Audio description and the translation of film language into words

Within Australia, the approach taken to the ways in which disabled people access television is heavily influenced by legislation and activism from abroad. This is increasingly the case as television moves to online modes of distribution where physical and legislative boundaries are more fluid. While early investigations of the intersections between television and the concept of abroad focused on the impacts of representation and national reputation (Boddy), the introduction of new media technologies saw a shifting focus towards the impact and introduction of new media technologies. Drawing on Chan’s definition of media internationalisation as “the process by which the ownership, structure, production, distribution, or content of a country’s media is influenced by foreign media interests, culture and markets” (Chan 71), this article considers the impacts of legislative and advocacy efforts abroad on Australian television audiences with disabilities accessing subscription Video on Demand (VOD)...

Audio description (AD) is now major technique for making films, theater performances, operas, and other events accessible to people who are blind or have low (Holland, 2009; Matamala & Orero, 2007; Orero, 2007). The provision of AD services is regulated in some countries, for example, in United States by Twenty-first Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010 and in European Union by Directive 2007/65/EC. Using gaps between dialogues, AD provides spectators who are visually impaired with information on who does what, where, and how (see Vercauteren, 2007). Traditionally, who, what, where, and how of AD have largely depended on what audio describers deem to be most important. Following various AD guidelines, audio describers are supposed to describe what they see--and no more (see American Council of Blind, 2009; Rai, Greening, & Leen, 2010). What you see is what you say (WYSI-WYS) is an injunction reiterated in many AD courses (see Snyder, 2008). As consequence, AD relies heavily on skills of particular audio describer and his or her ability to translate visual images into words adequately. However, as Udo and Fels (2009, p. 179) noted, conventional AD focuses on description of what is seen--the set, actors' movements and lighting--rather than on what is meant to be seen--the director's vision. AUTEUR DESCRIPTION In this report, I follow suggestion that film director's creative should be incorporated into AD. I present new type of AD for auteur and artistic films: auteur description, which incorporates director's creative in AD script through use of screenplay (or other available materials, such as interviews and reviews) and thus gives audio describer artistic license to depart from dictate of objectivism. The main function of auteur description is to immerse spectators who are blind or have low in story world created by film's director. The technique of auteur description was invented with artistic films in mind. In an auteur film, is director who is seen as film's major creative force. As Bordwell (1979, p. 59) noted, the author becomes formal component, overriding intelligence organizing film for our comprehension. The director of an auteur film leaves recognizable imprint on all his or her films. Bordwell argued that a small industry is devoted to informing viewers of such authorial marks. International film festivals, reviews and essays in press, published scripts, film series, career retrospectives, and film education all introduce viewers to authorial (p. 59). This report examines how such authorial codes can be rendered in auteur description by incorporating fragments of published script. Auteur description differs from conventional AD in way who, what, where, and how of film are described. Departing from notion of objective description, eagerly embraces vivid and emotional language. Going beyond WYSIWYS principle also means that script can include additional information on characters and their emotions, actions, and settings that are not necessarily visible on screen, but are important from point of view of director and, as such, are included in screenplay. This technique is presented using example of auteur description for Spanish film Volver (2006), directed by Pedro Almodovar, which had AD for Polish viewers. The idea of incorporating director's in AD script is not new. It was previously explored by Fels, Udo, Ting, Diamond, and Diamond (2005) and Udo and Fels (2009), who stated that it is important to respect intentions and decisions made by creative team to create production that is true to director's initial vision (Udo & Fels, 2009, p. 182). Although is much easier for audio describers to cooperate directly with directors from same country, as was case with Udo and Fels (2009), is much more difficult with foreign films, especially those by world-famous directors. …

