How humour travels in the new and dynamic mediascape: a case study of a short video platform, Little Red Book, and an online teaching platform, Rain Classroom

The paper situates humour translation within the shift from passive spectatorship to participatory culture, highlighting audiences as emotionally invested, active co-creators in a dynamic mediascape. Traditional distinctions between dubbing and subtitling are insufficient for contemporary platforms that blend multiple titling elements and invite user creativity (e.g., abusive, creative, fansub/fundub/funad, danmaku/non-representational subtitling). The study targets innovative, multimodal subtitles embedded in social media, focusing on Little Red Book (Xiaohongshu, “Red”) and Rain Classroom, to show how non-professional subtitlers and users become visible agents in meaning-making and humour transmission. Research questions: (1) What characterises humour in the Chinese social media, Little Red Book and online teaching platform Rain Classroom? (2) How to translate such humour in the Chinese social media Little Red Book and online teaching platform Rain Classroom? (3) What potential practical, methodological and theoretical contributions does humour translation bring to translation studies?

The paper frames analysis at the confluence of polysystem theory (Even-Zohar) and multimodality/social semiotics (Kress; van Leeuwen), arguing humour comprehension benefits from considering heterogeneous, dynamic subsystems and multimodal semiotic resources such as danmu/danmaku, emojis, and user-oriented interactivity. Prior AVT scholarship has explored multilingual scripts and multimodal resources in dubbing/subtitling, yet studies of innovative subtitles in contemporary social media remain scarce. In the Chinese context, humour translation has shifted from interplay of verbal and non-verbal modes to decontextualisation/recontextualisation practices on video platforms (e.g., Bilibili), where users rework content via modal shifts and participatory commentary (tucao, danmu). The paper adapts Martínez-Sierra’s humour taxonomy to three relevant types for this context: graphic elements, paralinguistic elements, and non-marked humorous elements. Work on danmu highlights liveness, co-viewing, and knowledge-based participation, but educational platforms remain underexplored; this paper addresses that gap by analysing Little Red Book and Rain Classroom.

The study adopts a social semiotic, multimodal, and polysystem-informed approach. It adapts Gottlieb’s four semiotic channels to two context-dependent categories for this corpus: verbal-channel-focused and visual-channel-focused humour (combining audio-visual context), arguing non-verbal channels are hard to isolate without situational context. Data comprise two sets: (1) user-generated humorous vlogs and posts from Little Red Book by creator Adam Chen (language-learning themed, humour and English-learning sub-channels; follower count reported as 621,000 on 20 Jan 2022 with rapid growth), and (2) real-time danmu entries and interactions from a Multimedia Translation postgraduate module (30 first-year MTI students, Autumn 2022, Sun Yat-Sen University) conducted via Tencent Meeting integrated with Rain Classroom. The analysis groups instances under verbal vs visual channels and examines how humour is construed and translated via danmu, transcreated subtitles, emojis, layout/colour, gesture, prosody, and other semiotic resources. Thematic foci include swearing, wordplay, vernacular orality, and in-class humour (technology-driven and exercise-led). Illustrative case studies include: Example 1 (swearing, danmu compensation and emoticons); Example 2 (wordplay on “patient/patience”, transcreated subtitles and audience reception); Example 3 (orality across accents/languages with performative semiotics); Example 4 (tech-driven danmu visual effects from unstable internet); Example 5 (sight-translation exercise and humorous peer critique); Example 6 (subtitling exercise on Jurassic World line “more teeth,” contrasting literal vs adaptive renderings).

