Abstract
Considering Audio Description as a type of intersemiotic translation, and being aware of future opportunities in this field once laws are enforced, a course on Audio Description has been developed within the MA in Audiovisual Translation at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), compelling us to define the main competences a future professional in audio description will have to acquire. In this article, the skills put forward by various academics and professionals are analysed in order to establish the main competences that should be acquired by an audio describer, and sample activities that are used in class are discussed.
Highlights
Considering Audio Description as a type of intersemiotic translation, and being aware of future opportunities in this field once laws are enforced, a course on Audio Description has been developed within the MA in Audiovisual Translation at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), compelling us to define the main competences a future professional in audio description will have to acquire
Audio Description (AD) for the media has been carried out mainly by volunteers who have acted as social intermediaries in making audiovisual material accessible, transforming images into vivid narration and allowing those with sight problems to gain access to culture
The Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), being aware of this future opportunity and convinced that translators are the best candidates for this specific type of intersemiotic translation, has developed a course on Audio Description within the MA in Audiovisual Translation (MTAV)
Summary
The training of the person who makes audiovisual material accessible should go beyond academic and professional standards. As far as voice skills are concerned, one should bear in mind that in certain countries – from a dubbing tradition – such as Spain, audio describers do not generally venture into the field of recording, which is traditionally reserved to dubbing actors (Orero 2006, 2007) with powerful unions and requiring the need of the equivalent of the British Equity card Even in such countries, live AD requires a professional with certain voice skills, not necessarily at the same level as those of a dubbing actor (Matamala 2006, 2007). Matamala (2007) reduces this comprehensive taxonomic classification to a key differentiation between recorded AD and live AD, with three subvarieties in the latter group: planned ADs, improvised ADs and a third group in between (the audio describer has visualised the product but has not been able to create a written description)
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