JOURNAL OF PRAGMATICS

Translating Other:
Comunal TV watching of Korean
TV drama

Miriam A. Locher
Thomas C. Messerli
University of Basel, Department of Languages and Literatures, English Seminar,
Nadelberg 6, Basel, 4051, Switzerland

Comunal TV watching of Korean TV drama

© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
 Abstract
• Exploring a website that makes Asian drama series and
Article history: movies accessible to an international audience by means
Received 2 April 2020 of fan generated subtitles in over 150 languages.
Received in revised form
15 June 2020
Accepted 3 July 2020 • The streaming site offers a social network and participatory
Available online 28 element in that it provides viewers with different
August 2020 possibilities of participation.

• This paper explores the possibility of

viewers commenting on the episode while it
is being watched as a dynamic form of
active reception

Keywords:
Lay translation, Timed comments, Intercultural communication, Korean television drama, Othering
 Background and Literature Review
About multilingual commentary, most
of the time in English diviki occurs in some Communication on a social streaming
intersection of research avenues, some text- platform
based communication by online television
viewing communities, timed comments are Timed commenting as a communicative
a type of computer-dedicated
communication (cmc) that is unique in
practice
terms of realizing its specific technology and Self-disclosure and identity construction
design of sharing properties with another
practice.

-Aspects focus on the socio-cultural aspects

Timed comment as translation
of communication through timed comments

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2020.07.002
Research Questions
TWO QUESTIONS: • What do commenters do in the timed
comments and what are potential cumulative
effects of their contributions?

• What aspects of K-drama culture and the

viewers' own culture appear in the timed
comments, and in what ways can this be s
een as evidence of cross-cultural mediatio
n?

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2020.07.002
Data and method :
Data taken from the online streaming platform
www.viki.com
Qualitative Content Analysis (MC Queen Ea Tai 2008) updating
code list
Presenting the data resulting from the coding typology, a brief discussion
of the distribution of the results, will serve as the background for the purpose
of discovering how culture and pragmatic meaning negotiations emerge and
diagnosis through posting contributions, then discussing a number of codes and
interactions in more detail to reveal the dynamic nature of the data and the
scope of discussion in relation to it. with the process of cultural translation and
the emergence of a fan community.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2020.07.002
 Results of the coding typology
4.1. Artefact-oriented 4.2. Community- 4.3. Artefact and
categories oriented categories community-oriented

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2020.07.002
The distribution of codes
• The first reason to turn to commenting seems to be the wish to share emotive reactions, featu
ring the full range of sharing laughter, sadness, disgust, etc.

• Secondly, sharing the interpretation of the artefact by engaging in

interpreting the plot, commenting on its development and assessing the
characters as expressed in the code ‘plot’ appears to be similarly
appealing to the commenters.

• Thirdly, in combination with the already mentioned codes, engaging in

commenting by displaying knowledge of actors/groups and genre, as
well as drawing on intertextuality allows commenters to actively engage
in a fan practice and constructtheir fan identities.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2020.07.002
Table 3 Distribution of coding for YAS and MH, episo
des 1.
Discussion of distribution
in light of the translation of culture
• The commenters also use their contributions to make sense of Korean
culture as depicted in the TV dramas.
• The Korean language is rich in specific address terms to index family
relations as well as relations of seniority and hierarchy and prefers these
terms to first names or pronouns.
• The third category contains comments in which the Korean or the
commenter's own culture is evoked and thus made salient.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2020.07.002
Conclusion
1. Understanding of the complexity of the interaction
a. Reflection on the viewer's own culture and the creation of a fan
community
b. The commenters also contribute to cross-cultural mediation.

2. The Viki community members help each other to better

understand aspects of the Korean source text.
To collaboratively make sense of those source text aspects. In
references to text and context such as: in questions, intertextual
links and explanations
An Outlook to One Step Ahead
In further research, we will turn our attention to the community-creating potential
of the comments and will in particular work on the display and functions of emotional
stance.

Our Next Primary Objectives

1. How the fan-community creates an in-group feeling through
appropriation of Korean lexical borrowings.

2. How the subtitles that contain comments by subtitlers and

the comments by viewers can work hand-in-hand in making
culturally marked phenomena accessible to the
international target audience

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2020.07.002
Acknowledgments
We wish to thank Andrea Wuest and Miriam Locher for helping develop
the code book and for co-coding the data. Thanks also go to Daria Dayter,
Maria Sidiropoulou and the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable and
insightful feedback.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2020.07.002

Y E W !
THANK YOU
THAT IS ALL FROM US

Miriam A. Locher
Thomas C. Messerli

Comunal TV watching of Korean TV drama

© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license