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

1 Introduction

Age discrimination against women is prevalent in various aspects of Chinese society. According to Webster (2011), age (typically under 30) is a primary factor considered in many job advertisements for women in China. It is not uncommon today to witness the denial of job opportunities to women over the age of 30. Once a woman reaches the “advanced” age of 30, she is deemed to have lost her competitiveness in both the employment and marriage markets in China. The term “leftover women,” widely circulated in Chinese society, has gradually been normalized by the media to describe educated, successful, and unmarried women above the age of 27. Middle-aged actresses in China also grapple with being “the Invisible Women” in the notoriously ageist entertainment industry (Xue and Liu 2020). Consequently, many of them struggle to maintain a youthful image in order to secure more job opportunities. Chinese women’s preoccupation with marriage, age, and societal pressures reflects the enduring influence of patriarchal discourses in Chinese society.

Against this backdrop, 乘风破浪的姐姐 (‘Sisters Who Make Waves’, hereafter referred to as “Sisters”), produced by Hunan Television, is perceived by contemporary female audiences as an inspiring initiative that challenges the discriminatory gender roles imposed on women by society. It breaks away from the genre norm of idol competitions that typically feature young girls under 25. Instead, it invites 30 celebrities over the age of 30, some even in their 50s, to compete for spots in an all-female band. The producers adopted the concept of 姐姐 (jiejie,^[1] ‘elder sister’) to lead the public in embracing the beauty of these so-called “old girls.” The show claims to openly defy rigid and superficial standards for females, advocating for a diverse range of female values and beauty. It has redefined the meaning of the Chinese address form jiejie. Rather than simply referring to elder sisters, this term now represents distinct and extraordinary qualities emblematic of empowered women who can inspire and uplift other women, especially those who are younger.

The immense popularity of the TV show “Sisters” has brought 姐学 (jiexue, ‘elder sister studies’) into the public eye. Young female audiences idolize the jiejie and express a desire to study and appreciate their charisma. In response, some Internet users have coined the term jiexue as a collective identity for these women. This paper adopts a semiotic approach to investigate how jiejie is translated into jiexue. Here, “translation” is understood not in its conventional linguistic sense, but as a semiotic process in the Peircean tradition. Charles Peirce’s notion of translation refers to the continuous process of meaning creation, where meaning is formed by translating a sign into another system of signs. Building on this, Marais (2019) proposes that all forms of meaning-making are essentially acts of translation. He defines translation as “a technical term that refers to the semiotic process in all its guises” (Marais 2019: 107). This process is not merely the transfer of meaning but a complex interaction of signs, generating new meanings across different systems.

Following Marais’s semiotic definition of translation as “a process that creates relationships between existing meanings, thereby creating new meanings” (2019: 123), this study investigates the semiotic translation process by which the new meaning jiexue emerges from jiejie. Marais conceptualizes translation as “the creation of new semiotic links between incipient sign system(s) and subsequent sign system(s)” (2019: 145). In this case, the initial sign system of jiejie undergoes a relationship-building process and is subsequently translated into the subsequent sign system of jiexue. This study aims to elucidate the semiotic patterns driving the meaning-making process that establishes connections between jiejie and jiexue. These semiotic patterns can be explored through Marais’s complexity approach to the semiotic process, which uses concepts such as constraints and attractors to analyze the emergence of social cultural reality through semiotic work.

To study the emergence of the online female culture jiexue, I set out to construct an analytical model that encompasses a feminist perspective within Marais’s semiotic translation theory to explore the evolving semiotic process from jiejie to jiexue. By integrating a complexity perspective and a theory of emergent semiotics, Marais conceptualizes translation as “an instance of inter-systemic relationships” (2014: 76) and “an emergent semiotic phenomenon that underlies, in part, the emergence of social reality” (Marais 2014: 77). This paper centers on how semiotic agents reconstitute the original meaning of jiejie and reproduce a position for a woman subject of semiosis in response to the burgeoning digital feminism within the TV show system and the social media system in China. Key concepts from Marais’s semiotic theory of translation, such as “initial conditions,” “boundary conditions,” “attractors” and “constraints,” will be employed to uncover the emergence of jiexue as an online female counterculture. For the analysis of the inter-systemic semiotic relationship between the language system and the TV show system, the first episode of “Sisters” will be selected as it provides seminal insights into the interpretation of the term jiejie that the show intends to convey. In exploring the inter-systemic semiotic relationship between the language system and the social media system, research materials will be collected from three major social platforms in China: Douban, an interest-based social networking platform; Bilibili, a Chinese video sharing website; and Sina Weibo, commonly referred to as “Chinese Twitter.” These social media platforms serve as online spaces where Chinese youth gather to express their feminist concerns.

