Room 1, Building R

Accessible narratives for ADHD audiences

Lacey Allen

This research project focuses on exploring the fairy tale structure and how this can be beneficial for neurodivergent audiences, specifically those with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). ADHD is a cognitive disability that is often diagnosed in childhood; however, many adults are now being diagnosed in recent years. One of the main symptoms of ADHD is a deficit in attention, which can cause distractibility. Therefore, it is important to recognise how we can make all aspects of life accessible for individuals with ADHD. Due to the increasing number of diagnoses, ensuring integrated accessibility for individuals with ADHD is important and urgent. My research focuses on improving attention retention for ADHD audiences through storytelling and explores how the enjoyment of films and literature should be expanded upon for ADHD audiences. Fairy tales have structures that enable readers to follow their narratives easily, which could support adults and children with ADHD to watch or read and retain attention. Many narrative types have a complication and resolution, fairy tales in particular follow this structure. The fairy tale’s ability to hold the attention of its audience members uses this device of an often life-changing complication placed before the protagonist or hero, that the audience knows needs to be resolved. Fairy tales can also be a tool for guidance in life. The transition from adolescence to adulthood can be particularly challenging for individuals with ADHD. Fairy tales contain narratives that show this transition and may be relatable as guidance for these audiences and support the development of agency. There is minimal research regarding ADHD and narrative structure, although, there has been research regarding cinema and theatre environments for other neurodiverse audiences by focusing on sensory factors (Eggertsen, 2018). Initially, to explore fairy tale structure, I explored and evaluated the folktale narrative structure as differentiated by Propp (1958) and Kafalenos (2006). I developed a more succinct set of narrative functions that are reflective of the fairytale structure, in order to investigate the benefits of the fairytale in regard to improving attention retention in ADHD audiences. Fairytales draw on a range of genres, including elements of adventure, fantasy, romance and horror. I conducted a survey to explore whether there is a difference in genre preference in ADHD and non-ADHD audiences and to investigate if there is a connection between narrative structure, genre and attention span. This paper will introduce this new adapted set of narrative functions while presenting the results of this survey. These findings will be introduced in relation to their potential to pave the way toward greater inclusivity of ADHD audiences. 

Eggertsen, C. (2018). Making Movies More Inclusive. Trade Journals. 154(8), pp.28-29. Available at: MAKING MOVIES MORE INCLUSIVE - ProQuest (york.ac.uk) [Accessed 12 Aug. 2021]. 

Kafalenos, E. (2006). Narrative Causalities. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. 

Propp, V. (1958). Morphology of the Folktale. Bloomington: Research Centre, Indiana University.

My name is Lacey Allen and I am a PhD student at the University of York. My thesis is focused on narrative accessibility and I aim to further research in the area of neurodiversity, in particular ADHD. I have degrees in theatre and education, and gained an interest in neurodiveristy during my time teacher training, when I worked with children with special educational needs. Outside of my degree, I work with disabled university students and I aim to make an impact by improving accessibility in narratives.

Oral easy-to-understand language and audiovisual content: how do they mix?

Marina Pujadas-Farreras

Easy to understand (E2U) language is an umbrella term that includes Plain Language (PL), Easy Language (EL) and all the varieties in between (ISO, n.d.). EL is key in order to create accessible contents for a broad range of users, including users with intellectual and cognitive disabilities, users suffering from brain injuries and even second language learners (Leskelä, 2021). Up until now, EL has been researched extensively in the written format, which is why it is commonly referred to as ‘Easy to Read’. However, research on its application in the oral modality is still lacking. Within the oral modality, we can further differentiate between two contexts: delivering information in EL (e.g., a news broadcast in EL) and interacting in EL (e.g., with friends, in an interview) (Leskelä, 2022). Although it has not been thoroughly researched, there are already some audiovisual contents in EL. Easy news broadcasts are offered in countries like Finland, Sweden, Latvia or Germany. The company APTENT offered easy audios of plays in theatres and in Argentina a bill was passed that information from public and private service institutions had to be audio described for people with intellectual disabilities (Anča & Meļņika, 2021; APTENT, n.d.; Leskelä, 2021; Maaß et al., 2021; Matamala, 2022). In this paper, I will focus on oral E2U language, specifically in the context of delivering information, with the objective of reaching a better understanding of the differences between oral and written EL. I will report on a series of interviews with professionals who have experience in creating or adapting audiovisual content in E2U language. I will analyse their opinions on how best to adapt an already existing AV content and what is essential in order to create an easy content and how to decide which degree of simplification is needed. Furthermore, I will compare their answers to see whether there are significant differences in their opinions depending on their area of expertise. Finally, I will propose some preliminary conclusions that can be the basis for future research and recommendations on the creation or adaptation of easy audiovisual content. 

