposure to western cultures, especially via media from the USA, UK and other European countries, has brought a sense of novelty to young Chinese viewers, and new themes and settings have led to the inculcation of western values on local cultures. This echoes a ‘Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Report’ noting that China faces the possibility that foreign media products will ‘turn our next generation into loyal consumers of western culture who no longer possess a feeling of affinity with, or understanding of, their own national culture’ (Wilson, 2011, p. 52). As some participants (P1,P2,P4,P9,P12,P16,P20) mentioned in interviews, viewing American TV series is regarded as a ‘trend’, given that it has gradually become a new embodied lifestyle choice and the obsession with characters and plots from American TV series has imperceptibly transformed their real-life behaviours and attitudes. For instance, among my interviewees, a Friends fan recalled how her passion for and interest in western cultures were initially sparked by American TV series:

The reason why I love American culture very much is probably due to the TV series Friends. I like the blue eyes of the leading roles and I like American humour in it. Though many scenes are filled with some sexual references, violence or ethics, I think they’re a way to understand the meaning of life, or a type of culture. (P8)

Another interviewee also mentioned how she fell into western cultures via watching American TV series:

Table 2. Answers to the Question ‘When did you begin to watch foreign media?’

	Community 3	Community 2	Community 1
Before primary school	0	6.25%	18.18%
Primary school until Junior school	63.64%	87.56%	54.55%
High school	27.27%	6.25%	18.18%
College/University	9.09%	0	9.09%
Other	0	0	0

One of my friends put me into the pit of American TV series. At first, I just wanted to try new things, but later I found I couldn’t extricate myself from viewing those idealistic plots, countryside scenes, or unlimited magnification of the individual heroism. (P1)

‘American humour’, ‘individual heroism’, and ‘countryside scenes’ in the responses all indicate a kind of urge to consume an exotic culture. Using ‘love’, ‘put me into the pit’ and ‘extricate myself’ to describe their relationship with western media further reflect that viewing American TV series has been absorbed into their everyday lives as a type of embodied cultural capital. Such appreciation of and long-term obsession with American TV series can be seen as an internalisation, which is an important determinant of their westernised orientation and future participation in fansubbing communities. To some extent, the acquisition of considerable western cultural capital on the Internet has resulted in agents’ cultural familiarity and cultural affinity with the content of what they watch. For many of my interviewees, watching western media, especially American TV series, have dramatically transformed their attitudes and values in relation to social issues such as sex, family, and marriage. For instance, one interviewee, a great fan of the American TV series Sex and the City, recalled:

I found the sexual liberation in Sex and the City was too much for me when I viewed it at first. You know, especially Armanda [sic], she almost has sex with a different guy every day! But later, after further viewing, when I watched the following seasons I came to accept it as a kind of natural pursuit of pleasure and a natural way of satisfying one’s desires. (P16)

Similar attitudes towards sexual liberation can also be detected from other interviewees, such as ‘I don’t think sex scenes should be cut out in films such as Titanic. There’s no need to be ashamed of sex’ (P4) and ‘We’re all adults. Traditional taboo contents in films or TV series, for example, sex, do not have any bad influence on our creation of values’ (P1). In light of this, interviewees used the phrases ‘pursuit of pleasure’, ‘satisfying one’s desires’, ‘no need to be ashamed’ to indicate a large degree of acceptance of and openness towards sex on screen. In general, the traditional lower degree of social tolerance towards sex in Chinese culture, including the treatment of homosexuality and sexually related scenes in cinema, has diluted or even disappeared among this young generation in my interviews. As Chen (2009) indicates, an ‘American-style pursuit of happiness’ is quite compatible with a new Chinese identity among the young generations. In fact, the frequently mentioned American TV series like Sex and the City, Desperate Housewives and Friends have all generated considerable tensions between the traditional Chinese conservatism and propriety and the liberalism of American-style modern urbanites. As seen from the interview responses, fan translators’ more open attitudes towards sexual relations and their complaints about older generations’ overly conservative attitudes may well be a good example of the internalisation of dispositions rooted in western media.