In particular, this study focuses on the semiotic changes driven by time and space, since translation, as a semiotic process, involves movement through temporal and spatial variations. The temporal aspect of the translation from jiejie to jiexue is reflected in three pivotal events: the 2012 Douban love story featuring a fictional jiejie and a younger girl, the 2018 Sina Weibo trending topic #Ladies’ Dignity#, and the 2020 nationwide popularity of the show “Sisters,” after which jiexue gained widespread recognition. These events are not merely chronological markers but integral to the semiotic process, which unfolds within its own temporal logic. Spatially, the concept of jiejie shifts from its original context in the language system to its reinterpretation in social media and television show systems. As semiotic translation is an ongoing process of “changing or creating relationships” between representamen, object, and interpretant across time and space, this study seeks to uncover how meaning emerges when these elements are interconnected, mediated, and translated into a unified whole.

Semiotic translation is fundamentally about creating mediating relationships. In this study, two significant meaning-making relationships emerge. The first is between the language system and the television show system, where jiejie serves as the representamen, the beautiful and charming female celebrities in “Sisters” are the object, and the interpretant is the notion that older women possess their own charm. The second relationship is between the language system and the social media system, with jiejie again as the representamen, professional and competent women as the object, and the interpretant as a reflection of female sociality and female homosexuality. The former relationship is constructed by feminist-oriented television show producers, while the latter is shaped by young Chinese female audiences who are critical of traditional media portrayals of women. These two semiotic relationships are interrelated and should not be viewed in isolation. The central inquiry of this study is how these semiotic interactions unfold within digital spaces and how they contribute to the emergence of a unique form of online female counterculture through the process of semiotic translation.

By addressing these questions, this paper argues that Marais’s semiotic theorization of translation offers valuable insights for developing a transdisciplinary approach that encourages innovative and meaningful exchange of ideas between translation and other disciplines within the humanities. As Blumczynski (2016: 2) suggests, “it is not so much the concept of translation that travels through various disciplines of the humanities. It is rather us, both as translators and translation researchers, who travel through these disciplines.” As a nomadic thinker, I intend to traverse the realms of semiotics, translation studies, and digital feminism to facilitate “genuine, exciting, serious, innovative, and meaningful exchange between various areas of the humanities” (Blumczynski 2016: 4).

2 Constructing an analytical model for the emergence of jiexue: semiotics, translation, and feminism

Translation studies has traditionally focused on interlingual translation, confining itself to the translation of texts between different languages. However, from a semiotic perspective, translation encompasses a much broader domain, encompassing the translation between various semiosic systems. Semiosis, as a process of translation and interpretation, cannot exist without translation. It is through translation that meaning is generated. Meaning can be seen as the translation of a sign into another system of signs, making the creation of meaning itself a form of translation. Translation plays a fundamental role in shaping the very nature of signs, both verbal and nonverbal, and in the development of their meanings (Petrilli 2016). As Petrilli (2016: 23) notes, “in our world – human, cultural and natural – which is a world of signs, translation is omnipresent.” Therefore, to discuss semiotics is to inherently discuss translation. Translation and semiosis become intertwined, and signification becomes a form of “translative thinking” where “everything suggests or reminds us of something else” (Petrilli 1992: 233). Thus, it can be asserted that “meaning subsists in the mutual relation of translation among signs” (Petrilli 2014: 190).

Many semioticians, including Umberto Eco, Dinda Gorlee, Susan Petrilli, and Peeter Torop, have discussed the benefits of semiotics in translation research. Building upon their work, Kourdis (2015) provides an overview of the interdisciplinary research between translation and semiotics. He examines different terms used to describe this intersection, such as semiotranslation, semiotics of translation, and translation semiotics. Despite the diverse terminologies, there is no consensus within the field, reflecting the complexity and richness of the semiotic approach to translation. Kourdis also introduces key proponents of the semiotic approach to translation, typologies of translation with a semiotic foundation, schools of semiotics of translation, and research areas within the semiotics of translation.

