The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Pragmatics

Translation, pragmatics and social media

Renée Desjardins

Introduction

This chapter’s primary aim is to locate and discuss some of the connections between translation, pragmatics and social media. By finding points of convergence between these different disciplines, the goal is to encourage further disciplinary consilience and increased interdisciplinary dialogue. To date, while research in translation studies and pragmatics has explored online social media to some degree (and in relative isolation), at the time of writing, no summative or encyclopaedic reference explicitly connects all three of these disciplines. The aim here is to provide an introduction to key terms, extant literature that combines these disciplinary perspectives and to point to future research avenues. To situate the reader, this introduction provides an overview of online social media and its import for translation and pragmatic research and education/training.

The literature and relatively recent research on the subject of translation and social media is growing, with more attention being given to text types, interlinguistic phenomena and technology that were initially met with scepticism or overt criticism. In 2006, when Facebook was still in its infancy, some social media detractors suggested that social media sites were nothing but a fad, let alone a subject worthy of serious academic investigation and commentary (Desjardins, 2017). Now, Facebook, to name only one social platform, has become a ubiquitous social behemoth and is nearly inescapable. Indeed, Facebook has become the veritable “turnkey” to access a myriad of other social platforms (e.g. Instagram, Tinder), where a significant amount of human interaction takes place. Initial detractors can no longer say that online social media are a passing trend with little significant social, communicative and research relevance. While these online platforms may gain and lose popularity and, perhaps, eventually become obsolete (e.g. MySpace), they have nonetheless changed some of the ways in which communication can and does take place, as well as some of the social conventions¹ that are normally applied in other, more “traditional” settings. Quan-Haase and Sloan (2017) purport that

the relevance of social media in everyday life continues to grow and this relevance is further increased by the move by citizens towards adopting [mobile technologies] [. . .] to access information from social media apps, as well as to contribute text, images, commentary and opinion.

(p. 2)

Some even argue that the Internet, and by extension, social media, have impacted our brains and neurological pathways irrevocably (Carr, 2010). This context, then, provides a tentative explanation as to why research on the subject of translation and social media is only gaining significant traction now, as opposed to a decade ago when the impact(s) and longevity of social media could still be called into question. It is also worthwhile to note that social media, while unquestionably the result of technological innovation and advancement, are not wholly novel either: in essence, like analog forms of communication, they are primarily intended for human connection and communication. In this vein, Standage (2013) convincingly charts the existence of “social media” throughout the history of humanity, purporting that while the online social media of today are revolutionary in notable ways, they nonetheless mimic other analog forms of human interaction and communication; we may recall, by way of example, town criers and newspapers. In a related vein, Hoffman (2017: 4) adds: “most media are, of course, social in that they can be used to provide and share communicative content and thus to socialize”. Thanks to arguments that show how impactful contemporary social media have been in shaping the communicational landscape, online social media (OSM) have now gained more credibility in academe as a serious area of inquiry and object of study, akin to the way Media Studies gave similar validity to other mainstream media, such as television, film and popular music. However, while OSM and other “traditional” media overlap in some ways (cf. Bruns, 2015) in relation to the degree of sociality, the position taken here is that sociality is not, in fact, the most salient characteristic of contemporary OSM (cf. Desjardins, 2017). Indeed, in line with Kaplan and Haenlein (2010), and, more recently, Quan-Haase and Sloan (2017), the definition of OSM used here focuses on three other characteristics: 1) the capability to support user-generated content (i.e., content that is exchanged, created, curated and disseminated by users); 2) the provision of connectivity (i.e., ways and means for users to connect, for instance by validating strategies such as likes or follows, or by symbolic recognition by way of moderator status or editor status); 3) the support to create engagement between users (i.e., fostering participatory culture, cf. Jenkins, 2006a, 2006b, 2009). As Quan-Haase and Sloan (2017: 5) state: “Once these three elements come together, a medium can be described as falling under the rubric of social media.”² Finally, Quan-Haase and Sloan (ibid.) argue that social media research is essential because it intersects with real-world phenomena:

While some scholars have studied social phenomena on social media as a separate sphere from “real life”, we argue that these applications need to be viewed as integrated into and as an integral part of society at large. It is myopic to think that social media data emerge in a vacuum. Interactions and engagement on social media are often directly linked, or even result from, events taking place outside of it. Moreover, they are produced within a specific historical, social, political, and economic context.

(p. 3)

Yet, the arguable lack of “seriousness” surrounding OSM as an object of study has not been the only impediment to the study of translation and multilingual communication on OSM. The ephemeral nature of online content, i.e., the ease at which content can be modified or deleted, the lack of up-to-date methodologies for data transcription (or the fact that methodologies and technologies are constantly evolving), and the constant updates to platforms, devices and applications all serve to create a context in which research can be significantly challenging. Ostensibly, working with these types of data can often result in a researcher feeling like they are tracking an ever-moving target or like they are in a mouse-wheel – always chasing the next new technological trend or online innovation and constantly reformulating their hypotheses in light of these changes. These challenges point to the importance of situating research and identifying potential methodological or scientific constraints from the outset. Research on or involving OSM often means “the linking of data at different scales” which poses a major challenge because methods have to take into account “image, text and interactions across time and contexts” (Quan-Haase & Sloan, 2017: 2).

