Traducción accesible en el espacio museográfico multimodal: las guías audiodescriptivas

Audio description scripts represent a text type structured into several parts helping the speaker produce their recording. The heterogeneous composition and formatting of these parts makes it difficult to describe the linguistic features of audio description (AD) scripts in one go. Hence, it seems useful to implement them into a corpus tool enabling the analysis of the specificities of each AD section. In this paper, the AD scripts of 69 episodes from a German television show serve as a sample to explore a method for dealing with variation when preparing AD scripts for corpus processing. In our article, we offer a short overview of existing research on AD script corpora and on variation, and we present our dataset and the tools we used to prepare and explore the data. We then outline the features of the analysed AD scripts and the treatments applied. In the last section of the article, we discuss our results. Our analysis leads us to conclude that modifying original data for the sake of corpus implementation (e.g. changing formatting features) is a weighty step which may have unforeseen consequences: formal variation in AD scripts conveys more meaning than expected. Lay summary Audio description (AD) is a cultural technique helping blind people to enjoy going to the movies despite their disability. An additional soundtrack provides them with the information necessary to understand the essential action of the film. The scripts of such soundtracks are mostly written by authors specialising in audiovisual translation. We were interested in the formatting features of such texts, called AD scripts, e.g. the use of bold print or of words entirely written in capital letters. We conducted the study reported in this article because we wanted to know which sorts of variation can be identified in AD scripts. We also wanted to understand to which extent some of the varying features should be modified to improve text quality. That is why we collected the AD scripts of 69 episodes of a German TV show (we got the rights to use them for our research). These texts were written by 13 AD authors over a period of 6 years. The broadcaster is the only stable parameter. With the help of text statistics tools, we found out that these AD scripts vary a lot from one author to another and even over time in the scripts written by one and the same author. We modified our texts in order to unify some of their formatting features. However, we understood that reducing variation in AD scripts is not in any case a good option: the voice talents responsible for recording these scripts need clear and sufficient information to know how to proceed. In addition, AD script writing is a creative activity which should not be locked into strict rules.

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.

Culture-specific references (CSRs) are widely studied in translation studies (TS) and in audiovisual translation (AVT) where intercultural competence is identified as crucial in various frameworks of translator competence and as one of the main challenges in translation. Surprisingly, in audio description (AD) research, training and practice, culture-specific references and intercultural competence receive far less attention. This chapter presents an overview of research into various aspects of culture-specific references in audio description. It tackles three areas: taxonomies of CSR type and transfer tactics, the intercultural competence of describers and interlingual translation of audio description scripts. Three main conclusions of this overview are presented. Firstly, an AD-specific taxonomy of CSR transfer tactics is needed as solutions borrowed from TS and AVT are not easily transferable. Secondly, intercultural competence is a burning issue in research, training and practice. Thirdly, interlingual translation of audio description scripts might be a viable solution to provide audio descriptions rich in cultural content.