This study adopts Marais’s semiotic translation theory because it offers a complexity theory of translation based on Peircean semiotics, integrating process philosophy, semiotics, and translation theory. Marais advocates for a comprehensive semiotics theory within the framework of complexity thinking, as opposed to reductionist approaches, to theorize translation encompassing all semiotic phenomena. He introduces complexity concepts such as constraints, initial conditions, boundary conditions, and emergence under the concept of trajectory to investigate the semiotic process. The strength of his theory lies in its emphasis on complexity, focusing on processes, emergence, and constraints, thereby providing new insights into the semiotic study of society and culture. This study leverages his emergence semiosis and complexity focus to examine the emergence of an online female counterculture.

Marais highlights the process-oriented nature of semiosis and contends that translation refers to the “semiotic process underlying interpretation” (Marais and Kull 2016: 181). He posits that “the creation of an interpretant, i.e., interpretation, a pragmatic result, relies on a semiotic process, i.e., translation” (Marais and Kull 2016: 182). Marais suggests that while interpretation and translation are both forms of semiosis, “interpretation is, roughly speaking, the aim of semiosis, and translation is, roughly speaking, the process through which this aim is achieved” (Marais and Kull 2016: 182). He defines translation as “the semiosic process that makes possible the interpretation of a sign into another sign, i.e. the creation of interpretants” (Marais and Kull 2016: 182). He further conceptualizes the emergent role of semiosis in the construction of social reality and adopts a theory of emergent semiotics as a framework for thinking about translation. In his view, both semiosis and semiotic translation is an emergent phenomenon (Marais 2014). Emergence studies relationships, process or change based on substance. The investigation of relationships can reveal the agency role of translation in the emergence of social reality.

The semiotic translation process necessitates an explanation from a complexity perspective, as it is a non-linear process that requires a nuanced understanding of the complexity of reality. The complexity of the communication process “requires a complex theory of translation, because it cannot be explained by a linear, monomodal, reductionist theory of translation” (Marais 2019: 79). Within Marais’s complexity approach to semiosis, “meaning is conceptualized as process that takes form under certain constraints” (Marais 2019: 123). These constraints shape and influence the process of creating relationships, giving rise to specific forms or trajectories. Constraints are seen as limitations that impose boundaries on possibilities, leading to the emergence of new forms. Drawing upon the complex theory, translation is characterized as “a negentropic semiotic process of performing work on meaning by effecting constraints on the possibilities of meaning” (Marais 2019: 136). The process toward equilibrium is known as entropy while negentropic semiotic work is the source of cultural diversity (Marais 2019). Cultural forms, therefore, are “created by translation as negentropic work on semiotic information” (Marais 2019: 136). The objective of a complexity approach to translation is to “find ways of explaining the emergence of semiotic organization, habit, trajectory, pattern that arises through translation processes” (Marais 2019: 134).

Adopting a complexity perspective, Marais (2014) further argues that emergence provides a framework for understanding the relationship between parts and wholes, allowing us to conceptualize reality without reducing it to its constituent elements. As “a philosophy of complexity has strong links with complex systems theory” (Marais 2014: 23), Marais (2014) views semiotics through the lens of complex adaptive systems, which helps illuminate the relationships between semiotic subsystems. As such, the semiotic system, functioning as a complex adaptive system, comprises multiple subsystems. Consequently, translation can be conceptualized as “an inter-systemic semiotic phenomenon” (Marais 2014: 104), or more specifically, as “a phenomenon of relationships between systems” (Marais 2014: 98). Semiotic translation becomes “a phenomenon in which semiotic inter-ing relationships among social systems or subsystems obtain” (Marais 2014: 107). According to Marais (2014), the inter-ness or inter-ing, characterized by the exchange of information between systems to sustain their vitality, forms the philosophical foundation of translation. Thus, translation encompasses the inter-ing of diverse systems, and the objective is to explore the interrelations between entities and how they organize into novel constellations with distinct properties. This study focuses on the inter-ing relationships between the language system and the media system which incorporates the TV show subsystem and the social media subsystem. Semiotic translation emerges from the interaction among these systems, where semiotic agents construct meaning through feminist interpretation, as depicted in Figure 1.

