Zijun (Daisy) Feng
Thesis Title (PhD)
FAN SUBTITLING OF LESBIAN REPRESENTATION FROM ENGLISH TO CHINESE IN ANGLOPHONE FILM AND TV
This project intends to investigate how Anglophone lesbian representation is subtitled in Chinese fan subtitling (in short: fansubbing), and what may have influenced the fansubbing. The author will use the Netflix lesbian TV drama Orange Is the New Black (OITNB, the USA, 2013-2019), fansubbed by the Chinese fansubbing group, YYeTs, as a case study to illustrate a big picture and ensure an in-depth analysis. The two main research questions are: 1) How is lesbian representation subtitled from English to Chinese in Anglophone film and TV, especially in OITNB; 2) What factors may have influenced the fansubbing of lesbian representation from English to Chinese. To answer the first question, I will apply multimodal critical discourse analysis for examining the fansubbing of speech and gestures of five selected lesbian characters, due to their diverse gender and sexuality performances (only when gestures occur with speech). Such performances have constructed to their identities, thus contribute to TV portrayals of lesbian representation. To answer the second question, I will interview 10 Chinese fansubbers who have subtitled lesbian scenes from English to Chinese, not exclusively OITNB, to uncover what shape their translation decisions for lesbian scenes. For instance, censorship, fansubbing conventions, and fansubbers’ identities. It will illustrate the manifestations and reasons for the Chinese fansubbing of English lesbian-related audiovisual texts.