The Interpreter and Translator Trainer

(Re)Conceptualising User Agency in Audiovisual Translation Education

This special issue explores the central role of user agency in audiovisual translation (AVT) education during this human-AI collaborative age. Drawing on Sullivan (2020), this proposal defines user agency in the field of AVT education as the ability of online media users to actively interpret, use, and even (re)produce media content that has been translated. The online media users in the current context refer to active user-translators, including students as AVT beginners, who are engaged in fansubbing, fandubbing, trans-audio-description, danmu subtitling, and the remix and recreation of audiovisual materials.

This issue is triggered by the transformative role of users evolving over the years from passive spectators (Di Giovanni & Gambier, 2018) to active participants – such as information and knowledge disseminators, feedback providers, content creators, and human-AI collaborators – in the transmedia era (Jenkins, 2006; Bruns, 2007; van Dijck, 2009; Bucaria, 2023; Li, 2023), aiming at investigating how user agency can be creatively incorporated into AVT training. The agency typical of nonprofessional translation communities has the potential of adding dynamism and interactivity to the AVT classroom as the practice of fansubbing gains prominence among students, who prefer to watch fansubbed audiovisual programmes (Bolaños-García-Escribano, 2017) and act as fansubbers themselves (Li, 2021). In an AI-driven era, where communication is digitally mediated via social media, users’ self-selection, intrinsic motivation, tactical creativity, and collaborative autonomy stand out as pedagogical pillars capable of fostering a more dynamic, agentic classroom.

Contexualising User Agency in AVT

To date, the exploration of user engagement in transnational media exchange has experienced significant growth in translation studies (e.g. Wang & Zhang, 2017; Wang, 2022, 2023; Yang, 2020,2021; Lu & Lu, 2022; Massidda, 2015), focusing on a two-way process that moves from the source to the target and back again. This dynamic can result in forms such as pseudotranslation, transcreation, and collaborative translation, where digital users adapt the source text to align with the target culture, often re-narrating the audiovisual work for distinct textual effects in favour of target audiences rather than merely preserving the original meaning. In light of this, user agency in AVT is multimodally more pronounced than general translation practices. Transformatively, the role of user agency in non-professional translation practices not only decentralises the focus on language but also highlights the communicative function of translation (Chen & Feng, 2025). The conventional “twin processes” of translation (Bassnett, 2016) have now expanded into more recent, multiple, and multifaceted processes that are “substantially stretching and modifying, the very concept of translation” (Rizzo, 2022 p.13).

In this context, the potential collaboration between human and technology leads to “an unforeseen surge in agency and interactivity on the part of audiences” (Di Giovanni & Gambier, 2018: vii). Formerly like-minded volunteers who contributed collaborative translations in online groups and communities have now metamorphosed into co-creators of translations through personal blogs, vlogs, and social networking platforms, as seen in the case of danmu on online video platforms, large-language-model-generated multilingual video translations, digital avatars, and Reverso users, all producing their translations in cyberspace. While some researchers have referred to these collaborative forms of translation as “human agency” (Reviers et al., 2024), “viewer agency” (Díaz-Cintas & Hayes, 2023), “fan agency” (Yin, 2021), and “human-centered artificial intelligence and amplification” (human-AI agency) (Heer, 2019; O’Brien, 2023), few studies have demonstrated how this innovative and transformative impact on user agency reshapes participants’ engagement, perception, and reception of the various AVT practices and contributes to greater methodological sophistication and theoretical depth in AVT training.

Refining User Agency in AVT Education

The conception of students as future AVT professionals rather than passive learners is increasingly emphasised in the literature (Urdal et al., 2024; Jiménez-Crespo, 2025). This shift, reflected across translation modalities, is mainly instigated by technology, automation, and evolving work ecosystems. The inclusion of technological innovation in AVT didactics spans competence-based (Zabalbeascoa et al., 2005; Díaz-Cintas, 2008), cognitive (Massey & Jud, 2015; Beuchert, 2017; Hvelplund, 2018), as well as task- and project-based (Bolaños-García-Escribano, 2025) approaches. In this respect, live-streaming contexts incorporating AI-human translation modalities (Liang & Lu, 2025), AI-driven dubbing and subtitling workflows (Jiménez-Crespo, 2025), cloud-based subtitling in research-led education (Bolaños-García-Escribano, 2024), and the use of platforms like Ooona for comparative assessment of subtitle modalities (Guerberof-Arenas et al., 2024) are all ideal settings to explore AVT multimodal pedagogy. Additionally, fansubbing-infused pedagogy fosters collaborative frameworks and communities of practice in AVT training (Beseghi, 2021), reinforcing “the sense of translation as a human activity” (Fernández-Costales, 2012, 127).

User agency has progressively expanded in audience participation and engagement. In AVT-multimodal scenarios, the traditional role of translator or interpreter has diversified into multiple, competitive functions, such as scriptwriter, host, live streamer, posteditor, and viewer (Liang & Lu, 2025). In video game localisation, specifically, students are not only players but they also act as information providers, social media operators, community mobilisers, and team-oriented decision-makers. Such active participation (Wang & Cui, forthcoming) cultivates students’ technological, instrumental, and occupational subcompetences within AVT education (Bolaños-García-Escribano & Díaz-Cintas, 2019).

Pedagogical Significance

This special issue is particularly timely as the concept of human agency takes centre stage in an AI-driven era and students become increasingly immersed in digital technologies in the classroom. By embracing the mindset of users, students learn to be decision makers, consultants, and subject matter experts. The significance of exploring AVT classroom and course design can be better understood through three key aspects. Firstly, it will offer a more comprehensive picture of user agency, uncovering new insights into how audiovisual communication is created, shared, perceived, and responded to in grassroots, nonprofessional settings, as well as into how the central role of user agency can be integrated into AVT training. Secondly, it will enhance the visibility of users, making discussions particularly valuable in addressing key questions of the digital era, such as the blurring of boundaries between professional and nonprofessional activities, and the evolving roles of translators. It will also enrich AVT education through its focus on students’ agency, highlighting their self-motivation and initiative. Thirdly, it will offer a better understanding of the shifting power dynamics within the translation process and their impact on the broader sociocultural landscape, from the perspectives of both AVT trainers and trainees. In so doing, we aim to equip prospective translators and interpreters with the adaptability needed to maximise their technological and translational competitiveness (Liang & Lu, 2025), while also providing practical teaching and learning strategies to address the psychological, digital, and employability challenges in an increasingly automated industry.

This special issue will be of interest to scholars in translation studies, reception studies, media studies, online communication, screen culture, and related disciplines. We particularly welcome empirical research that explores AVT training from the perspective of user agency in non-professional and fan-based AVT practices within cyberspace. Potential themes include, but are not limited to:

• the (re)conceptualisation of “user agency” in the context of non-professional and/or fanbased AVT training;

• online users’ motivations for exerting agency in AI-powered AVT and its impact on the theory and practice of AVT training;

• online users’ creativity in specific domains of AVT, such as danmu subtitling, fansubbing/fandubbing, game localisation, access services, and voice synthesis technologies for media localisation and its impact on the theory and practice of AVT training;

• empirical studies focusing on the activation of user agency through verbal and/or nonverbal channels in online and offline AVT training, supported by robust research methods and with high potential for innovation in AVT pedagogy;

• the negotiation of agency between AI platform developers, users and educators in AVT training;

• the extent to which the exercise of user agency bridges or extends the boundaries between professional and non-professional, human and AI translation in AVT training;

• pedagogical, technological, and ethical implications of user agency for AVT training;

• the impact of AI-based AVT paradigm and user agency on the established translation training paradigm in AVT.

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