Digital Urban Ecotranslation as Environmental Education in Anthropocene-Era Hong Kong

Abstract

Urban digital ecotranslation employs digital technology and translation to allow city dwellers access to specialist ecological knowledge. The objects of study are bilingual online nature-related digital databases, both websites and apps, in Hong Kong. Qualitative and quantitative methods were adopted to answer the following questions: 1. How do local ecotranslation sites complement global sites like iNaturalist? 2. How has local biodiversity been translated on these sites and why? 3. Who are the ecotranslators and what motivates them? The findings are as follows. First, unlike global sites, local sites curate information for a local audience of English, Mandarin, or Cantonese speakers. Second, the interlingual translations on these sites were done manually, and often technically; but biodiversity was also translated intersemiotically, into illustrative photographs, reducing the need for explanatory intralingual translation of terminology. Third, the ecotranslators vary in terms of being individuals or groups, native or immigrant Hongkongers; but they have a common concern about threats to biodiversity in the Anthropocene. It is this concern that has motivated their ecotranslation, which they regard as a form of environmental education.