For instance, when Instagram³ was initially launched in 2010 for iOS users (the Android release occurred in 2012), it was a predominantly Anglocentric platform. While users could write in almost any language (provided the languages were supported), the platform’s infrastructure (buttons, tabs, menus, etc.) was originally available in English exclusively, to only be translated over the years into other languages. This meant that different linguistic communities with shared interests might have been deterred from converging over similar content or even using Instagram altogether, unless they were able to “pivot” in English or other dominant and supported languages. Over the next eight years, Instagram integrated features that facilitated multilingual communication and engagement, including the addition of new languages (Moscaritolo, 2012) and the addition of embedded automatic machine translation (Steele, 2016), the latter feature being available on Facebook and Twitter for some time. However, this slower rollout of multilingual support and translation features could explain why English previously remained, and still remains, the lingua franca of Instagram⁴ (and, arguably, of other platforms as well). For researchers interested in translation, and intercultural communication more broadly, social media features and how they are rolled out present a number of challenges. If, for instance, a new language feature is launched during a case study, this could have an impact on the data and skew observations as well as results. New changes to OSM platforms aren’t always permanent either and may only be introduced to specific test markets⁵ for specific periods of time, which means that researchers have to be mindful and nimble in their data management, transcription and interpretations – something that is rarely addressed, at least in Canadian TS research training. Further, surveyed TS methodology textbooks rarely list in great detail some of the methodological challenges specifically related to social media data and research. For instance, Saldanha and O’Brien (2014) tackle the subject of corpus-based research and process-based methods (chapters 3 and 4 respectively) which do have applicability in online research. Yet, they give scant attention to translation data obtained in OSM contexts, which warrant specific methodological processes such as ensuring user confidentiality, addressing cybersecurity, managing ephemeral data, transcription and other relevant issues (cf. Quan-Haase & Sloan, 2017). These challenges, then, undoubtedly influence the TS research community, and might explain, albeit partially, why work on translation, OSM and pragmatics is limited. If a research context or question is particularly fraught with methodological obstacles, it is unlikely to appeal to early-stage researchers or researchers who are not necessarily familiar with the technology or how to address these concerns.

Translators and translation studies (TS) scholars can no longer ignore the social significance and research relevance of OSM, no matter how many challenges OSM contexts may present. Human communication is increasingly occurring in online settings and data suggest that OSM popularity is not waning (cf. Wihbey, 2014; Boulianne, 2015).⁶ More and more companies are marketing their products and services through social platforms. The ubiquity of texting, tweeting, liking and scrolling – all of which have relevance for pragmatic study – is indisputable. And, more importantly, here, because online interactions are multilingual and intercultural it stands to reason that translation would matter and that TS stands to contribute in a significant manner. Notably absent in pragmatics research on social media is reference to TS:

pragmaticists today adapt and apply a broader range of theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches, drawn not only from pragmatics per se but also from other neighbouring fields of scientific inquiry. Such points of origins may, for instance, include interactional sociolinguistics, comparative film and media studies, sociology or social psychology.

(Hoffman, 2017: 2)

And yet, in the same chapter, Hoffman (ibid.) goes on to remark the importance of linguistic diversity in pragmatic inquiry. The intersection of TS, pragmatics and social media studies, then, makes for a compelling multidisciplinary framework to analyse multilingual and intercultural online communication.

In TS, research pertaining to the connections between OSM and translation has usually fallen into six major categories (Desjardins, 2017), none of which make overt claim to using pragmatic frameworks. These are: 1) crowdsourced/collaborative translation and OSM; 2) translation, activism and OSM; 3) translation, crisis management and OSM; 4) professional translation, best practices and OSM; 5) fan translation and OSM; 6) translation quality assessment (TQA) and OSM (ibid.). Since the publication of this research, it is possible that each of these categories has expanded to include more case studies and that other key areas could be added to the category list. However, in the preparation of this article, it was evident that one area that remained under-researched in TS, was that of translation, pragmatics and OSM. But, this is not to say that research investigating multilingual and interlingual communication, as well as intercultural interaction in online settings has not been scrutinised in pragmatics and in social media studies separately. Unfortunately, it would seem that this research has not yet permeated TS. Therefore, the goal here is to examine some of the ways in which translation, pragmatics and OSM could comprise a holistic lens with which to analyse interactions taking place on social platforms.

1 Defining “pragmatic”

Prior to investigating how pragmatics can inform the study of translation on OSM specifically, it is necessary to define what is meant by “pragmatic/pragmatics” here.

In Canada and elsewhere, where the proximity of French may influence translation terminology, Francophone circles refer to “general” translation⁷ as traduction pragmatique. Froeliger (2013) explains that the French term pragmatique rose to popularity through a process of elimination, in which other options such as traduction professionnelle; communication interculturelle; traduction fonctionnelle; activités langagières [professional translation; intercultural communication; functional translation; language activities⁸] were deemed unsatisfactory. This of course poses a slight problem: for TS researchers working at the intersection of French-language and English-language references, they must note that the use of pragmatique does not always imply that the research or that the case study makes use of pragmatic theories or concepts; it may in fact only be a reference to “general” translation. The context will usually indicate this, of course, but there are cases that can lead to confusion, for instance when pragmatique is used in an article title. Therefore, bilingual researchers, whose language combination is French/English, should exercise caution when curating French-language scholarship on the subject of traduction pragmatique – such work would likely have little to no connection to the field of pragmatics as generally defined and understood in the Anglo-Saxon world.⁹

Here, pragmatics is defined according to its broader definition (cf. Bublitz & Norrick, 2011), which aligns with the Continental or European understanding of the term:

[p]ragmatics is fundamentally concerned with communicative action in any kind of context. [. . .] In the pragmatic perspective, language use and language users in interaction are primary, as opposed to language as a system of signs or set of rules. The pragmatic perspective scrutinizes neither just individual words nor sentences nor even isolated texts, but rather whole speech events or language games in real social contexts, considering both the present state of affairs and its connectedness with prior and succeeding actions.