- Humour types and loci: - Verbal-channel-focused: swearing and wordplay; user-generated danmu often compensates for translation loss and amplifies humour with emojis and commentary. - Visual-channel-focused: performative orality (accents, gestures, props), technology-driven effects (e.g., danmu ‘laser’/shadowing due to poor internet) create shared humorous moments. - Example-specific insights: - Swearing (Example 1): A Cantonese insult (“呢两條仆/扑街唔知up乜春”) is softened to an endearment in the Chinese subtitle (“这两个小可爱不知道说啥”), with danmu restoring the original swearing, adding an all-black-face emoticon signaling speechlessness/contempt. Viewers also correct danmu spelling, assess the waiter’s Cantonese, and critique exaggerated accents, evidencing active knowledge-sharing and co-translation. - Wordplay (Example 2): Homonym “patient/patience” underlies a bad-joke exchange (“Just be a little patient”). Audience reception is mixed; 10 of 26 danmu entries explicitly dislike the joke. Transcreated subtitles (e.g., highlighted phrases, prominent “哈哈哈哈”) and staged pauses/facial expressions help cue humour despite weak joke content. - Orality and vernacularism (Example 3): A single line is performed in multiple accents/languages (British, American, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Cantonese, Beijinglish). Semiotic resources (prosody, gesture, costume/props like a shower cap, exaggerated rhoticity in American English, adaptation to local drinks/opera style) strongly cue humour; supportive danmu praise accents and performances. - In-class humour via Rain Classroom (Examples 4–6): - Tech-driven humour: visual anomalies (perceived ‘laser’ effects) traced to unstable internet; community laughter and bonding ensue. - Exercise-led sight translation: students humorously claim “我们决定一起上”; peer danmu critiques (“Extremely literal”) highlight contrast between team enthusiasm and imperfect output. - Subtitling task (Jurassic World): Among 10 danmu translations of “more teeth,” 3 are literal (“牙齿更多”); 5 adopt less-literal forms (“利齿更多”); 8/10 still preserve the ‘teeth’ imagery. Adaptive renderings conveying implied fierceness/violence (e.g., 更凶狠/更猛) better match intent than literalism. - Participation and community: Danmu facilitates collaborative meaning-making, error correction, evaluative dialogue, and a sense of liveness and co-viewing, strengthening humour and learning outcomes. - Translation loss/gain: While some humour is attenuated in on-screen subtitles, user danmu and multimodal cues often restore or enhance humorous effects, demonstrating semiotic compensation and transcreation.

Findings address the research questions by showing that humour on Little Red Book and Rain Classroom is characterised by light swearing, wordplay, vernacular orality, and unexpected in-class moments emerging from technology and task design. Translation of such humour is achieved collaboratively through danmu, transcreated subtitles, and chat interactions, with semiotic resources (emojis, layout, colour, gesture, prosody) enabling both compensation and amplification. This user-driven, multimodal process supports the notion that non-professional subtitlers and audiences are active agents in the polysystem of contemporary AVT, reshaping meaning and fostering community. The significance lies in demonstrating how innovative, platform-specific practices (danmu, performative subtitling, interactive feedback) extend translation studies into interdisciplinary terrain, integrating social semiotics with pedagogy and platform studies, and evidencing educational value (engagement, peer evaluation, reflective practice) alongside entertainment.

The study expands perceptions of Little Red Book beyond consumer content to an effective vehicle for humour transmission and demonstrates Rain Classroom’s capacity to cultivate humour and engagement in AVT pedagogy. Through danmu and transcreated subtitles, humour is adapted and recreated for younger, digitally native audiences, fostering a sense of community. Answers to the RQs: (1) Humour is light-swearing, wordplay-led, orality-oriented, and often unexpectedly in-class (stemming from technical glitches, impromptu tasks, evaluative candour). (2) Translation occurs via collaborative user participation—danmu, transcreated subtitles, and chat comments—achieving multimodal compensation and gain despite occasional loss, and accommodating diverse languages/cultures. (3) Contributions: Practically, humour travels across platforms and cultures via blurred professional/amateur boundaries; methodologically, the study proposes five sub-categories across verbal/visual channels (user-generated swearing; user-generated wordplay; user-generated orality; technology-driven in-class humour; user-generated in-class humour); theoretically, it advances a social semiotic and polysystem account of how humour is translated, adapted, and recreated in digital Chinese social and educational contexts, building community and participation.

The corpus covers a limited set of examples from one short-video platform and one educational platform, so findings are illustrative rather than exhaustive. The focus is on Chinese platforms and Chinese–English directions; future work should broaden platform diversity, consider reversed/global translation flows, and examine how humour intersects with ideology, gender, sexuality, and other identities across varied cultural contexts.