Revisiting risk management in online collaborative literary translation: ethical insights from the Chinese context

Ethical concerns regarding online collaborative translation have garnered limited but growing attention in the past decade. Previous studies primarily focused on translation products or broader societal perspectives, shedding light on the exploitative nature of online collaborative translation, and its detrimental impact on translation quality and public perception of the translation profession, leaving many process-oriented details underexplored. Recent scholarship has begun to examine the ethical issues that arise from the interactions between translators and translation tools, as well as between actors working in teams. This article seeks to contribute to this growing field of inquiry by specifically investigating collaborative literary translation on the digital platform within the Chinese context. Adopting the method of cognitive ethnography, this article builds on risk management to discuss the various risks facing translators and their coping strategies. Several ethical concerns have emerged, including individual's irrational acts that may compromise group interests, responsibility evasion inherent in the collaborative work, individual agency challenged by interpersonal risk, and a lack of commitment associated with the act of making concessions.