Abstrakt
 Cel badań. Przeprowadzone badania oscylują wokół zabarwienia emocjonalnego deskrypcji do reprodukcji malarskich. Punkt wyjścia dla rozważań nad audiodeskrypcją jest podział dokonany przez Romana Jakobsona, wedle którego audiodeskrypcja daje się sklasyfikować jako intersemiotyczny typ tłumaczenia audiowizualnego. W artykule zostaje podany zarys audiodeskrypcji w Polsce oraz jej ogólne ujęcie w dyskursie naukowym. Zwraca się uwagę również na dwa podejścia do tworzenia opisów audiowizualnych – niemieckie (zadaniowe i techniczne) oraz polskie (artystyczne i nastawione na wzbudzenie emocji u niewidomego odbiorcy). Celem badań jest ukazanie połączenia dydaktyki i przekazu emocji w audiodeskrypcji i określenie ich funkcji.
 Metodologia. Przedmiotem badań jest publikacja Beaty Jerzakowskiej Posłuchać obrazów, w skład której wchodzą deskrypcje do obrazów z Podstawy programowej dla uczniów gimnazjum i liceum. W ramach artykułu dokonana zostaje analiza jakościowa dwóch deskrypcji pod kątem językowym, para-tekstualnym oraz z uwzględnieniem elementów dydaktycznych.
 Wyniki. Audiodeskrypcja jest komunikatem emocji, która pomaga uczniom rozwijać swoją wrażliwość i poznawać nowe konteksty kulturowe.
 Wnioski. Deskrypcje spełniają funkcję artystyczną, ponieważ zastępują warstwę wizualną wyjściowego dzieła. Poza tym badane audiodeskrypcje niosą ze sobą funkcję edukacyjną, ponieważ stanowią uzupełnienie kształcenia literackiego i językowego uczniów. Kolejną funkcją audiodeskrypcji jest ich pragmatyzm – autorka książki świadomie łamie przyjęte standardy tworzenia audiodeskrypcji, dodając do opisów m. in. pytania retoryczne, metafory i synestezje. Ponadto dydaktyzm i próba przekazu emocji uwidaczniają się również w warstwie brzmieniowej tekstu oraz w muzyce wkomponowanej w każdą z AD.
 Słowa kluczowe: audiodeskrypcja, tłumaczenie audiowizualne, przekład intersemiotyczny, emocje.

1. INTRODUCTION term audio description refers to the spoken commentary is added to film soundtracks to enable visually impaired people to follow the action on the screen by supplementing the information is already available from character dialogue and other parts of the soundtrack. As this essay explains, there is currently a debate within this field regarding the possibility and desirability of objectivity in audio descriptions. Although this debate may appear to be of limited interest to anyone who is not directly concerned with the production and reception of audio descriptions, we feel it raises large and important issues are of relevance to all those who work in the much wider fields of narrative theory, stylistics and literary theory generally. We have in mind, in particular, our questioning of the apparently obvious distinction between descriptions of characters' actions and descriptions of characters' mental processes in fictional narratives. Specifically, this essay seeks to show how concepts from narratology and techniques from corpus linguistics can be applied to the analysis of audio description. We are concerned with the issue of what should be described in audio description for feature films, and how it should be worded. We introduce narratological concepts can help to better articulate this issue and to better analyze and compare examples of audio description. To complement the application of narratological concepts for a close reading of audio description samples, we show how corpus linguistics techniques can be used to learn about what is being described, and how, in a corpus of ninety-one audio description scripts. Our focus is on how an audio description utterance can, and, as it turns out, often does, describe a character's actions as depicted on-screen while simultaneously giving some information about the character's thoughts. Central to the practice and theory of audio description is the question of what should be included in a description (Vercauteren). Concerning the issue of what to describe, and how to describe it, some recent guidelines for audio description state: The best audio describers objectively recount the visual aspects of an image. Subjective or qualitative judgments or comment get in the way--they constitute an on the part of the describer and are unnecessary and unwanted ... Describers must differentiate between or (which requires an on the part of the observer) and the physical characteristics of or (which are more concrete and allow description users to conjure their own interpretations). (Snyder 17) While striking an exceptionally unequivocal tone, these guidelines reflect a point of view has been prevalent among audio description practitioners. Earlier guidance on standards for audio description provided by ITC is similar in advising not to interpret events or away the plot (ITC). ITC guidance also flags a contentious point about whether or not to give information that is not on the screen, without really explaining how to determine what is apparent. It seems to us such guidelines leave unanswered questions about what information is necessary for an audience to understand and enjoy a film, and what interpretation means in this context Also, and this becomes the main theme of the essay, with regards to what can be seen and hence described, we take issue with the supposedly clear-cut distinction is made between a character's emotion or reasoning (thoughts, which should not be mentioned according to the guidelines) and their apparent physical manifestations (actions, which may be described). This essay seeks to contribute to audio description theory and practice in two ways. First, we introduce more rigorously defined terms from narratology to clarify and simplify the issues alluded to in the previous paragraph. …