5.2 The role of family upbringing and early education

Family upbringing and early education also play important roles in offering a route towards the formation of fan translators’ primary habitus. All subsequent behaviours are a historically-produced set of dispositions that initially begin to form with a child's experiences in the home and at school. When recalling what factors might lead to their preference for foreign films or TV series, 14 out of the 21 interviewees (66.67%) directly emphasised the undeniable and strong influence of their family on their propensity to internalise western values. The inculcation by parents, for example, is a frequently mentioned reason among all responses. Born into a family of English teachers with an appreciation of American TV series, P11, for instance, saw herself as a person with strong bilingual roots. Influenced by her family, P11 has developed a deep interest in American TV series since childhood:

My father is a freelance English teacher. He has been teaching me English since I was a child. He has also been tutoring other students from primary school, middle school and high school. My aunt is also an English teacher. My mother loves watching foreign films and TV series very much. I think I was so strongly influenced by her that I began to fall in love with American TV series. She likes putting posters on the wall and buying foreign magazines. I can say that I have been growing up in an environment surrounded by English and foreign cultures. (P11)

Her primary habitus, formed by a family that extensively acquired western materials (i.e., English language, American TV series, foreign posters, magazines) granted her a bilingual root and embedded cultural capital in the form of western values. Similarly, P13 recalled that the orientation towards western cultures was closely related to her grandparents. She mentioned that her grandparents were both raised in America and her grandfather was a professional translator in English. She was forced to learn English by her grandfather and began to come into contact with American cultures at a very young age:

… my grandfather is a translator, I was forced to learn English since I was young. My grandparents lived in the United States. When I was young, I grew up in a bilingual environment. Of course, I admired my grandpa very much when I grew up so I chose English (translation) as my second major in university. (P13)

Although she was initially reluctant to learn English, it laid a good foundation for her to acquire knowledge, values and cultures from English-speaking contexts. In the interview, P13 later added that she had grown up in a family that spoke both Chinese and English. Bilingual language skills enabled her to have an excellent proficiency in English and further provided her with the linguistic capacity to read and watch various English-language products. P12 has similar family roots to P13, with several relatives living in western countries:

I have many relatives in the USA, and some of my relatives are Spanish. Although we didn’t meet each other very often when I was a child, the way they can speak one or more than one different languages really inspired me. I was very curious about their lives and I began to learn English myself. I think this kind of family background has encouraged me to learn more about foreign cultures and languages. (P12)

This multicultural family background suggests that her feelings of curiosity and inclination towards western cultures are part of her primary habitus. Other interviewees also indirectly mentioned the impact of family on their orientation towards western cultures. Although some of them did not point out a specific memory regarding their family members, in their overall answers we can still detect the important role that family plays in their process of westernisation. Responses include ‘when I was in primary school, my mother encouraged me to watch Hollywood films and learn English’ (P10); ‘my parents had great expectations for my English education, so I was required to learn English since nursery’ (P14); ‘my parents preferred to watch foreign movies when I was young’ (P16); ‘my family certainly has an influence on the cultivation of my interest in foreign cultures’ (P18).

