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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.
Yuhong Yang (Wed,) studied this question.