Since 2007, there has been a systematic research conducted in the field of Audiovisual Translation (AVT) at ISCAP/ Porto Polytechnic Institute. At the time we embarked on a research endeavor focusing on audio description (AD), with the intent of systematizing AD guidelines, improving the AD process and reflecting on teaching/learning methods. This study presented at the Media For All conference, Antwerp, in 2009, aims to contribute to this project by focusing on issues linked to the generalized view that AD language should be ‘objective’ and therefore referential in nature, as stated in several guidelines. Indeed, the audio describer is even warned against expressing emotions or personal points of view. How seriously is this advice taken? Is this in fact what we should be teaching and doing? Are there identifiable common language functions in AD and are these clearly portrayed in the existing guidelines? In order to answer these questions, we assess the BBC Guidelines on the provision of television access services; the Audio Description International’s AD Guidelines Draft; the American Council of the Blind’s Audio Description Standards; the now extinct ITC Guidance on Standards for Audio Description; the Audio Description Coalition Guidelines for Audio Description, listing and contrasting their recommendations as to the ‘how’ and the ‘what’ of AD. Next, we compare these findings with randomly selected audio described feature films pertaining to the genres of drama, action, and suspense, namely Blindness, Revolutionary Road, The Happening, Body of Lies, The Eye, and Hancock. After analyzing both AD segments and movie clips in terms of visual rhetoric and Jakobson’s language functions, we propose that described movies stretch the concept of intersemiotic translation.

Audio description (AD) is an audiovisual translation (AVT) and media accessibility mode aimed primarily at visually impaired users. Traditionally, AD has tended to use images and some sounds as the source text to create the AD script (the target text), therefore AD is known as an intersemiotic translation. However, some researchers have focused on the theoretical feasibility of opting for the interlingual translation of ADs into another language. Moreover, research has explored the combination of AVT with language teaching and learning, a discipline called “didactic audiovisual translation” with branches like didactic audio description (DAD). In this proposal, we argue that DAD needs to consider both the linguistic nature and application of AD to better differentiate the didactic potential of intersemiotic and interlingual AD, since they have different applications for L1 and L2 learning and teaching. More specifically, intersemiotic AD seems to be suitable for learning L1, for instance, to consolidate grammatical structures, to proofread texts, to develop writing and oral skills, to learn about L1 linguistic variation, etc. On the other hand, interlingual AD can be used to learn about vocabulary and grammar in L2, to develop foreign language oral and written skills, to develop translation skills, etc. All in all, given the potential of DAD for language learning and teaching, this line of research should be further explored with other combinations.

The suitability of objective or subjective audio description (AD) is still an ongoing topic with opposite views. While AD guidelines used by some countries and streaming platforms support the traditional perspective of providing an objective or denotational description, growing interest has developed among researchers towards a more narrative, subjective, or interpretative description. In this paper, we explore whether the AD provided by different streaming platforms can be located at the same point along an accessibility creative continuum in terms of objectivity and subjectivity. To fulfil our aim, a multimodal analysis based on audiovisual texts’ meaning codes was used to operationalize how objectivity and subjectivity interact in a corpus of AD in English from Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, and Apple TV+. Our results show, firstly, that both objectivity and subjectivity appear in the AD excerpts from every platform. Secondly, our findings point to dissimilarities when comparing the frequency of objective and subjective elements that interact in each platform’s AD. More specifically, whereas Apple TV+ seems to be closer to the objectivity end of the creative continuum, Disney+ can be located near the subjectivity end, with both Amazon Prime Video and Netflix being roughly in the middle. In conclusion, if we consider pure objectivity and subjectivity in AD as two opposite poles of a continuum, the AD provided by these streaming platforms displays different degrees of creativity.