(ibid.: 4)

Similarly, Hoffman (2017) states that a consensual definition of pragmatics that defines the field of pragmatics in a “unified and homogenous” way, is inexistent. Hoffman also espouses a broader view of pragmatics that echoes Bublitz and Norrick (2011).¹⁰

In contrast, a more narrow definition posits that pragmatics focus more specifically on the “systematic investigation of what and how people mean when they use language as a vehicle of action in a particular context with a particular goal in mind” (ibid.: 3), where context-dependency of utterance meaning is paramount. Studies that espouse this narrower definition focus on analytical categories and concepts such as indexicality/deixis, presuppositions, implicatures and speech acts (Bublitz & Norrick, 2011). In her book In Other Words, Mona Baker (2011) adopts this more narrow definition of pragmatics, and focuses her chapter on the subject of pragmatic equivalence (Chapter 7). Her chapter is premised upon elements more frequently associated with this narrower definition. Baker underscores how coherence, translators’ views of the world and reader expectations are all interconnected in the translation process. The chapter’s concluding remarks, more specifically, suggest that a translator should be sufficiently acquainted with their readership (target readers of the translation) and should know where allegiance should be placed in order to meet the readers’ expectations. As we shall see, determining expectations in an online setting – where audiences and readerships are never wholly determinate – is nearly impossible.

As such, a broader definition of pragmatics is more apt for the study of online communication, as it allows researchers to take stock of factors that somewhat escape the more “typical” analytical frames of deixis, presupposition, implicature, coherence and speech acts associated with pragmatic analysis. This is not to say that these concepts cannot be mobilised for social media research, but rather that they should be supplemented with insights from other fields as well, such as insights from social media studies. Tactility and mobility, for instance, as well as the relevance of iconographical/visual elements such as emojis, filters, memes and gifs can all contribute to meaning-making and yet these elements are not readily analysed using pragmatics concepts, which can be more focused on word-level and/or sentence-level utterances that leverage human verbal languages (research in these areas is gaining momentum, however). For instance, Instagram filters¹¹ contribute to the meaning-making process and are sometimes intrinsically connected to the verbal caption of the post (this is exemplified through the use hashtags¹² such as #nofilter, #filter or #valencia,¹³ to name only this example); however, how would one classify the photographic filter using the concepts of pragmatics that tend to focus more specifically on verbal aspects of communication? Some of the analytical frames related to a narrower definition of pragmatics are still relevant, provided that they do not limit a researcher in addressing or analysing other, equally relevant, dimensions of digital communication, and more specifically OSM.

It is also worth noting another important pragmatics current: the branch that focuses more specifically on intercultural competence and communication across borders (Trosborg, 2010), be it geographical, cultural or linguistic. This branch intersects very clearly with translation studies, although, generally, the research tends to be in four central areas more specifically (here the idea is that TS may be more wide-ranging, relatively speaking): “contrastive, cross-cultural and intercultural pragmatics; interlanguage pragmatics; teaching and testing of second/foreign language pragmatics; pragmatics in corporate culture communication” (ibid.). As with other definitions of pragmatics, the defining lines are not, and have not always been, clear-cut (ibid.). The issue of defining cross-cultural pragmatics is also tied up in debates regarding whether we can even establish general principles or common principles across languages and cultures from the outset; previous pragmatics research involving Chinese (cf. Chen, 1993) and Japanese (cf. Ide, 1989; Matsumoto, 1989; Haugh, 2005) argue that there are fundamental differences between “East and West” (Trosborg, 2010). However, more recent research argues against this line of thinking (ibid.). For researchers looking to learn more about cross-cultural pragmatics and relevant disciplinary debates (cross-cultural universality; untranslatability; universals of translation) in relation to Translation Studies and Applied Linguistics, House’s Translation as Communication across Languages and Cultures (2016) would constitute a good resource.

To summarise: while there is no consensual definition of pragmatics, the definition that is most applicable to the analysis of the intersections between TS and social media is one that does not rely on a predetermined analytical model. Like Hoffman (2017), the definition of pragmatics deemed most useful for TS researchers working with social media is one that is based on a moderate social constructivist perspective (as opposed to an extreme position) that “allows for the inclusion of (given and new) contextual, situational, cognitive and notably media-technological variables” (p. 7). Research combining TS, pragmatics and social media can be conducted using quantitative, qualitative methods, mixed-methods, or even using more heuristic models (the latter being especially useful when analysing new platforms or new technology, where other methods usually lag or cannot be leveraged).

2 Defining social media

The definition of social media used here focuses on online, second-generation Internet platforms (Hoffman, 2017). Because it is useful to think of social media as Standage (2013) has described the term, here, the acronym OSM will be used to designate online social media specifically. OSM, here, includes social platforms/applications (i.e., the technical infrastructure on which social media content is created, shared and consumed), social media content (content generated by individuals, organisations, institutions and corporations in a variety of file formats), social media sites (used for media/file-sharing, networking, hosting meetings, etc.), blogs, online comment features (integrated on traditional websites or webpages), message boards, instant messaging services/applications etc.

Some of the OSM examples included here comprise dominant platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube. This selection unfortunately does represent a Westernised typology of popular OSM; however, this is explained by the fact that the working languages used in the research and writing of this paper are English, French and Spanish. Research that focuses on other dominant platforms such as Weibo and VKontakte¹⁴ would be a welcome addition to the literature.

