Negotiation, power and ethics in online collaborative translation: translation of “COVID-19” by Wikipedia translator-editors

Abstract

ABSTRACT The online encyclopaedic translation of Wikipedia articles has garnered heightened scholarly interest as an inherently collaborative endeavour that has opened new avenues for exploring the ethical intricacies of self-organised negotiation processes and hierarchical power dynamics among online translator-editors. Nevertheless, the ethical terrain of the irreconcilable conflicts between individual translators with discordant voices and divergent motivations in online practices remains relatively uncharted. By investigating the translator-editors’ adopted cooperative behaviour as anchorage fraught with intersubjective conflicts and ethical defences, this article uses the collaborative translation of the Chinese-language Wikipedia ‘COVID-19’ article to explore what (dis)enables ethical cooperation in the digital space. Special attention is given to instances in which collaboration is ensnared by peril, thereby necessitating the imperative preservation of negotiations. The influence of Wikipedia’s environmental characteristics on translational activities is analysed with regard to the confluence of the disruptive and centrifugal social forces at play, which ultimately shape the negotiations and community maintenance of the online translation collaborations.