Film experience is a sensual, cognitive and emotional encounter between film and spectator. For viewers with blindness or visual impairment, access to film experience is made possible through audio description (AD). Conventionally, AD is an objective depiction of the images on screen, where audio describers refrain from interpreting what is shown or the way it is shown. This demand for objectivity has been challenged by some researchers and the study presented here is a contribution in this line. Forty five blind and partially sighted Catalan viewers experienced three AD styles: one conventional AD and two interpretative styles (cinematic AD and narrative AD). Results show that although conventional AD gives satisfactory access to the story, emotional aspects expressed through film language are rendered more effectively with an interpretative approach. In our sample, the cinematic and the narrative AD offer a film experience that is more satisfying than that offered by conventional AD.

Audio description is an intersemiotic translation modality (Jakobson 1959/2000) that allows visually impaired people to access visual messages in different contexts, including audiovisual media, performing arts, museums and exhibitions (Snyder (ed.) 2010: 7). During the last decade, research in Translation Studies has dealt extensively with audio description and, as a result, it is now a well-established line of research within Audiovisual Translation (Gambier 2004: 9, Kruger and Orero 2010: 141). Most of these studies have focused on film and television audio description (Jiménez (ed.) 2007, Kruger 2010, Remael 2012), but there is now an incipient line of research on audio description at museums and exhibitions (de Coster and Mühleis, Neves 2012, Praxedes and Magalhães 2013, Araújo and de Oliveira 2013), to which this article intends to make a contribution. Making a museum accessible requires experts from various fields to collaborate towards the common goal of transforming the museum into an interactive social agent that contributes to universal accessibility and social inclusion. Audio description is an accessibility tool used in a growing number of museums in multiple countries (Soler 2012). It can be offered during a conducted tour or in an audio descriptive guide, and it has proved to enhance visually impaired visitors' access to the museum (RNIB y Vocal Eyes 2003: 22). The main goal of this paper is to foster the visibility and development of this accessible translation modality. In order to do so, we propose a descriptive methodology to analyse audio description as text genre and translation product. This methodology has been applied to a corpus composed of audio descriptive guides of three museum genres: art, archeology and history.

Introduction:Audio description (AD) enables access to blind/low vision audiences by translating visual content into narrated descriptions. This study examines AD translation approaches for the Oscar-winning animated short Feast. Methods: Chinese and English AD scripts from Feast were analyzed to compare priorities in content selection and patterns in translation techniques. Results: Both versions prioritized graphics and dynamic symbols when deciding what to translate. Shared translation techniques included compensation, iconic description, and substitution. Differences emerged with more reduction, adaptation, and technical descriptions in the Chinese AD, versus more generalization in the English AD. Discussion: Disparities highlight the linguistic and cultural factors integral to effective AD translation. Implications: This analysis offers practical customization guidelines for AD providers and theoretical insights into intersemiotic translation complexity. Further comparative research could support tailored AD practices and accessibility for diverse global audiences.

Recent developments in Translation Studies and translation practice have not only led to a profusion of approaches, but also to the development of new text forms and translation modes. Media Accessibility, particularly audio description (AD) and subtitling for the deaf and hard-of-hearing (SDH), is an example of such a ‘new’ mode. SDH has been evolving quickly in recent decades and new developments such as interlingual SDH and live subtitling with speech recognition bring it closer to established forms of translation and interpreting. On the one hand, interlingual SDH reintroduces Jakobson’s (1959) ‘translation proper’ while the use of speech recognition has led to the creation of a hybrid form that has affinities with both subtitling and interpreting. Audio description, for its part, cannot even be fitted into Jakobson’s ‘intersemiotic translation’ model since it involves translation from images into words. Research into AD is especially interesting since it rallies methods from adjacent disciplines, much in the same way that Holmes ([1972] 1988) described TS when it was a fledgling discipline. In 2008, Braun set out a research agenda for AD and the wealth of topics and research approaches dealt with in her article illustrate the immense complexity of this field and the work still to be done. Although AD and SDH research have developed at different paces and are concerned with different topics, converging trends do appear. Particularly the role of technology and the concept of multimodality seem to be key issues. This article aims to give an overview of current research trends in both these areas. It illustrates the possibilities of technology-driven research – particularly popular in SDH and live-subtitling research – while at the same time underlining the value of individual, human-driven approaches, which are still the main ‘modus operandi’ in the younger discipline of AD where much basic research is still required.