3 Establishing links between pragmatics, translation and OSM: overview of existing research

Scholarship linking TS and pragmatics is abundant. The emergence of pragmatics in TS can be traced back to Nida’s work (Hickey, 1998), in which he connected translation and pragmatics in the context of how target readers reacted to a target text. Nida defined pragmatics as “the relation of symbols to behaviour” (cited in Malmkjaer, 2011). In his view, to discern or to analyse a text’s meaning meant understanding how people react to symbols (ibid.). In more contemporary scholarship, Baker (2011) and Munday (2016), for instance, both address the relevance of pragmatic concepts for translation and provide examples using linguistic concepts relevant for the translation process and for translation analysis, notably coherence, presupposition and implicature. Their discussions, based on the definitions of pragmatics proposed here, seem to align more specifically with a narrower understanding of pragmatic analysis (i.e., concepts that focus more specifically on human natural languages rather than on human communication in a more holistic manner).

The literature also seems to indicate the following trend: researchers in TS will deploy a pragmatics framework to analyse translated content ante facto, identifying, for instance, where translation output was “successful” in terms of coherence and implicature (illocutionary force), whereas translation trainees (undergraduates and individual attending professional development workshops or other individuals currently in the process of acquiring translation competencies) tend to mobilise pragmatic concepts to help them translate their coursework. Succinctly, this means that pragmatics can be leveraged in training, as well as in research work, both to good effect. However, what appears to be less obvious is whether, and to what degree, pragmatic concepts are actually mobilised in professional (social media) settings by practising professional translators. In a world where tweets are circulated extremely rapidly and simship (simultaneous shipping and publication of content) is integral to many online social media campaigns, can translators of OSM content realistically leverage pragmatics? Perhaps they do intuitively, but thorough pragmatic analysis is unlikely (either due to lack of time or lack of training in this area). Moreover, the indeterminate nature of online audiences and online user interpretations adds to the complexity of expedient pragmatic analysis, especially in cases where it’s not possible to access audience data or user data, let alone the challenges associated with identifying data (confidentiality, privacy etc.). However, there is no denying the value of pragmatic analysis of translated social content for research purposes: it could provide significant insight for translation and social media professionals.

Another recurrent and relevant pragmatic concept used in TS, and which is somewhat premised upon knowledge of pragmatics, is that of “pragmatic competence”. The term has been used across the “map” (Holmes, 1988/2004), from the translation of theatre/drama (Windle, 2011), to court interpreting (Stern, 2011), to the translation of Harry Potter books (Dukmak, 2012, cited in Munday, 2016). In essence, this competence means that a translator should be able to translate the intended message of the source text in any given sociocultural context to similar effect on the target audience. While pragmatic competence is certainly relevant – ostensibly, translators should be able to render equivalent translations to similar effect otherwise these translations likely wouldn’t be very functional – such competency is usually assessed in translated work rather than taught as such to translator trainees (based on author’s in-class teaching experience in two different Canadian universities over the course of ten years and based on discussions held at the 2nd Symposium on Translation Pedagogy held at the University of Ottawa in March 2018). Said differently, training (specifically in Canada) is meant to foster pragmatic competence, but undergraduate coursework (particularly in Canada, as well) does not always explicitly focus on the concept of pragmatic competence,¹⁵ instead favouring an overview of pragmatic terms to be used in translation exercises. Pragmatic competence, therefore, acts more as an assessment metric for Canadian trainers and educators, rather than a programme or learning outcome. It could be hypothesised, then, that pragmatic competence and a firm command of pragmatics are not necessarily correlated. Of course, perspectives from other geographical locales and universities would be welcomed to supplement this hypothesis: programmes at both undergraduate and graduate level tend to vary somewhat significantly in scope and learning outcomes, and this can be due to the market, the institutional mandate and human/technical resources. A translator could be said to have pragmatic competence, and yet have little knowledge of pragmatics or what pragmatic competence means. Nonetheless, the idea of pragmatic competence has significance in OSM contexts, because it could be used as a form of assessment metric (i.e., a metric for translation quality assessment, or TQA). In corporate and marketing contexts, “successful” OSM content is determined by the degree of user engagement, also known more commonly as “engagement” (likes, retweets, number of followers/friends, user comments, shares etc.). This coincides with the idea of “creating an appropriate effect on the target audience”, i.e., pragmatic competence, in that if translated social media content does not create the effect of engaging an OSM audience or single user to take some form of action (again, likes [Facebook], retweets [Twitter], kudos [Strava] etc.), the translator has not successfully carried out their work. Failing to translate in a way that engages, then, would suggest a lack of pragmatic competence in OSM settings. Thus far, it would appear that no study has currently examined social media engagement, pragmatic competence and TQA modelling, but this seems like a promising avenue.

For reasons discussed in the introduction, the corpus on TS, pragmatics and social media research is rather limited within TS proper. What I propose to do here is to present a few case studies that combine TS, pragmatics and social media insights but that were not specifically published in TS journals or manuscripts. This will serve to exemplify that although research is limited within TS, that is not say other fields have been completely silent on the matter. These “external” case studies can serve as a starting point for TS researchers looking to model their own case studies.

This chapter also presents the opportunity to underscore what hasn’t been done and what future research in these areas could look like. Therefore, the chapter also provides a list of potential research avenues and indicates where recourse to pragmatics could prove to be insightful.