Figure 1:

Inter-ing relationships from which jiexue emerges.

To explain the emergence of jiexue from the inter-ing semiotic relationships between the language system, the social media system, and the TV show system, we need to explore the constraints imposed on the semiotic translation process. In addition to constraints, other theoretical tools from complexity thinking such as initial conditions, boundary conditions, and attractors are also useful in explaining factors in emergence. Initial conditions refer to “the state of affairs at the beginning of a process, while boundary conditions refer to the factors that limit a system” (Marais 2019: 136). Initial and boundary conditions form “the backdrop against which particular trajectories emerge” (Marais 2019: 136). Attractors, a parlance in complexity theory, mean “a general tendency for things to tend toward a particular pattern” (Marais 2019: 161). They refer to the tendencies or habits created when constraints are imposed on processes (Marais 2019). For the purpose of this study, I will further explain these notions with relevance to feminism.

Semiotic translation within the interpretative framework of feminism can be seen as “a continuation of the process of creating and disseminating meaning within a contingent network of feminist discourses” (Castro and Ergun 2018: 128). If the act of creating interpretants is considered translation, then the creation of feminist interpretants can be called feminist translation. In his work “Feminist Translation as Interpretation” (2007), David J. Eshelman argues that feminist translation provides a potential answer to how to interpret and may well help better to define the nature of interpretation. Feminist interpretation and translation can communicate new insights into women’s experiences and their relationship to language. Feminist translation works as transformational operation, “modifying relations between socially situated signs, opening the way for the affirmation of many possible worlds within differentiated relations to power” (Godard 2021: 161). It disrupts patriarchy in conjunction with other complex and intersecting forms of oppression, such as heterosexuality.

Unlike traditional translation discourse, which often perceives “difference” a negative topos, “difference” becomes positive in feminist translation (Godard 1989). Feminist translation signifies difference despite similarity. It is always “in the process of modifying, deferring and displacing the original” (Wallmach 2006: 2). Such a process drives the creation of feminist interpretants. The feminist interpreter actively participates in the construction of meaning. Their feminist agency disrupts the dominant patriarchal system of interpretation and highlights the woman’s point of view. They rewrite texts in the feminine or make the feminine visible (as quoted in Massardier-Kenney 1997). Drawing on Luise von Flotow’s definition of hijacking (1997: 82), I propose that hijacking in semiotic translation can refer to a process in which an interpreter employs “corrective measures” to the original sign, reworking the signifying chain to construct and amplify feminist meaning. Hijacking resignifies the learned habituated behaviors of subordinate femininity and develops a speaking position for women as subjects. In this study, the semiotic agents have applied a feminist interpretant during the semiotic translation process from jiejie to jiexue.

When considering semiotic translation within broader frameworks, the relationship between agents and systems or structures becomes an additional focal point in the study of semiotic translation (Marais 2014). In this study, the interpretation of the agent will be explored in relation to the broader feminist discourse. Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood astutely points out that “as a feminist translator, my choices are informed by the emerging women’s culture … [and] the feminist translation strategies I’m developing contribute to this emerging women’s culture” (1988: 44). Similarly, the semiotic translation from jiejie to jiexue is informed by the emerging women’s culture in the digital space, and it also contributes to the development of this emerging women’s culture. With the rise of a digital participatory culture, female audiences become active participant in formulating and articulating their own voices, promoting new feminist meanings of jiejie.

The media system’s initial conditions are characterized by the prevalence of the “she era” show in Chinese television and the concurrent rise of digital feminism on Chinese social media. These conditions have prompted the production of the show “Sisters” and have created a platform for social media users to construct their idealized version of jiejie. However, the boundary conditions have limited the interpretation of jiejie by semiotic agents. The TV show system is constrained by commercial factors that still uphold the heterosexual patriarchal system as the dominant value, while the social media system is constrained by users’ continuous pursuit of carnivalesque fantasies in online spaces. Figure 2 illustrates the semiotic translation model for the emergence of jiexue.

Figure 2:

Semiotic translation model for the emergence of jiexue.