Meanwhile, according to the interview results, 19 out of 21 (90.4%) fan translators had received English-language education in their earlier life (i.e., primary school). In fact, since the opening-up reform in the mid-1990s, foreign-language education, particularly English as a foreign language, has been increasingly considered by Chinese policy makers and other stakeholders as significant for individual advancement in society (Feng, 2007). Particularly in metropolitan areas where most fan translators grew up (e.g., Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Guangzhou), an education system has been rapidly developed in which both English and Chinese are used as the main languages for teaching school subjects. According to Feng (2007), since the late 1990s and early 2000s, from nurseries to tertiary institutions, bilingual education has become part of the everyday topic not only of educationalists but also of ordinary people. Gao and Wang (2017) also note that in the late 1990s, Shanghai Education Commission began to encourage bilingual instruction in practice and then other east coastal cities, such as Guangzhou and Qingdao, immediately followed suit and proposed their own projects. Educated in a bilingual environment, fan translators are more likely to have a bilingual cultural experience and to be closely tied to western identities. As one respondent (P1) said, in her bilingual primary school, English was the medium of instruction, and all compulsory modules were taught in English, together with the teaching of foreign cultures, such as the module on world history and geography. Some bilingual schools in China also teach other foreign languages such as French, Spanish and Germany as optional courses. Although English has been a compulsory subject from the third year of primary school since 2003, it has in fact been introduced much earlier into the curriculum in many economically developed areas in China (Feng, 2007). This early experience that results from bilingual education has gradually become fan translators’ embedded social constructions and has been internalised as a part of their second nature, a set of dispositions acquired from the past but which can actively shape a person’s present and future activities. For instance, one interviewee (P3) talked about her experience in a bilingual kindergarten when she was only four years old:

I think choosing English and Translation as my undergraduate major now is totally influenced by my childhood. I was sent to a bilingual kindergarten when I was four, and I grew up watching mostly original Disney cartoons. The high school I attended was also a bilingual school, and then I applied to five universities that specialised in foreign languages. (P3)

An environment of growing up with Disney cartoons and the unconscious acquisition of English language caused by educational institutions had been internalised as her primary habitus and laid the foundation for an orientation towards western cultures in her future life. Similar social trajectory can also be found in P16’s and P6’s interviews. When she recalled her early life in a bilingual primary school, P16 said that the strongest memory she had was the regular rehearsals of American musicals such as The Sound of Music in her class: ‘we had frequent performances every week. We usually performed foreign works and I remembered we rehearsed in our dancing room over and over again’. She later mentioned in the interview that it was her extensive involvement in a bilingual environment at primary school that prompted her to watch various American TV series. P6 also recalled that studying in a bilingual junior school had strongly influenced his interests and hobbies. His engagement in American cultures was not accidental. Class discussions at bilingual school played an essential role in shaping his interest in American TV series and cultures:

I think I know much more about foreign cultures than my peers. The influence of a bilingual school is substantial. For example, it made me fall in love with American TV series, and I don’t feel at all uncomfortable with the plots in those worlds. I often discussed American TV series with my classmates, and sometimes we even discussed them with our teachers during the class.

Other interviewees also emphasised the significant role that an educational institution played in the formation of their primary habitus. For example, P2 recalled that it was the English training class she attended when she was a child that cultivated her interest in and orientation towards western cultures. P10 and P21 both mentioned that their junior school teachers often referred to American TV series in their English class and it was such a teaching style that deeply influenced their inclination towards American cultures. P13 said that the curriculum design played an important role in her interest in American and British cultures. As she was living in Shanghai, English was taught nearly four hours a day and her classes covered various areas such as English language, English literature and cultures of English-speaking countries.

Seen from above, born into a multicultural family or being educated at a school with English-language classes, the socialisation process including all kinds of linguistic, social and cultural experiences has subtly influenced fan translators’ perceptions and affective attitudes. In fact, growing up in a bilingual environment, as in the case of most fan translators, is likely to lead to a habitus marked by westernisation. A bilingual environment usually results in a higher command of English, and this determinant constitutes individuals’ reception of the world, which is further internalised in their knowledge as embodied cultural capital. Such accumulated cultural capital enables them to know the world not consciously but in unconscious manners, changing their living habits and hobbies. It is also worth noting, as some interviewees mentioned, that the westernised orientation is expressed and facilitated through the institutionalised form of cultural capital during early socialisation. Specifically, educational qualifications issued by educational systems demand English language proficiency as a demonstration of competence in exams or other assessments.

