China’s growing interest in Spanish and culture brings new channels for learning, such as reggaeton translation

A recent study by UPF examines new informal practices among Chinese communities learning Spanish. Hispanic songs, many of them, are translated into Chinese through the country’s main music streaming platform, NECM (Netease Cloud Music). Unprofessional translator, fans of Spanish and Latin music, Chinese origins will take this opportunity to share and comment on translations on the platform.

This topic is the subject of an article published in Journal Language and Intercultural Communication in March. This is the result of a study by Li Yuan-Cloris, a researcher at the Faculty of Translation Science (TICL), led by Daniel Cassany, coordinator of the Research Group on Language Learning and Education (GR@el).

Yuan-Cloris is one of 81 Chinese students studying UPF’s translation and language sciences, 37% more than five years ago. Like her, most of them do PhD (51) or Master’s (20) research. The master’s degree in the department where students of Chinese origin are most concentrated is translation between global languages: Chinese and Spanish.

UPF itself can testify about Chinese students’ interest in learning Spanish and Spanish culture. In addition to translation and language sciences, the number of Chinese students in all fields taught at UPF over the past five years has also increased by 32%, with currently 275 years of age (102 bachelors, 71 masters and 102 doctoral degrees).

Apart from students who have the opportunity to study some of their research in Spain, many more would like to do so from their country of origin. The problem is that China lacks formal educational resources to learn Spanish compared to English. Given this drawback, more and more Chinese people are turning to informal digital tools for learning Spanish in recreational ways through virtual communities of people with common interests such as music.

Some translators have already had over 2 million views

The UPF study focuses on this emerging, little-studied practice, analyzing the cases of two non-professional translators in NECM. One of them, Benito (pseudonym), has 1,300 followers on the platform, and his translations have been viewed over 2 million times. The other is LIA (pseudonym), with around 800 subscribers.

Specifically, 60 translations (30 each) of the following musical genres were examined: reggaeton (38 songs), ballads (11), pop (6), and trap (5). Additionally, the behavior of the translator followers and about 500 comments or responses have been analyzed. This study combines content with discourse analysis techniques.

The results of this study reveal that translators use various intercultural mediation strategies in translation to make it easier for Chinese citizens to understand the meaning of Spanish songs. It should be noted that the translated songs contain a total of 183 items with a cultural specificity (CSI), referring to the concept of Hispanic culture that has no Chinese equivalent.

What intercultural mediation strategies do fan translators use?

The most commonly used strategy (68% of cases) by translators is domestication, and these CSIs are replaced by other Chinese imaginary terms. For example, to translate the expression “Get Sthod Up”, they use the Chinese expression “Bang Zi.” This translates literally as “free (doves.” While doves have traditionally been considered messengers, in the fictional Chinese imaginary pigeons, releasing the unreturned pigeon is associated with a broken promise.

Another strategy is up-song representations used to circumvent the Spanish concept, which is particularly sensitive and subject to censorship in the Chinese community. In fact, all sexual references (34 explicit or implicit) identified in the original song have been translated using up-song representations. For example, to translate “f*ck” or “do(ing)it”, use expressions such as occupancy ((ing)) or exchange (the joy of exchange/ing).

Other strategies include using non-standard spelling (transclipting). For example, to translate the expression “caliente” (English, “horny”), we combine two words equivalent to “sexy” and “hot” (Hira). However, to avoid censorship, the translator inserts an asterisk between the letters of each word (sexual feeling/fire*stimulation).

One particular feature of Chinese is that neither different words nor letters of the same word are space-separated. Therefore, the insertion of an asterisk makes it particularly difficult for the platform algorithm to identify the actual meaning of a word.

“The translator itself involves paratexing, annotations or comments in the text of the translation, explaining Hispanic cultural elements to Chinese audiences, and promoting intercultural understanding by the Chinese community of Spanish culture,” the researchers explain.

Informal learning practices that foreign language teachers should consider

This research shows that this intercultural mediation exercise has important potential to promote cultural and linguistic diversity. At the same time, it will improve the multilingual and multicultural skills of translators of Spanish, Chinese (advanced language use), and English (intermediate language). Translators also use their work to influence the platform, bringing emotional benefits and influence their identity.

Considering the many benefits of non-professional translation, this study concludes that language education professionals should promote student autonomy and encourage participation in these activities.