Using Figures 1 and 2 as the analytical framework, this study will gather research materials from the media system, focusing on notable events on Chinese media that contribute to the emergence of jiexue. These materials include the first episode of “Sisters,” a “she era” show called Ladies’ Dignity created by Weibo users, the love story between a charismatic jiejie and a younger girl on Douban, and two videos representing jiexue on Bilibili. One video showcases competent and professional career women,^[2] while the other is a 35-minute microfilm adapted from the Douban story.^[3] The following section will analyze how the online female counterculture jiexue emerges from these materials through non-linear semiotic translation processes.

3 Unravelling the semiotic translation process from jiejie to jiexue

Marais (2021: 320) posits “everything in reality is semiosis or translation,” emphasizing the need to understand translation as a dynamic process that constructs social and cultural realities, rather than merely focusing on translation as an isolated linguistic event. This perspective shifts the focus of translation studies from a narrow, linguistic framework to a broader examination of how translation contributes to the emergence of social and cultural phenomena. Marais further argues that “the emergence of social and cultural tendencies and phenomena, conceptualized as meaningful response to an environment, is on the agenda of translation studies” (2019: 158). He advocates for a broader conceptualization of translation that explores its role across all aspects of social and cultural reality, which is essential to understanding the emergence of phenomena such as the female counterculture jiexue.

Building on this semiotic approach, we can analyze the emergence of jiexue as a cultural phenomenon within the broader context of digital feminism. In this framework, semiotic translation is not simply about converting a sign from one system to another; it is about the continuous and evolving process of creating interpretants, new meanings or interpretations, that emerge through relationships among signs. According to Marais (2019), these relationships, composed of the representamen (the form the sign takes), the object (the concept it refers to), and the interpretant (the meaning derived from the sign), are not static but evolve over time and across different spaces. They are subject to socio-cultural conventions that vary with time and space (Marais 2019). This evolution is influenced by historical and spatial contexts, meaning that the socio-cultural conventions that govern the interpretation of signs are fluid, changing as they interact with different temporal and spatial conditions. For instance, the term jiejie, traditionally a respectful address for an older sister in the Chinese culture, has undergone significant translation in contemporary media and digital spaces. In the context of the “she era” television shows, jiejie is reinterpreted within a commercial framework that often aligns with patriarchal values, emphasizing traits such as youth and beauty. However, when jiejie is translated within the digital realm, particularly on social media platforms, it undergoes further transformation, reflecting the influence of digital feminism. Here, jiejie is re-signified to encompass new feminist meanings, celebrating female solidarity, autonomy, and often challenging traditional gender norms. The translation of jiejie into jiexue, a term representing a form of digital feminist counterculture, illustrates how media representation and online discourse interact to produce new cultural forms, highlighting the role of semiotic translation as a process shaped by the interplay of time and space.

In the following sections, this paper will explore these processes of semiotic translation, tracing the relationships that form and evolve between representamen, object, and interpretant as jiejie is reinterpreted across different temporal and spatial contexts. By doing so, it will analyze how the semiotic translation process contributes to the emergence of jiexue as a female counterculture within Chinese digital feminism.

4 Reflections on the semiotic translation process of jiexue

The deliberate creation of feminist interpretants by female audiences reflects a profound desire to reshape media content in ways that foreground and celebrate feminist voices and narratives. Unlike many of the so-called “she era” shows, which often perpetuate traditional gender discourses, the emergence of jiexue on social media has ushered in new modes of expression that actively subvert and challenge patriarchal structures. These alternative narratives offer more meaningful representations of female experiences, marking a significant shift in the landscape of Chinese digital feminism. In comparison to the narratives propagated by “she era” shows, the social media-driven conceptualization of jiexue embodies more subversive and transgressive implications, giving rise to new narratives within Chinese digital feminism.

However, the digital spaces and fandom dynamics within which jiexue operates or the boundary conditions of the semiotic translation also impose significant constraints on its meaning-making process. An analysis of fan-created videos reveals that the unified articulation and representation of jiexue often curtails its potential feminist impact. The sign of jiexue, as configured by these fans, is often limited to a narrow range of interpretative possibilities, primarily revolving around personal pleasure and aesthetic fantasies. While the semiotic translation process can indeed be interpreted as a form of resistance against a patriarchal and heteronormative society, there is a tendency among fans to indulge in self-centered fantasies, resulting in highly imaginative yet limited portrayals that focus exclusively on professional, competent, and aesthetically idealized jiejie. This focus raises legitimate questions about the extent to which these online feminist practices can translate into tangible interventions in real-life struggles.

