Abstract

This study aims to investigate the agency of Wa translators in Han-Wa translation practices at a film and television translation center on the China-Myanmar borderland, focusing specifically on how they negotiate the ideological tension between state-sanctioned political discourse and locally rooted indigenous knowledge, and to theorize the semiotic mechanisms of simultaneity and bivalency (Woolard, 1998; Woolard & Genovese, 2007) that underpin this negotiation. These concepts capture the simultaneous availability and evaluation of multiple linguistic and ideological registers in translational choices. The empirical data were gathered through ethnographic fieldwork carried out from July to September 2025, which included semi-structured interviews with Wa translators, systematic analysis of translation products posted on digital platforms, and participant observation with detailed field notes; data triangulation across these sources ensured the reliability and validity of the qualitative findings. Guided by Woolard's framework, the analysis reveals that Wa translators occupy dual positionalities—they function simultaneously as state agents and cultural guardians. As state agents, they predominantly employ transliteration to reinforce the unidirectional authority of official Chinese political discourse, whereas as cultural guardians, they strategically reframe indigenous experiential repertoires as legitimate cultural knowledge, thus enacting a subtle but consistent bottom-up resistance. The principal novelty of this study lies in extending the concepts of simultaneity and bivalency to the under-explored context of borderland translation, where it becomes evident that Han-Wa translation is not a neutral transfer of meaning but a discursive field in which centripetal state-building forces and centrifugal ethnic-identity forces constantly intersect. The findings suggest that these translational practices may open up autonomous discursive spaces for the articulation of ethnic identity and the preservation of cultural authenticity among Wa audiences. These findings challenge the conventional dichotomy between state power and indigenous agency, revealing instead a dynamic interplay of centripetal and centrifugal forces. More broadly, this article contributes a theoretical framework for understanding translation as an ideological contestation in multilingual state-minority encounters, offering implications for translation studies in analogous diglossic and borderland settings.

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