4 Literature review: methodology

This literature review includes journals across relevant disciplines. The timeframe has been set between 2012 and 2017 (five years), as most research on OSM has only started in the last decade, with increased momentum in the last five years. Further, most social media-centric journals have recent histories, with inaugural issues having been launched in the last five years (e.g. Social Media + Society; Big Data + Society; The Journal of Social Media in Society). Search keywords including, but not limited to, “translation”, “multilingual communication”, “code-switching”, “social media”, “pragmatics” and Boolean operators were used to refine the search. Abstracts that indexed under these keywords were then analysed for relevance. Journals included in the review are: Big Data and Society, Meta, New Media + Society, Social Media + Society, The International Journal of Bilingualism, The Journal of Computer-mediated Communication, The Journal of Pragmatics, The Journal of Social Media in Society and The Translator.¹⁶ While this review does present some limitations (for instance, contributions are primarily, if not exclusively, in English), it nonetheless represents a comprehensive overview of recent and thematically relevant sources. One of the aims was to provide an interdisciplinary review, which explains the inclusion of non-TS or non-pragmatics sources. The literature review also includes the handbook of the Pragmatics of Social Media (Hoffman & Bublitz, 2017), one of the most up-to-date sources on the subject of recent pragmatics research and social media. Using a similar methodology, chapters were reviewed to identify case studies that focused on multilingualism and translation.

4.1 Literature review: findings

The literature review reveals one significant finding: the dearth of research that pertains specifically to translation, pragmatics and social media. Indeed, while there are a number of studies that consider the relationships between pragmatics and social media (cf. Hoffman & Bublitz, 2017), our review indicates no overt mention of pragmatics to assist in translation endeavours on OSM or of pragmatics as a lens to investigate translational phenomena on OSM. One hypothesis to explain this finding is that research in the area is only beginning; after all, research in TS on the subject of OSM is still relatively under-developed (Desjardins, 2017).

However, there are indications that research is moving towards bridging this gap. Some researchers, for instance Androutsopoulos (2015), argue that OSM are forcing researchers to reconsider some of the pre-existing and popular concepts used in contemporary linguistics. These insights intersect with concepts leveraged in TS and pragmatics, and, therefore, have applicability beyond linguistics.

4.2 Revisiting bilingualism and multilingualism online

In TS, it is commonplace for researchers to investigate translation-related phenomena using binary language combinations (e.g. English ↔ French; Korean ↔ Japanese; Spanish ↔ Catalan). Online spaces, but especially OSM, demand that this binary way of thinking about translation, code-switching and multilingualism be problematised. If pragmatics is concerned with addressing how language(s) are effectively being used in online settings, then it is of primary concern to scrutinise binary conceptualisations of translation praxis.

Androutsopoulos (2015), in the International Journal of Bilingualism, makes a case for addressing the inherent problems with language binaries and related terminology. For instance, when researchers in TS use the term “multilingual”, this is usually in reference to the users of online websites or platforms, not the actual sites or platforms themselves. In so doing, they obfuscate the inherent multilingual dimension of many online spaces. Androutsopoulos explains this as follows:

Multilingualism on the web, in particular, can come about when various component of a web page [or OSM platform], such as edited and user-generated content or advertisements and framing elements, are cast in different languages, resulting in a multilingual configuration of “modules” that coexist in screen space (Androutsopoulos, 2013; Ivković & Lotherington, 2009). Web users contribute interactively to the multilingual composition of web pages by selecting the language of the interface, posting their own content and responding to other users within a bounded web environment.

(ibid.: 187)

Through this explanation, it is evident then that “multilingualism” as an analytical concept cannot refer to users’ language profiles exclusively. Studying users’ multilingual interactions in online settings, particularly OSM, requires that researchers take into account the linguistic or multilingual profiles, certainly, but not to the detriment of the larger multilingual context (i.e., the website or platform) in which these users communicate and interact.

In a related vein, pragmatics research has also investigated code-switching phenomena and what motivates individuals to code-switch, or how context might determine the need to do so. In some ways, one could argue that code-switching has a degree of overlap with self-translation – ultimately, code-switching does require that users perform a degree of mental self-translation, however conscious or sub-conscious. Therefore, investigating instances of online code-switching/self-translation would have great relevance for the field given the limited (but growing) scholarship on this particular subject (for online self-translation cf. Desjardins, 2013; Desjardins, 2017; for self-translation, more broadly, cf. Falceri et al., 2017). Androutsopoulos (2015) indicates that online code-switching is motivated and user choices are not arbitrary. Inasmuch as online spaces can allow users to be creative with code-switching, in some instances, such “switches” are necessary to avoid conflict or marginalisation.

code-switching online includes creative and playful uses of linguistic resources, which exploit available planning opportunities and are reflexively mobilised in discourses of cultural diversity or hybridity. It also suggests that multilingual practices are not always welcome in public online spaces, where minority or migrant languages can be banned or pressure can be exercised on participants to switch to the majority language [or platform language] sometimes by leading to a reduction of minority and migrant languages to bracketing elements or genres that are closely related to the respective minority culture.

(Androutsopoulos, 2015: 187)

Androutsopoulos (ibid.) goes on to propose “networked multilingualism” as more effective analytical concept with which to investigate multilingual computer-mediated communication (CMC). Using a specific Facebook case study, he argues that the interplay between individual preferences and practices, networked audiences and network resources

gives rise to heteroglossic stretches of discourse with contingent, and therefore unique, configurations of languages, audiences, and media. [. . .] Scrolling down Facebook walls¹⁷ and news feeds, the viewer experiences a continuous stream of wall events that are spatially adjacent but not necessarily sequentially coherent, with a range of genres and contributions by multiple authors, featuring language that is both written and spoken, individually typed and multimodally embedded.