6. Conclusion

To summarise, the majority of studied fan translators are between the age of 18 and 26, well-educated, live in metropolitan areas, have a close engagement with the Internet, and belong to a post-90s generation who have grown up with a high degree of exposure to western culture and media. The existence of a field is correlative with specific stakes and interests imposed in that particular field that are activated in agents endowed with a certain habitus (Bourdieu, 1990). Fan translators’ primary habitus thus becomes significant in relation to the opening-up reforms, the structural transformation in the film, broadcasting and Internet fields, and the family or educational institutions through a series of specific guidance. It is an active ‘residue’ (Swartz, 2002, p. 63), and functions until the present to shape their thoughts, perceptions and bodily comportment. I argue that Chinese fan translators’ early experience acquired either in the multicultural family or bilingual school plays a fundamental role in shaping their primary habitus, and the interplay between fan translators and the broader social structure characterised by the opening-up reform and the Internet era simultaneously contributes to shaping their digitalised and westernised dispositions, and further making an impact on their orientations to foreign media and participation in fan translation communities. Since the current circumstances of fan translators are not just there to be acted upon but are internalised and layers to be added to from prior socialisations, this study contributes to looking back into the past history and trajectory of fan translators in order to understand their current role and inherent motivations.

This study furthers the expansion of online fan translation by delving into the correlation between fan translators’ motivations and their historical constructions and early socialisations from a diachronic perspective. Further studies could involve a larger sample of participants to highlight the systematic motive scale and social trajectory of fan translators. Alternatively, researchers could use this study as a basis for analysing socio-biographical data across countries to create a more global and comparative picture of fan translation. It is believed that identifying translators’ primary habitus is undoubtedly helpful in understanding their current practice, and empirical methods can effectively be corroborated and triangulated with other sociological methods (e.g., oral narratives, auto-biographies) to gain a deeper insight into fan translators’ life trajectory and inherent motivations.

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Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

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Sijing Lu

Dr Sijing Lu currently works as an Assistant Professor in Translation at the University of Warwick, UK. Her research interests are online collaborative subtitling, danmu subtitling, fan translation communities and Chinese digital media/screen culture. She has published in the fields of translation studies and media/communication studies, including Perspectives: Studies in Translation Theory and Practice, Babel: International Journal of Translation and International Journal of Communication.

Notes

1 An encyclopedia service launched by Baidu (a Chinese technology company in Internet-related services) after Wikipedia was blocked by the government in 2005.

2 7 respondents stated they were based in Beijing, 6 in Shanghai, 5 in Nanjing, 3 in Changsha, 3 in Tianjin, 3 in Hangzhou, 2 in Wuhan, 2 in Hefei, 2 in Jiaxing, 2 in Changchun, 2 in Shenyang, 2 in Suzhou, 1 in Chongqing, 1 in Shanxi, 1 in Changzhou, 1 in Chengdu, 1 in Guangzhou and 1 in Hong Kong.

3 A first-tier city is a hierarchical classification within the Chinese city tier system proposed by the Chinese government. The hierarchy is determined by commerce, transportation, education infrastructure, tourism, income level, and size of population. First-tier cities are large metropolitan areas, economically developed and often located in the eastern part of China.

4 Three types of English qualifications were used to assess a fan translator's English competency, namely CET/TEM (College English Test or Test for English Majors), IELTS (International English Language Test System) and TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language). CET/TEM is divided into Band 4 (Basic), Band 6 (Intermediate) and Band 8 (Advanced). IELTS is assessed by scores from the lowest 0 to the highest 9. The TOEFL scores range from the lowest 0 to the highest 120. According to the exam committee of IELTS and TOEFL, scores above 7 in IELTS and 100 in TOEFL are regarded as equivalent to advanced-level English; scores above 6 in IELTS and 80 in TOEFL are intermediate; scores above 4.5 in IELTS and 60 in TOEFL are basic.

5 As urban development is the concentrated embodiment of the achievements of the opening-up reform, China has experienced its most extensive and rapid urbanisation in the 1990s. This increase in China’s urbanisation rate has led to drastic changes in the social structure. According to the Telegraph newspaper, in 1980, the migrant population was 5.45 million; then it grew to 6.55 million in 1990, and since 1995, more than 20 million people have migrated from rural to urban areas every year. More information can be found at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/china-watch/business/urbanisation-in-china/