Fans’ inclination towards self-fantasies leads to an attractor that is usually sought by fans – yiyin (‘mental masturbation’), which now extends beyond sexual desire and includes “any kind of self-centered fantasy that can be constructed in the mind but less easily enacted in everyday life” (Inwood 2014: 436). The fan-driven translation of jiexue operates within a “fan economy” that prioritizes entertainment over ideological depth. Despite the feminist underpinnings of this feminized and glamorized media space, there is a risk that young female audiences in China may become excessively absorbed in these fantasies, potentially detracting from the movement’s broader feminist goals. While the semiotic translation process of jiexue as an online cultural form is constrained by the characteristics of fandom, it nonetheless opens new avenues for conceptualizing online feminist expression, showcasing unique features of digital feminism in China.

This study applies Marais’s semiotic theory of translation to explore the emergence of jiexue as a new cultural phenomenon. According to Marais (2019), meaning is generated through a process of translation, understood as a relationship-creating activity constrained by specific forms or trajectories. The semiotic trajectories that emerge from the translation process of jiejie to jiexue involve a complex interplay between the TV show industry and online spaces, with influence exerted by both TV show producers and female fans. In this context, translation is not merely a linguistic exercise but serves as the driving force behind the creation of meaning, contributing to the development of an online female counterculture.

By adopting Marais’s conceptualization of translation as “a process of imposing constraints on semiotic material, playing itself out in both space and time” (2020: 117), this study demonstrates how the constraints inherent in “she era” shows and online spaces shape the translation process from jiejie to jiexue. A relational and processual approach to translation challenges the reductionist and binary thinking often associated with a linguicentric view of translation. This perspective highlights the intricate nature of meaning-making processes and expands the role of translation in addressing broader issues across various disciplines within the humanities, ultimately offering new insights into the complexities of digital feminism in contemporary China.

5 Conclusions

Translation scholars have been expanding the conceptualization of translation to address the linguistic bias in translation studies (Blumczynski 2016; Gentzler 2016), leading to fruitful discussions. This paper aims to contribute to this endeavor by analyzing the semiotic translation process from jiejie to jiexue within the interpretative framework of feminism. Through this analysis, the study highlights the potential of translation studies to extend its reach into other disciplines. Blumczynski (2016) believes that the concept of translation holds untapped epistemological potential that can inform various fields in the humanities. Marais’s semiotic conceptualization of translation represents a significant effort in exploring this potential, allowing us to view human society as a semiosic process and expanding the role of translation in understanding, interpreting, constructing, and changing social reality.

This study endeavors to apply an expanded understanding of translation to comprehend the emergence of a new female counterculture within Chinese media. In the feminist discourse characterized by “she era” shows, Internet users create a collective space, appropriate the concept of jiejie, and offer their own feminist interpretation. The invention of jiexue signifies the formation of a collective feminist identity among young Chinese women through digital means. Semiotic translation, guided by a feminist agenda, unlocks the potential of digital media to mobilize feminist networked publics in generating new narratives about female experiences. By applying the expanded concept of translation within the context of popular media culture, this paper argues that the emergence of jiexue goes beyond mere entertainment and leisure discussions. The semiotic translation process from jiejie to jiexue has yielded a feminist interpretation that represents a unique form of digital feminism in China.

According to Kourdis (2022), the notion of translation has broadened impressively, and translation studies have succeeded in escaping the stifling embrace of linguistics by drawing on insights from disciplines such as semiotics, cultural studies and communication studies. With this expanding tendency, translation studies have become transdisciplinary, mobile, and open-ended. Marais suggests that “translation studies has limited itself to what translation DOES involve and has not focused attention on what it CAN or is LIKELY to involve” (2021: 318). This study aims to showcase what translation CAN involve by following his semiotic definition of translation. Marais’s semiotic conceptualization focuses on “how new social and cultural phenomena emerge from semiotic work” (2019: 179). It expands the potential of translation studies by providing a new approach to exploring social reality. A semiotic redefinition of translation can move beyond self-containment and facilitate better communication with other disciplines across the humanities, for example, digital feminism. Marais’s semiotically oriented approach to translation can “add epistemological and intellectual significance to translation studies in particular and humanities in general” (Song 2021: 172).