From Korea to the rest of the world: fan-generated subtitles build a cultural bridge
Korean TV dramas resonate with global audiences. This is thanks in no small part to a dedicated community that translates K-dramas, provides commentary, and supplements them with cultural explanations. Researchers at the University of Basel have investigated how meaning is collectively negotiated and how individual streaming is transformed into a communal experience.
07 August 2025 | Shania Imboden
Korean pop culture has captivated the world ever since the music hit “Gangnam Style” in 2012, impressively demonstrating how cultural phenomena can transcend national and linguistic borders. Since few people outside of Korea understand the language, subtitles and negotiating meaning play a key role online among fans when it comes to watching Korean shows and movies.
However, essential details in the plot and context are at risk of being lost in translation. So how can subtitles make the complexity of Korean culture understandable to an international audience? Professor Miriam Locher and Dr. Thomas Messerli from the University of Basel explore this question in their research project “Pragmatics of Fiction: Lay subtitling and online communal viewing.”
In it, they investigate the interplay between language, Korean culture, fan communities and online communication. The researchers focus in particular on fan-generated English subtitles and user comments. The researchers want to collate their previous studies as part of a book project and expand them to include additional perspectives.
Miriam Locher and Thomas Messerli combine quantitative and qualitative analyses in their research. Firstly, they examined the content of Korean TV series for cultural and linguistic elements. They then analyzed how viewers on the streaming platform Viki.com engage with the content as users. The researchers focused on linguistic strategies that fans use to translate and discuss culturally specific meanings.
Intricacies of language and politeness
Linguistic subtleties in Korean films and drama series (K-dramas) are crucial for understanding the plot and the relationships between the characters. For example, polite forms of address used by Korean people in a highly context-dependent manner are particularly complex. “Korean people ask the person’s age at the start of a conversation,” explains Miriam Locher. “This allows them to categorize the person they are talking to and adjust their forms of politeness accordingly.”
In addition to age, academic titles, seniority in the workplace or position in the family also determine the social hierarchy. People with higher ranks, titles or ages must be addressed with the appropriate level of respect. The social hierarchy between the speakers is expressed, for example, by the verb endings used at the end of the sentence. According to the researchers, there is no suitable, precise equivalent in English, which makes translation particularly challenging.
Professionals vs. fans
“Subtitles change a stream, as translators inevitably incorporate their interpretation of a scene,” says Locher. However, if translators or viewers lack cultural context, these interpretations risk being incomplete.
The insights the Basel researchers have gained so far show that fan translations are particularly sensitive to cultural subtleties such as the aforementioned polite address terms and are therefore incredibly helpful with making cultural content understandable for others.
On Viki, dedicated fans of the K-dramas create subtitles themselves. In this way, they actively contribute to the global perception of Korean pop culture. “Korean fans who write subtitles orient heavily towards the original Korean text,” says Messerli. The translation teams often retain Korean forms of address or insert explanatory notes in brackets into the subtitles when honorifics or informal language are used, for example, in order to provide cultural context. The additions allow the audience to better understand Korean culture and promote implicit learning of the language and mentality.
By contrast, professional translators from streaming services such as Netflix adapt the subtitles more heavily to the target language. “Cultural nuances sometimes take a back seat to make things easier for the target audience to understand,” says Miriam Locher. “For example, first names are used as forms of address, whereas in the Korean original, the forms of address reflect the social status.”
Comments create scope for translations
The researchers also observed how users negotiate possible meanings by using the commenting feature on Viki, which means that they can actively engage with the Korean language and culture. Viewers add their comments on Viki at a specific moment in the scene. These appear in the same place for other viewers as soon as they watch the corresponding scene.
Passages that are particularly humorous or relevant to the plot stand out, as the volume of comments increases there. “It’s similar to reading comments to a livestream on social media,” explains Messerli. “The comments give the impression that you’re watching an episode together with other people who are reacting to the same scene in a similar way. The result is a feeling of togetherness within the online community.”
The viewers explain non-translatable Korean expressions to each other in the comments, interpret together, and help each other understand and contextualize what they have seen against the background of their own cultural experience. The researchers see this behavior as part of a new, digital way in which people experience cultures collectively. “The way fans interact with films and series and the way they share ideas about them demonstrates a modern engagement with cultures and cultural heritage that has only been made possible by modern platforms,” says Miriam Locher.
