The translation of recorded audio description from English into Dutch

Abstract

In the wake of pioneering countries such as the United Kingdom, a second wave of countries is now starting to provide AD. Although AD is relatively new we can say that it has already acquired some form of ‘tenure’ within the broader field of Audiovisual Translation (AVT). AD bears some obvious resemblances with other forms of text production and other AVT practices more specifically. However, AD also differs from other forms of AVT in significant ways, the actual nature of the (intersemiotic) translation process being an essential example. But while AD in itself starts to get ever more attention from translation scholars, the interlingual translation of existing audio descriptions is almost completely absent in AVT practice and research. Therefore the aim of the present article is to take a first look at some of the problems translators of audio descriptions are faced with. Are these problems different from translation problems that they would encounter in other translational contexts? And if they are not, might this mean that the translation of audio descriptions is more central to the core business of TS and AVT studies than AD proper? These are the main questions that will be considered in this article.