Anča, G., & Meļņika, I. (2021). Easy Language in Latvia. In C. Lindholm & U. Vanhatalo (Eds.), Handbook of Easy Languages in Europe (pp. 305–326). Frank & Timme. https://doi.org/10.26530/20.500.12657/52628 

APTENT. (n.d.). Aptent Soluciones. Subtitulado y audiodescripción. Retrieved June 20, 2022, from https://aptent.es/es/ 

ISO (International Organization for Standardization). (n.d.). ISO/IEC DIS 23859-1. Information technology – User interfaces – Part 1: Guidance on making written text easy to read and easy to understand. Retrieved May 16, 2022, from https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso-iec:23859:-1:dis:ed-1:v1:en 

Leskelä, L. (2021). Easy Language in Finland. In C. Lindholm & U. Vanhatalo (Eds.), Handbook of Easy Languages in Europe (pp. 149–190). Frank & Timme. https://doi.org/10.26530/20.500.12657/52628 

Leskelä, L. (2022). Easy Language in Finland. In Accessible digital communication: easy-to-understand language course. 

Maaß, C., Rink, I., & Hansen-Schirra, S. (2021). Easy Language in Germany. In C. Lindholm & U. Vanhatalo (Eds.), Handbook of Easy Languages in Europe (pp. 191–218). Frank & Timme. https://doi.org/10.26530/20.500.12657/52628 

Matamala, A. (2022). Easy audiovisuals with easy audios. In A International Conference on Accessible Intersemiotic Translation (ICAIT) https://ddd.uab.cat/pub/poncom/2022/257388/2022_Matamala_Parma.pdf

Marina Pujadas-Farreras holds a BA in Translation and Interpreting from the UAB and an MA in Audiovisual Translation from this same university. She is currently a PhD student at the UAB, working on oral Easy Language and media accessibility. She is a member of the research group TransMedia Catalonia (2021SGR00077) and the network Xarxa AccessCat (2021XARDI00007). Her research is backed up by a scholarship linked to the GreenScent project.

AD and SDH on Portuguese state-sponsored channels: state of play and where to?

Cláudia Martins, Catarina Xavier, Susana Valdez, Sara Ramos Pinto, Silvia Malena Modesto Monteiro

The development of Media Accessibility (MA) has brought to the fore concerns with the inclusion of people with disabilities in all walks of life, from the traditional audiovisual contexts (e.g. TV and cinema) to other cultural and historical venues, including other life events, such as births, weddings, and the like. These concerns stemmed from the fact that, in the 1980s and 1990s, attention was focused on the need for television channels and cinema houses to provide accessible programming including then subtitling for the deaf and hard-of-hearing (SDH) and audiodescription (AD), and later respeaking. While the USA and the UK were the pioneers internationally, other European countries slowly engaged in such practices and developed guidelines to cater for these needs. One such case is Germany where Bernd Benecke (from Bayerischer Rundfunk) has been a reference in MA when it comes to AD in TV programmes. As a result, accessibility television services have become a legal requirement worldwide, particularly in European countries, since the early 2000s. In her ground-breaking survey, Remael (2007) has identified that different countries go through different histories, traditions and priorities with a direct impact on how much SDH each country produces and broadcasts and the procedures it follows. The data collected by Reviers (2016) seems to indicate similar circumstances regarding Audiodescription. In this paper, we will focus on the case of Portugal, and in particular the state-sponsored channel RTP, in order to offer a more in-depth look into how the accessibility services developed, their current practices and priorities as well as the SDH and AD professionals’ working conditions and main challenges. As in other countries, the development of SDH in Portugal has largely coincided with the introduction of teletext and was initiated by the channel under analysis which has played a vital role in recruiting and training local teams of experts, as well as developing and disseminating working practices both internally and externally. In the context of the project AVT Accessibility in Portugal, data has been collected via a questionnaire and follow-up in-depth/qualitative interviews with the different SDH and AD in-house professionals employed at RTP. Preliminary analysis points towards particular linguistic, technological and internal communication challenges, lack of training, and lack of guidelines updates, and that professionals may tend not to identify themselves as translators. It also indicates a lack of knowledge-sharing among European television channels. Finally, it has been possible to note difficult access to the target communities which professionals try to compensate for by having, in the case of AD, blind consultants that check translations. In sum, we will seek to provide a thorough description of RTP’s team of translators in terms of their training, previous experience, work procedures, and relation to SDH and AD guidelines and target audiences. This will be complemented with selected information retrieved from the qualitative interviews. Based on this preliminary analysis, we aim to critically reflect on the overall situation and suggest a series of recommendations for moving forward, including conducting a reception-oriented study.