(ibid.: 202)

While Androutsopoulos does not make overt reference to translation in his analysis, there is passing reference to web translation in the conclusion of the study. By revisiting how we define multilingualism and code-switching in online settings, Androutsopoulos’ argument focuses on a more nuanced approach to studying online language phenomena. Binary conceptions of language use negate what actual language in use looks like in online multilingual communication. Written versus spoken analyses tend to neglect the fact that some users “speak” when they write in online settings. These nuanced understandings of linguistics concepts could serve in pragmatic analyses of translation phenomena on OSM.

4.3 Pragmatics, emojis and translation

Although emoji (singular), understood here as an iconographic “language” comprising of small images (emojis: plural) (Desjardins, 2017), is not a form of OSM, it is largely used on social platforms to communicate a wide range of meanings, from the obvious and literal (e.g. an apple pictogram to indicate the fruit itself), to the nuanced and the abstract (e.g. an abstract dot, line or shape). In December 2016, the UK-based translation company Today Translations staffed a position for the first emoji translator (Eggert, 2016). What was particularly striking about this specific job posting was the fact that its description did not make overt reference to translation experience or to translation competency. In other words, candidates, although required to translate from and into emoji (usually in corporate marketing or branding contexts), did not seem to require a background in translation or any professional degree in translation or translation studies. The position was eventually staffed by Keith Broni, who has formal training in business psychology. Broni describes much of what he does using explanations that coincide with translation theories (Kalenderian, 2017), for instance how he “adapts” the choice of emojis based on target audiences and on cultural norms and expectations. In the interviews Broni gave subsequent to his hire (cf. Today Translations, 2017a, 2017b), he makes no overt mention of pragmatics or pragmatic competence. However, implicitly, he certainly alludes to basic pragmatic concepts and principles, specifically when he talks about cross-cultural and cross-platform “variations” (ibid.), “expectations” and potential communicational “pitfalls” that are related to the emoji-based text events. Additional research into Broni’s previous work, specifically his doctoral work and current professional practice, could shed further light into how (or whether) he explicitly or implicitly leverages pragmatic theories and concepts. This type of further investigation would also align with sociological work in TS on the subject of translator profiles and agency (i.e., investigating who are the agents performing translator/translation tasks and what are their backgrounds/skills).

As more brands migrate their marketing and advertising to OSM, they are also increasingly leveraging the perceived “universality” of emoji in their content creation. This means that for current and future translators, a pragmatic understanding of how emojis are used cross-culturally is valuable knowledge in today’s marketplace, as Broni’s case readily suggests. Emojis are largely context-dependent and situationally meaningful, as Broni explains in his interview (Kalenderian, 2017) and they are rarely used exclusively literally.

Here, pragmatics research could supplement hypotheses about why some emojis gain popularity over others; how and why they are used in specific geographic regions; how and why there are used on specific OSM; and, finally, how users are increasingly communicating exclusively through these pictograms.

While the literature review did not reveal any comprehensive studies on these specific areas, one study in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication did use pragmatics to study the use of emoticons (the predecessor of emojis) in relation to clarifying the intent of online messages. Thompson and Filik (2016) conducted two studies in which participants were asked to make the intent of their messages explicit. The researchers’ findings clearly indicate that recourse to emoticons to clarify sarcastic content, for instance, was a regular occurrence in study participants. Specific emoticons, for instance those indicating a wink face or tongue face, were more commonly associated to indicate sarcasm, while recourse to smiley faces or frown faces were usually used in literal communication. Though this particular study focuses on emoticons, its methodological approach could be leveraged in translation contexts to better understand how and why emojis (since emoticons are less frequent on OSM than emojis) are used to clarify intent in CMC. Such research could also serve to train translator trainees on how to effectively translate emojis.

Placencia and Lower (2017) explore similar themes in their work on the subject of compliments and compliment responses on social media. As with Thompson and Filik’s (2016) research, Placencia and Lower do not observe translation-related phenomena specifically, but they do look at the role emojis play in compliments and in compliment responses. Research previously observed face-to-face communication, but increasingly, attention is being given to digital communication and, more specifically, OSM. Placencia and Lower (2017) posit that the use of emojis serves to reinforce textual utterances (illocutionary force). Evidence also suggests that emojis are used to indicate playfulness and creativity (Placencia, 2015, cited in Placencia & Lower, 2017). It would be interesting to see whether the same emojis are used interlinguistically to convey humour, playfulness and creativity. If so, this would reinforce positions that affirm the universality of emojis. If not, this would indicate that there is more to emoji translation than simply marketing a brand or product successfully (which is likely) and it would suggest that positions such as the one advertised at Today Translations are likely to multiply in the coming years.

4.4 Pragmatics, hashtags and translation

Hashtags are metadata tags that are used across virtually all OSM. Originally, they were more commonly associated with Twitter and other microblogging platforms and were generally used to index user-generated content thematically. For instance, if a tweet focused on the Canadian political system or on Canadian politics, the hashtag #Cdnpoli would likely accompany the tweet’s text.¹⁸ This tweet would then be “indexed” alongside thematically-similar or similarly tagged content. Hashtags make it easier for users of OSM to find content that interests them or that pertains to a specific theme or genre. They can also help users track “conversations” related to these topics. In December 2017, Instagram announced users could now “follow” hashtags in the way that was previously reserved for individual or corporate accounts only (Instagram, 2017). Thanks to indexing, hashtags are also now a sort of “tool” which researchers can use to collect online social data for research corpora on specific themes; in other words, hashtags can function as a type of search query. Moreover, tracking hashtag usage and popularity might serve as a viable method to further investigate how concepts travel and develop, gain or lose currency, and how they contribute to the meaning-making process in text events.

