Examining the Interaction Between Translation and Translanguaging in Proper‐name Transcreation on Chinese Social Media

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study examines proper‐name transcreation on Rednote, a Chinese social media platform, and explores the interaction between translation and translanguaging in this process. Drawing on Jakobson's tripartite typology of translation and Sato's translanguaging approach to translation, the study employs a mixed‐methods approach to analyze 242 valid cases and develops a three‐dimensional framework of interlingual, intralingual, and intersemiotic translanguaging, highlighting the co‐mobilization of diverse meaning‐making resources in proper‐name transcreation. The findings show that interlingual translanguaging is the most prevalent, followed by intralingual translanguaging, while intersemiotic translanguaging, which foregrounds multimodal resources, is the least frequent. The sub‐strategies within these three dimensions also display distinct distributional patterns. Overall, proper‐name transcreation on Rednote is not merely a process of linguistic substitution, but a playful and subversive translation practice enabled by translanguaging space and possibly motivated by users’ online self‐presentation. In this practice, meaning is constructed through the mobilization of diverse linguistic and non‐linguistic resources, thereby challenging monolingual assumptions and target‐language norms. The study thus sheds light on how transcreation operates on social media and offers new insights into translation practices and language innovation in digital communication.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 2026 · DOI ↗