Cláudia Martins (presenter) holds a PhD in Translation by the University of Aveiro, with a thesis on museum accessibility for people with visual impairment. She was awarded a Diploma of Advanced Studies in Translation and Intercultural Studies (Spain) and master in Terminology and Translation and bachelor’s degree in Modern Languages and Literatures, both at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto, Portugal. Since 2001, she has been teaching English as a foreign language, English Linguistics, Terminology and Audiovisual Translation at the School of Education in the Polytechnic Institute of Bragança, Portugal. Her academic interests include ELT, Linguistics, Phraseology and Paremiology, Terminology and Audiovisual Translation, with a special focus on Media Accessibility. 

Catarina Xavier (presenter) is Junior Researcher at the University of Lisbon. She is also a researcher with the Reception and Translation Studies Research Group at the Center for English Studies, UL (ULICES). Catarina holds a PhD in Translation Studies and her current research looks into taboo accessibility in audio description and subtitling for the Deaf and hard of hearing. By focusing on the fact that sensory-impaired users are entitled to be given access to audiovisual products and meanings, she is currently examining users' needs and actors' attitudes to impact on academia and society. She has been awarded doctoral and post-doctoral grants, and in the meantime has contributed to the area of the translation of taboo in different media with several academic outputs, promoting the study of translation norms and the systematisation of translation strategies. ***** 

Susana Valdez (co-author, non-presenter) is an Assistant Professor in Translation Studies at Leiden University. Before taking up her current position, she had spent 15 years working in the translation industry, and she was an invited lecturer at NOVA School of Social Sciences and Humanities, as well as Lisbon University School of Arts and Humanities (Lisbon, Portugal). Her doctoral thesis focused on medical translation. Her current research focuses on pivot templates, medical translation, the translation process, and reception. She is the PI of the ApiVoT project, the Reviews editor and member of the Editorial Board of JAT - Journal of Audiovisual Translation, and co-editor of a special issue on pivot audiovisual translation (Perspectives 2023, with Hanna Pięta, Hanna, Rita Menezes and Stravoula Sokoli). 

Sara Ramos Pinto (co-author, non-presenter) is an Associate Professor in Translation Studies at the University of Leeds. She is also a board member of ESIST, an international board member of CETRA at KU. Leuven (Belgium) and a research collaborator at the Centre for Anglophone studies at the University of Lisbon. Sara’s research focuses on audiovisual translation and translation theory as she is interested in investigating the translation of multimodal products and the challenges they bring to translation practice and theory. She has published in a number of peer-reviewed journal articles and chapters in highly-regarded journals such as Target, The Translator, and META as well as co-edited books and special issues. Her most recent publication is the book Introduction to Translation Studies (5th edition) co-authored with Jeremy Munday and Jacob Blakesley. Parallel to her academic work, Sara is an experienced translator in the areas of audiovisual translation, theatre translation and academic writing. She maintains close links with the industry as a consultant, but also via her research which she develops in collaboration with different companies. 

Silvia Malena Modesto Monteiro (co-author, non-presenter) has a degree in Languages - Portuguese, English and Literature and Specialization in Translation - Federal University of Ceará (UFC); Master in Applied Linguistics and PhD in Applied Linguistics - State University of Ceará (UECE). She is an effective professor at the Languages-English Course at the State University of Ceará, since 2003. She is also a professor at the Graduate Program in Applied Linguistics (PosLA) and Coordinator of the Audiovisual Translation Laboratory (LATAV) at the State University of Ceará. She has experience in the area of Applied Linguistics, with emphasis on English Language and Translation, working mainly on the following subjects: Audiovisual Translation, Accessible Audiovisual Translation, Translation, English Language Teaching and Learning, Reading in English, Teacher Training, Virtual Environments.

