Challenging linguicentrism in translation: a semiotic approach to the emergence of a female counterculture in digital spaces

Abstract In the summer of 2020, the reality television show “Sisters Who Make Waves” became a sensation across China. Featuring a cast of 30 sisters over the age of 30, the show aimed to challenge ageist stereotypes and promote female empowerment. It initiated a “Sister Wave” and reconfigured the connotation of the Chinese term jiejie (‘elder sister’). Moreover, it brought jiexue (‘elder sister studies’) to public attention, a term coined by Internet users to celebrate the allure and charisma of older women. This paper adopts Kobus Marais’s semiotic theory of translation to analyze the process by which jiejie is semiotically translated into the online female counterculture jiexue . By extending the notion of translation beyond linguistic boundaries to explore the emergence of jiexue as a manifestation of Chinese digital feminism, this paper argues that Marais’s semiotic theorization of translation proves particularly valuable in developing a transdisciplinary approach that can unlock the potential of translation across the humanities.