Without access to audio description, individuals who are visually impaired (that is, are blind or have low vision) may be at a unique social disadvantage because they are unable to participate fully in a culture that is based on and heavily saturated by the enjoyment of audiovisual entertainments (Packer & Kirchner, 1997). Audio description was introduced as an adaptive after-the-fact strategy to give individuals who are visually impaired better access to media (Fels, Udo, Ting, Diamond, & Diamond, 2006). With audio description, visually important elements of the entertainment experience are described during pauses in the dialogue (Packer & Kirchner, 1997). Conventional audio description practices, as outlined by Snyder (2005, 2007), have been adopted as an access strategy for live theater, television, and film, although little research has informed these practices (Gerber, 2007). Alternative audio description strategies are also being explored and developed, mainly by theater (for example, British Council for the Arts, 2007; Graeae Theatre Company, n.d.) or dance troupes (for example, CandoCo Dance Company, 2008; StopGap, 2008) whose mandates are focused on the inclusion of individuals with disabilities in their casts. We believe that audio description is a creative process, and from working firsthand on live audio description projects we learned how cognitively demanding live description is on a describer. We recognize that audio describers are generally volunteers and have a genuine interest in making the theater accessible to individuals with visual impairments. In this article, we present a summary of conventional and alternative audio description practices. We discuss a case account of an alternative audio description strategy that was prepared for a live production of Hamlet using the subjective, emotional style proposed by Fels, Udo, Diamond, and Diamond (2006) and Fels, Udo, Ting et al. (2006); and used by Udo and Fels (in press). CONVENTIONAL AUDIO DESCRIPTION Formal audio description is a relatively new media access technology compared with others, such as closed captioning. Audio description has existed for many years, however, as an ad hoc and access strategy in which friends and family members acted as informal describers, whispering descriptions to their friends and relatives who were visually impaired (Packer & Kirchner, 1997). In the 1970s, Gregory Frazier formalized audio description by defining formal procedures and processes for the description of media and cultural events (Snyder, 2005). In the 1990s, WGBH Radio & Television began offering a Descriptive Video Service as part of its broadcasts (WGBH Educational Foundation, n.d.). Numerous theater groups in the United States and the United Kingdom have also embraced these technologies and techniques for live theater. In 1981, Margaret Pfanstiehl and Cody Pfanstiehl were among the pioneers to develop audio description techniques for live theater. Additional guidelines for the creation of audio description for television, film, and live theater exist (Audetel Consortium, 2000; Audio Description International, 2005). However, most of these guidelines tend to rely heavily on anecdotal evidence and the historical use of a specific process, rather than one validated by published research. Pfanstiehl and Pfanstiehl (quoted in The Play's the Thing, 1985, p. 91) cautioned describers not [to] evaluate or interpret, but rather be like the faithful lens of a camera and encouraged them to describe visual elements without drawing assumptions for the listener. In doing so, the describer must interpret and translate important visual action or stimuli (costumes, setting, lighting, and so forth) as objectively as possible. Since limited time is available to describe visual stimuli, describers must use precise and highly descriptive language. There has been limited research on the effectiveness and impact of live audio description on audiences. …

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)...

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.

People with visual impairment need a special form of audio-visual translation (AVT) to have access to multimedia products such as series and movies. Audio description (AD) is an AVT mode that describes what is happening in the images through words. It is a necessary accessibility tool that allows the blind and visually impaired to visualize scenes through spoken material. This study examines the types of information covered in the AD of the Jordanian Netflix drama series ‘Madrast Al-Rawabi LilBanat’ (AlRawabi School for Girls) following a corpus-assisted approach. Subsequent to watching the series and transcribing the verbal AD content, the researchers conducted frequency and concordance (KWIC) analyses using the Wordsmith 6 (WS6) software package to identify the categories of information covered in the AD. The findings showed six categories, namely description of characters, description of actions, interpersonal interactions, description of settings, emotional states, and on-screen texts. This study recommends conducting further research on AD in the Arab world to expand the accessibility services provided by official TV channels and streaming platforms.

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.

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.

Audio description (AD) is an intersemiotic mode of audiovisual translation where images are translated into words to facilitate access to visual content for visually-impaired audiences. Over the last decade, it has gained prominence in foreign language research, as its formal particularities and condition as a communication-oriented and process-based activity present a fertile ground for designing innovative classroom tasks. This research was conducted with students of Spanish at the University of Manchester, and it investigates participants’ perceptions about a classroom AD project. The exploratory analysis of quantitative and qualitative data from participants’ responses to end-of-project questionnaires leads to the formulation of a ‘triple-connection hypothesis’: a direct relationship between perceptions of difficulty of the main challenges of AD, perceptions of usefulness of AD for developing the skills required to overcome those challenges, and perceptions of own learning progress thanks to AD. The findings show that AD is perceived by students as especially useful for developing integrated skills, communicative skills and lexical skills, to a greater or lesser extent depending on the difficulty perceived. Lay Summary Audio description (AD) is an additional voice that describes what happens in a TV show, a movie or a theatre play when characters are not speaking. This helps people with visual problems to follow the plot. AD describes characters’ expressions or movements, places or objects, or reads text that appears on screen. It is a special type of translation: instead of translating from words to words, it translates from images to words. Recently, AD has become more available and popular, catching the attention of foreign language teachers. They have started using it in class, creating activities where students write audio descriptions to improve language skills, such as vocabulary, or record them to practice speaking. Creating an AD requires students to use clear and direct language, use summarising skills, and make a lot of careful choices. It also helps them learn about the needs of people with visual difficulties. So far, teachers have reported positive results. To continue exploring how useful AD activities are for language learning, we did an AD classroom project with students of Spanish, and we collected their opinions about it. This information can help teachers design truly beneficial AD activities. Our students completed a survey at the end of the project to tell us how difficult AD had been for them, how useful they found it for language learning, and how much it helped them improve. We discovered that when students found AD difficult, they also found it more useful, and they learned more. We also discovered the opposite: when they found it less difficult, they also found it less useful, and they learned less. Finally, we discovered that AD especially helped them to improve communication and speaking abilities, to build vocabulary and sound natural, and to practice several skills at once.