Making accessibility agile: new challenges and opportunities

Estella Oncins, Iris Serrat Roozen

Technological solutions and products are increasingly being used in our daily activities and even determine our social communication. Most interactions with public bodies, such as a simple request for a doctor’s appointment are performed through technologies. In addition, the progressive transition from Web2.0 to Web3.0 and the irruption of the Metaverse are opening up innovative forms of communication and interaction for users, but at the same time new barriers and challenges are triggering accessibility and equal participation (European Parliament 2022). Digital interactive accessibility services require to allow for human interaction with the media content beyond consumption, ensuring that people can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the content and contribute to it. All these new types of interactions are also a field of study in AVT and MA, as translation is a form of human–computer interaction (HCI) (O’Brien 2012). Therefore, the role of technology in AVT/MA is a key aspect not only in the process of creation, but also for the distribution, delivery, and consumption. This tendency is expected to grow in the coming years as “technology is also the basis of tools to translate or adapt content and tools to consume content” Matamala (2019). In this regard, various researchers have described the so-called audiovisual translation workstation, a workstation that changes continuously and is moving towards cloud-based solutions (Díaz Cintas and Massida 2019). Still, these research studies specially in the AVT field mostly present the different AVT modalities as a product with a linear organisation of the tasks in which a source text (ST) is the input and a target text (TT) is the final output being delivered, rather than a cyclic process with different iterations (O’Hagan 2016). From the linear perspective the technology is placed at the centre allowing to improve work efficiency and to reduce costs, while challenging the quality of the output and the accessibility level. Paradoxically, Engineering and Information Society studies have long been working with new models and methodologies in which the user is at the centre generating knowledge and new forms of interaction with technologies. The adoption of these new models and methodologies in the AVT/MA fields would also allow to include accessibility as an added value (Rodríguez-Vazquez and O’Brien 2017). The following presentation aims at presenting the results of a series of focus groups held with professionals and researchers from the different fields of the audiovisual industry in the frame of the European project MediaVerse. This three years project, aims to design and test a framework to allow professionals and laymen to publish multimedia content that may be easily shared and licensed and to empower media stakeholders to enjoy and produce inclusive, diverse, respectful, credible and accessible media experiences. 

Estella Oncins holds a Phd in Accessibility and Ambient Intelligence from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. She has a large experience in providing accessibility for live events as a freelance translator, subtitler, surtitler and respeaker for Spanish television companies and conferences, and as an audio describer for Liceu Opera House. Her research areas are audiovisual translation, digital and media accessibility, and creative industry. She has collaborated with the Education and Outreach Working Group (EOWG) from W3C/WAI and is currently involved in the ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 36/AHG 5 "Blockchain in education". She is a partner in different European founded Erasmus+ and H2020 projects in the field of digital and media accessibility.

Iris Serrat Roozen holds a PhD in Applied Languages, Literature and Translation. Currently, she is an associate lecturer in language teaching at the Department of English and German Studies at the Universitat de València. Her main research interests are audiovisual translation, accessibility, and second language learning and teaching. 

Culture doesn't travel well unless a translator is involved: using pivot templates in audio description

Michalina Halwa, Alicja Zajdel, Anna Jankowska

As noted by Remael and Vercauteren (2010) whether and how culture references are rendered in audio description largely depends on the encyclopedic knowledge of the describer and their ability to recognize and identify the culture reference in question. In other words, unless a describer is able to single out and name a culture reference, it might be labeled incorrectly or ambiguously if not altogether omitted. In this sense, López Vera (2006, p. 9) argues that translating AD might prevent cultural loss both because "an original AD gives the appropriate cultural background and accordingly is more informative than the AD for the same film done from scratch" and because "translators are better trained to address cultural references and to adapt them to the target audience". Jankowska et al. (2017) question whether all describers are in fact equally suited to act as intercultural mediators, which is especially relevant since not all describers have educational background in translation and their AD training is not carried out within translation studies context (ADLABPRO, 2018). They also suggest that training describers in intercultural competence is essential but not sufficient since "it is perfectly feasible to raise describers’ awareness of intercultural issues, it seems impossible to expect a describer to gain intercultural competence in all cultures" (p. 3). They also suggest that when it comes to the less known cultures AD scripts could be created locally and then translated into English to avoid significant cultural loss. This presentation explores the feasibility of using pivot templates in the AD-translation workflow to avoid cultural loss by reporting on the results of two studies. In the first one, describers from Poland were asked to write descriptions to five clips from Spanish films. In the second one, Polish AVT translators were asked to translate audio description scripts for five Spanish clips, from an English template into Polish. The templates were created based on descriptions authored in Spanish by Spanish describers. Following a common subtitling practice, the templates were time-coded and culture references were not localized but explained in annotations. Results of a comparative analysis of the scripts show that the translated scripts retained more cultural references and contained less mistakes than the scripts created from scratch. Also, the use of description strategies and tactics differs. On the whole, the scripts written from scratch seem to be more domesticating and resort more often to generalization. As part of conclusions this presentation will reflect on the pros and cons of introducing pivot templates into audio description script production workflow and the intercultural competence of describers.

Michalina Halwa is an M.A. student in translation at the University of Antwerp. 

