Danmaku subtitling: An exploratory study of a new grassroots translation practice on Chinese video-sharing websites

ABSTRACT

This article presents a new form of grassroots online collaborative translation, danmaku subtitling, which is increasingly gaining momentum on Chinese video-sharing websites. Danmaku subtitling refers to scenarios where enthusiastic online viewers contribute amateur translations to untranslated foreign-language videos in the form of “live” comments overlaid on the screen. Using Bilibili.com as the site of study, this article attempts to depict a fuller image of the translation phenomenon that facilitates knowledge sharing and embodies technology-enabled, amateur-led linguistic collaboration emerging from a (subcultural) online community. This study proceeds from a pilot study that substantiated the presence of danmaku translations in untranslated English videos, and then carries out a case study of a BBC documentary series in order to reveal the basic characteristics of danmaku subtitling and consider viewer interactions triggered by danmaku subtitles in the broader social practice of participatory viewing.

KEYWORDS:

• Danmaku subtitling
• audiovisual translation
• online collaborative translation
• Bilibili
• danmaku interface
• non-professional translation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Note on contributor

Yuhong Yang is a lecturer in the Faculty of Foreign Languages for Business at Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, China. Her research interests include translation studies, interpreting studies, and social semiotics. She has a PhD in translation studies from Sichuan University, China.

Notes

1 All video examples used throughout this essay were collected on 7 July 2018.

 

Additional information

Funding

This article is supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities in China [grant number JBK1901043]; “中央高校基本科研业务费专项资金资助”.