Translation (Dis)Junctions, or Postsocialist Connectivity

Network Language Transfer and Cyberdubbing on the Runet

Abstract

This article focuses on language transfer as a fundamental factor in the construction of postsocialist network technosociality. By looking at the early days of the Internet in Russia and the current landscape of the Russian-language cyberspace, it demonstrates that excessive translation activity becomes an essential tool of postsocialist integration with global network economies and cultures. At the center of this activity is voice-over, a form of “half dubbing” and a dominant screen translation practice on the Runet. While this article explores the histories and defining features of performance and labor of this practice, it argues that the voice-over translation is a mode of connectivity that exposes the centrality of asynchrony and distortion to postsocialist networking as well as to the network as such.