Audiovisual Translation (AVT) studies have been among the burgeoning disciplines in translation studies. Although much progress has been made in AVT, there has been little scholarship heretofore to sketch a comprehensive understanding of the domain mapping using bibliometric analysis. Based on a total of 1,424 journal articles collected from the Web of Science Core Collection (SSCI, A&HCI, and ESCI) and Scopus from 2002 to 2022, the publication trends, research progress, research hotspots, and research frontiers were analyzed and visualized using CiteSpace and VOSviewer. The results of this study show that research on AVT has experienced exponential growth in the last two decades and is likely to follow an upward trend in the future. Topics including subtitling, dubbing, audio description, reception, and media accessibility have been frequently explored; and active researchers from Europe and Iran, as well as productive institutes in Europe, the USA, and China, with publications in influential journals, have contributed greatly to AVT studies. The historical development of AVT studies also implies an interdisciplinary trend. These findings provide insights into AVT studies, with a comprehensive overview, which is of great reference significance for researchers in understanding the past achievements of the discipline and carrying out their future research.

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.

Audio description (AD) has been a topic of high interest among translation studies researchers in the past two decades. Despite this, certain aspects of AD have been left unexplored, especially in non-European settings. One aspect of this accessibility service which has received little scholarly attention is humour. To fill this gap, this paper examines how Iranian audio describers navigate humour in the Persian AD of English silent animations. Three humour-driven silent animations with Persian AD were analysed, comparing the original and AD versions. The findings revealed that while some humorous elements remained undescribed, leading to a partial loss of comedic effect, audio describers effectively conveyed certain aspects of humour in most cases. In other words, the compound nature of humour helped retain its impact even when certain elements were omitted. Additionally, it appeared that the absence of dialogue in silent animations, coupled with their heavy reliance on visual elements, presented a notable challenge for audio describers in effectively conveying all the humorous elements.

Audio description (AD) is a narrative technique which provides complementary information regarding the where, who, what and how of any audiovisual content. It translates the visuals into words. The principal function of this ad hoc narrative is to make audiovisual content available to all: be it a guided city tour of Barcelona, a 3D film, or a Picasso painting. Audio description is one of the younger siblings of Audiovisual Translation, and it is epigonic to the audiovisual translation modality chosen. This book is the first volume on the topic written in English and it brings together an international team of leading audio description teachers, scholars, and practitioners to address the basic issues regarding audio description strategies. Using one stimulus, Quentin Tarantino’s film Inglourious Basterds (2009), the authors analysed what, when, where and how to audio describe. The book is written in a collaborative effort, following a bottom up approach. The many issues that surfaced in the process of the analysis were grouped in broader categories represented in the ten chapters this book contains. A good example of a successful international collaboration, the volume sets a robust practical and theoretical framework for the many studies on audio description to come in the future. Considering the structure of the individual contributions, the book is not only oriented towards the identification of the challenges that await the describer, but it also offers an insight into their possible solutions.

Audio description has been an object of study for scholars working in Audiovisual Translation and Media Accessibility since the early 2000s. This chapter aims to offer a brief overview of the scholarly research undertaken so far. The first part, which will focus on screen audio description, will summarize what researchers have learnt after studying filmic, linguistic, narrative and practical aspects of audio description scripts. It will then review what we have learnt from viewers of audio described materials in studies dealing with filmic and technical aspects of audio description, as well as in those exploring the users’ recall, comprehension, immersion and emotional response. The second part of the chapter, which will cover non-screen audio description, will begin by introducing readers to the scholarly work undertaken in museums and cultural venues. It will first present the main findings from studies exploring audio description texts, practitioners and end-users, before covering the existing research dealing with the audio description of live events.