A study on the potential of fansubbing as English language learning activity: Fansubbers’ perspectives

Abstract

The study of the English language can assist learners in understanding and enjoying the culture of the target language community and in sharing what they enjoy in their language community or other communities with the world through translation. In developing the success of language learning, there are numerous means outside the traditional classroom walls by which learners can learn a language more practically while enjoying the learning process. Fansubbing, or amateur production, is one such activity which is a newly added area into the subject domain of Audio-Visual Translation, in which a foreign film or foreign television program is translated by fans and subtitled into a language other than that of the original. The present study particularly focuses on the potential of fansubbing as a language learning activity with special reference to the English and Sinhala languages in the Sri Lankan context. An exploratory questionnaire was distributed among ten selected fansubbers of baiscope.lk, a website that provides Sinhala subtitles for a wide range of English movies/TV series/programs in Sri Lanka. One reason behind selecting the aforementioned sub-community of fansubbing is that it was chosen as the 5th among the most popular websites in Sri Lanka according to the Asia Pacific Institute of Digital Marketing. Data gathered through the questionnaire were then analysed using the Content Analysis Method. The objective of this study was to collect data concerning fansubbers’ involvement in fansubbing, their point of view on this fansubbing activity in general, and their perspective on it being utilised for language learning to determine its potential for application as a language learning activity. The results revealed that most of the questionnaire respondents agreed with fansubbing as a language learning activity and that they experience benefits both linguistically and socially as a result of fansubbing.