Goal! The State of AD in Poland after Euro 2012 In 2012 Poland and Ukraine hosted Euro 2012. It is worth mentioning that all 31 matches in 8 cities were audio described. Audio description (AD) was a part of the UEFA EURO 2012 Respect Inclusion – Football with No Limits project. This article is an attempt to summarise the implementation of AD during Euro 2012 and to evaluate its impact on the development of AD in Poland. Could AD fi nally be provided during mainstream events, by big institutions cooperating with each other? Could this be a chance for the foundations to join forces and to benefi t from the attention given to this service in the media? Will AD become a fully professional activity performed on a national-wide scale? Last but not least, the notion of simultaneous audio description shall be introduced. Similarities between simultaneous AD and interpreting shall be briefl y discussed, as well as possibilities of including this technique in the curricula of translation studies.

Audio description (AD), which renders images into words, is an important subject in the field of translation studies. Audio describer training (ADT) is provided in university translation programmes. However, research on AD pedagogy remains limited, and there are even fewer studies on AD learners. Based on the commonalities between AD and interpreting, especially in terms of quality assessment criteria, this study explored students’ perceptions of ADT and interpreter training in a postgraduate programme in Hong Kong of China. An Audio Description Rating Scale (ADRS) was designed to collect students’ perceptions of ADT, with a focus on quality assessment criteria. Thirty-six students participated in the study. The results show that three particular criteria of AD were identified as the most difficult to achieve: “no unjustified addition,” “appropriate language styles,” and “synchronisation with images.” Furthermore, significant correlations were found between students’ perceptions of certain AD and interpreting criteria, and between interpreting proficiency and AD learning. Individual differences were also recognised in AD learners. The findings shed light on the interactions between the learning of AD and interpreting. The study is expected to inspire trainers to develop more diverse and refined integrations of ADT into existing translation programmes.

Strategies for describing culture-bound elements in audio description The article presents the issue of using strategies developed in Translation Studies to describe culture-bound elements in audio description. In the first part, the authors discuss the place of audio description in Translation Studies and especially within the field of audiovisual translation and Jakobson’s categories of intersemiotic, intralingual and interlingual translation. Then research on audio description carried out within the framework of Translation Studies and research on culture-bound referencesin audio description is presented. Finally, the authors present how translation strategies can be applied in audio description of culturebound elements.

Boundary-crossing events have been analyzed from the perspective of the thinking-for-speaking hypothesis (Slobin, 1996) both in first and second language acquisition. Moreover, this framework has also been applied to translation, leading to the thinking-for-translating hypothesis. Audio description (AD) is a type of intersemiotic translation (Jakobson, 1959) that involves translation across sign systems. In this field of research, no studies have been conducted on boundary-crossing testing the thinking-for-speaking hypothesis. The present study aims to fill that gap by analyzing this constraint in audio descriptions (ADs) of two films in the Harry Potter saga. Differences across English and Spanish AD are analyzed as well as the use of the different types and tokens produced in path, manner, and path+manner verbs. Additionally, the omission and inclusion of boundary-crossing across both ADs has been included. Findings show that English AD contains more boundary-crossing events. In Spanish AD, a higher proportion of path verbs were used while more manner verbs were used in English AD. Moreover, expressing Path and Manner outside the verb was more common in English AD, and boundary-crossing events were omitted to a larger extent in Spanish AD.