A preliminary theoretical investigation into [online] social self-translation: The real, the illusory, and the hyperreal

This article argues that “social translation”, “crowdsourced translation”, and “user-generated translation” are in fact not synonymous. Building on previous research, the term “social translation” is used to refer to translation activity that takes place on various online social media and that engenders specific online social affordances. While crowdsourced translation in online settings continues to garner interest from translation scholars, very little has been said on the subject of self-translation in online and digital contexts, specifically with regard to social media. This article begins filling this gap by first defining [online] social self-translation and providing a taxonomy of different types of self-translation under this umbrella term. Examples are offered to illustrate the categories “real”, “illusory”, and “hyperreal”. Theoretically examining social self-translation sheds light on how self-translation phenomena occur online and how such activity can help translation studies scholars rethink the “self”, the “social” and, thus, self-translation and social translation.