Since the launch of Instagram, an OSM platform that focuses more specifically on photo- and video-sharing, hashtags have gone from simply indexing content (as on Twitter and similar microblogging platforms) to serve as an “instrument for creative self-expression and language play” (Heyd & Puschmann, 2017). In their work, Heyd and Puschmann (2017) trace the emergence and history of hash signs on OSM and explain how their use in digital linguistic practice demonstrates adaptability and appropriation. Using a framework combining sociolinguistics, semiotics and pragmatics, the authors explain how hash signs have undergone a functional shift, from being exclusively conceived as a form of punctuation associated with typeset, to a channel¹⁹ marker in early Internet Relay Chat (IRC) contexts (e.g. #translation; #running), to more contemporary uses that evolved since the launch of Twitter, a platform on which users employ hashtags to create “folksonomies”²⁰ to facilitate the tracking of social conversations and threads. Even more recently, hashtags have undergone another functional shift, in which they serve as a form of meta-commentary. In this type of usage, hashtags are not simply used in an adapted manner, they are appropriated (i.e., “adapted with an agenda”; cf. Heyd & Puschmann, 2017). This means users will use hashtags to “achieve certain stylistics effects [. . .] to project a certain identity or speaker persona” (ibid.).

The challenge then for translators is how to better understand the difference between hashtags that are used for indexing purposes (i.e., folksonomies) and those that are used meta-discursively, or, as Heyd and Puschmann (2017) state, appropriated to create specific meanings or to nuance meanings in context. Translators should also be able to distinguish when hashtags are used for both these purposes. In their work, Heyd and Puschmann (ibid.) do not make explicit reference to the translation of hashtags, but they do implicitly point in this direction in a section about the degree of commodification (i.e., how hashtags are used by global and local brands to market products and services). In their case study, they observe that hashtags tend to be used more commonly in English or in “approximations of Anglophone practice” (ibid.: 59). Their hypothesis is that English fulfills a symbolic function for the positioning of global brands and thus it would make sense, in marketing terms, to opt for English hashtags that index social content for the widest social audience (since English is one of the dominant global languages, it stands to reason most users can or would be able to engage with the content). However, consumers are also interested in social content that is relatable and authentic (cf. Oswald, 2012), and this usually means that brands also have to relate to their consumers in local languages, hence the relevance of effective hashtag translation. Desjardins (2017) expands on this line of thought in her work on the subject of translation and hashtag indexing:

Some might overlook the vital role hashtags play in placing UGC [user-generated content] in the appropriate “conversations” even in unilingual settings, let alone bilingual or bicultural ones. For instance, if someone were to translate #throwbackthursday (En) by [using only] #rétrojeudi (Fr), this would not place the French-language UGC in the appropriate “conversation”, as #rétrojeudi does not index as frequently as #jeudirétro or even the short form #TBT [commonly used in En]. As a result, this would mean that this particular UGC post might not be seen by as many users or create as much engagement.

(p. 80)

Translator training that would focus on imparting pragmatics concepts to trainees would be invaluable. Such training would serve as a step in avoiding the common mistake many translators make of translating hashtags “word for word” on OSM. Such situations usually arise when translators are simply unfamiliar with the technical and semiotic functions of hashtags.

Moreover, additional case studies that look at hashtag translation from a pragmatic and semiotic standpoint could serve to flesh out existing work on hashtag research. The transnational and multicultural nature of online engagement makes for particularly compelling data – data that could be further scrutinised using concepts and insights from TS. Further, research on the pragmatics of online engagement could supplement strategies that are used in the context of digital literacy training in translation courses or modules (Desjardins, 2017). A comprehensive view of digital literacy would mean conceiving of training as going beyond coding or creating/translating content for the purposes of marketing a product (i.e., exclusively to serve consumerist or capitalist agendas), and thus imparting knowledge so that translators/trainees can better understand how hashtags function to ensure the dissemination not only of products, but of symbolic and cultural capitals (cf. Bourdieu, 1986).

Concluding remarks

Although reasons for the dearth of studies on the subject of translation, social media and pragmatics can be explained by the still nascent literature and research on social media more broadly, it is nonetheless remarkable to see that translation (as a key term, keyword and subject) is not referenced in the index of the handbook of the Pragmatics of Social Media. The total number of in-text occurrences for “translation” is one (n=1) in Chapter 8 (“Twitter”). This occurrence, however, is only in passing and references work done by Carter and colleagues (2011) who explore the translation of hashtags in a variety of world events and who then propose a methodology for hashtag translation. Unfortunately, the original file to the poster presentation is no longer available and only the abstract is available in open access. The abstract does briefly discuss the translation method, which is premised upon methods from information retrieval. Much like the argument made previously, they argue that hashtag translation is far more complex than simply swapping lexical units. However, they do not make overt reference to leveraging pragmatics analysis to supplement their framework. This overview, then, suggests that translation is often subsumed within broader pragmatics research, if at all, which makes it difficult to discern with certainty what areas have been previously investigated.

A suggestion for TS researchers interested in pursuing pragmatics research on OSM would be to see where translation phenomena can overlap with the subjects that have already gained traction. For instance, cross-cultural and multilingual comparisons of the illocutionary force of emojis, multilingual flaming and trolling, the translation of new online genres afforded by OSM, the collapsing of contexts (cf. Androutsopoulos, 2014; Bloommaert & Szabla, 2017) and the types of discourses generally associated with specific OSM.

