# Danmu subtitling as a self-regulative practice: a descriptive discourse analysis of Bilibili danmu subtitles from ethical perspectives

## TL;DR

This paper explores how users on Bilibili create danmu subtitles and how ethical principles apply to this collaborative translation practice.

## Contribution

The study introduces an ethics of digital technology and applies multiple ethical models to analyze user-generated danmu subtitling.

## Key findings

- Multiple ethical models explain danmu subtitling practices.
- Danmu subtitling encounters distinct ethical conflicts.
- Adaptive regulation is proposed to resolve these conflicts.

## Abstract

Translation ethics is an important aspect of Translation Studies that has gained increasing attention in recent years. From an ethical perspective, this study investigates the onscreen commenting system: danmu subtitling, an emergent non-professional and collaborative translation practice popular in Asian communities. Adopting, modifying and expanding Andrew Chesterman’s models of translation ethics, i.e., representation ethics, service ethics, communication ethics, norm-based ethics and ethics of professional commitment and proposing an ethics of digital technology, this study delves into how ethical principles explain the user-generated danmu subtitles. Descriptive discourse analysis is performed in this study observing an episode of Tamara’s World (uploaded with no subtitles or translations), an English variety show, examining 296 translation-related instances among 1,490 danmu comments. Findings indicate that multiple ethical models elucidate danmu subtitling practices, which encounter distinct ethical conflicts. Consequently, adaptive regulation is proposed to resolve these conflicts.