More specifically, two key observations emerge at this time: 1) there is a need for increased disciplinary consilience between translation (and by extension TS), pragmatics and social media studies. The literature review suggests that researchers in each of these disciplines are interested in the impact OSM have had on human communication and behaviour. However, interdisciplinary work merging these three disciplines remains limited. There should be a concerted effort to create research groups in which participants come from different disciplinary backgrounds. This would, to a degree, amend the recurrence of “in passing” commentary on the subject of translation in pragmatics and social media research. 2) Empirical research remains insufficient. It is one thing to theorise about the potential implications of OSM whether in terms of existing conceptual frameworks, training, or professional practice. However, this type of research needs to be supplemented by evidence from real-world usage. Here, the challenge lies in the fact that OSM are always evolving, be it through the implementation of new algorithms or new features (e.g. filters; types of shareable UGC), and their popularity and use can vary based on these new features. For instance, Instagram has introduced a number of new features over the course of 2017 that make it increasingly similar to SnapChat, and some observers now suggest that interest for SnapChat may wane as a result (cf. Constine, 2017). Thankfully, the research community is responding, as handbooks such as The SAGE Handbook of Social Media Research Methods now propose solutions to overcome some of the more significant challenges of conducting research on OSM and with OSM data.

It is indeed curious that translation seems to be an outlier topic in current pragmatics scholarship and social media research – however, this also means that TS researchers are uniquely positioned to provide novel insights. As Hoffman (2017) states: “After all, the pragmatics of social media has much to offer not only to linguists, but to everyone who shares our interest in the way language is currently used on social media, regardless of their scholarly provenance” (p. 3).

Notes

1 Here, we may think of Grice’s (1975) “maxims” and the co-operative principle of communication (cf. Baker, 2011; Munday, 2016).

2 For more on the nuances in OSM definitions and how they apply in Translation Studies, cf. Desjardins, 2017, p. 17.

3 Instagram is a photo- and video-sharing platform, where users can upload photos, recorded and live videos privately and publicly (Instagram, 2017).

4 This intersects with House’s (2013) introductory remarks on “English interactions as lingua franca communication” in her work on the pragmatics of English.

5 Facebook regularly selects specific markets to test new features or platform changes. Recently, Canada was chosen as a test market for increased advertising transparency (cf. Krashinsky Robertson, 2017).

6 There is a current and on-going debate about the popularity of social media. While statistics such as those presented by Wihbey (2014), Boulianne (2015) and those collected by Desjardins (2017) suggest a continued or increasing popularity, this doesn’t mean that engagement is necessarily on the rise. Commentary in the tech world and in the mainstream press suggests a migration from Facebook to other platforms as well as decrease in the hours spent on OSM platforms (cf. DeMers, 2017; Guynn, 2017). However, some studies, such as a recent Nielsen report, suggest that migration and usage trends can be segmented by generation (Casey, 2017), often to surprising results. According to the Nielsen data (ibid.), Generation X (individuals aged 35–49) is the demographic that uses social media the most, contrary to popular perceptions that associate these platforms with the Millennial generation.

7 Bariki (2015) similarly states: “Translation that are non-literary, technical, and practical in nature are termed pragmatic translations” (n.p.).

8 My translation.

9 Occurrences of the term “pragmatic translation” have also been noted in some TS references, such as The Oxford Handbook of Translation Studies (2011) (cf. Wakabayashi, 2011). “Pragmatic” is also used in the literature adjectivally to mean “common sense”; unfortunately, these occurrences are at times indexed under “pragmatics” (referring to the field of study) as though the two were synonymous.

10 It should be noted that these authors contributed to the same series of handbooks, i.e., the Handbooks of Pragmatics series published by De Gruyter. This likely explains, then, recourse to the same broader definition of the field of study.

11 Filters are ready-made photo edits that can alter a user’s photo or video to convey a specific aesthetic or mood.

12 “A word or phrase preceded by the symbol # that classifies or categorizes the accompanying text (such as a tweet)” (Merriam-Webster, 2017).

13 At the time of writing, Instagram offers 40 unique photographic and video filters to its users. These filters go by names such as “Valencia”, or “Clarendon”, and users sometimes indicate the use (or non-use) of filters by using specific hashtags in the post caption (Osman, 2017).

14 While English can and is used on both these platforms, they tend to have restricted penetrations outside of China (Weibo) and Russia (VKontakte). For more on Weibo, cf. Rapoza (2011); for more on VKontakte, cf. Wikipedia “VKontakte” (2017a).

15 These claims are based on the author’s professional experience and classroom data gathered over ten years of undergraduate translator training in Canada.

16 Journals listed in alphabetical order. No thematic hierarchy or preference.

17 Current usage prefers the term “timeline” (Barnett, 2011)

18 For more on the use of #cdnpoli, cf. Small (2011).

19 Channels were popular in the early days of Internet chat rooms (mid 1990s). Werry (1996) explains that chatrooms or channels were “essentially small-scale electronic communities that individuals can join and participate in” (pp.49–50). To join a channel, users would have to type /join, followed by a hash sign, followed by the name of the channel; for instance: /join + #running or /join + #translation.

20 A folksonomy is a form of collaborative tagging or social tagging (the terms are sometimes used interchangeably), where users “apply public tags to online items, typically to aid them in re-finding those items. This can give rise to a classification system based on those tags and their frequencies” (Wikipedia, 2017b).