Alicja Zajdel is a PhD researcher at the Department of Translators and Interpreters, where she is a member of the TricS research group. She is conducting translation process research in audio description, which aims to examine the decision-making processes in AD script writing. Her other research interests include media accessibility, machine translation and literary translation. 

Anna Jankowska is a AVT & MA researcher, trainer and consultant, former audio describer and access manager. She is now a research professor at of University of Antwerp. She is the founder and was the CEO of the Seventh Sense Foundation which provided access services in Poland. Her recent research projects include studies on audio description process, mobile accessibility and software.

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Sense and sensibility: examining bias in human-generated audio description and machine-derived video captions and the implications for video description in a digital world

Kim Starr, Sabine Braun

Video captioning workstreams, aimed at improving the accessibility of moving images for audiences with supplementary physical and cognitive needs, currently sit at the intersection between human endeavour and digital innovation. Human-derived audio description (AD) is generally accurate, narratively salient, and creatively engaging, but prohibitive production costs mean that it is not viable to describe large volumes of material on a scale currently available to the sighted audience. (Semi-)automated video captioning is being developed as an alternative, parallel, offering. However, in the conversation surrounding video caption automation one element that has been largely overlooked is a risk-benefit analysis of underlying bias, both human and computational. From the automation perspective, generating AI-assisted video captions requires pre-training of the machine using image-based training data. Flikr and Tumblr are frequently used sources of imagery, resulting in situational and generational bias e.g., references to technology, high-adrenaline sports etc. (Braun & Starr, 2019). As a result, machine-generated captions contain errors due to the over-representation of contemporary objects and topics. They also exhibit poor grammar, reflecting the recruitment methods used to employ training data captioners (i.e., amateur crowdworkers, piecemeal payment, inadequate lexical skills, lax adherence to captioning rules). Gender bias is evident in the machine-based captions with an over-representation of male gendered words, and the rigid pursuit of outdated social conventions (men wear trousers and have short hair, women have long(er) hair and wear skirts). Machine-induced bias is further compounded by a lack of training in the detection of narrative saliency, inability to detect nuanced actions, and failure to employ audio cues to validate or correct visually biased captions. Computational methods also reflect a lack of resource to apply life knowledge and common sense to labelling iconic visual representations (e.g., a wedding, the farmers’ market, graduation celebrations). By contrast, professional audio describers, drawn from a language/communications background, generally find video captioning an intuitive task, readily moving between decoding nuanced human behaviours, contextualised storytelling, and information prioritisation, to produce a multi-dimensional AD script. Nevertheless, models of discourse/narrative processing have highlighted different types of bias in human storytelling. In particular, the models point to differences in world knowledge, experiences and contexts of reception to explain why individual recipients form different understandings of the same material. Like any translation activity, AD also creates a double comprehension ‘filter’: impacted by the interpretation and agency of the audio describer, with an understanding of the audiovisual source material based on their own cognitive environment; and subsequently ‘consumed’ by the target audience, which adds a further layer of subjectivity when deriving meaning. Our empirically-derived conceptual presentation examines these issues of bias in machine-generated and human video description, asking how machine description could become more humanlike without succumbing to the pitfalls of personal bias and social convention which impact objectivity. We will consider solutions that draw on the best of both worlds, and envisage how these would play out in a world that is increasingly replacing human endeavour with AI-based solutions that lack transparency and (often) fail to satisfy ethical and quality standards.

Kim Starr, PhD, is a Research Fellow in the Centre for Translation Studies (CTS) at the University of Surrey (UK). She previously worked in commercial television, and has degrees in politics and law (BSc.Econ., QMUL), journalism (MA, Westminster) and audiovisual translation (MA, University of Surrey). Awarded a doctoral scholarship by the Arts and Humanities Research Council/TECHNE, she completed her PhD in audio description for cognitive diversity in December 2017. For the following three years she worked on the EU Horizon 2020 project ‘Methods for Managing Audiovisual Data’ (MeMAD). She is currently employed as part of the Expanding Excellence in England (E3) programme at the CTS, researching human-machine interaction in the field of automated video description, cognitive accessibility in cultural contexts, and audio description for the non-blind. Kim co-edited and co-authored the IATIS yearbook, ‘Innovation in Audio Description Research’ (Braun & Starr, 2021). In 2022, she was awarded the Fulbright-Smithsonian Scholarship.

Machine translation for AD: exploring the efficiency of post-editing for a multimodal text type

Kim Steyaert

As the demand for accessible media is rapidly increasing, the obstacles for meeting this demand on a large scale are becoming more apparent as well. In the case of audio description (AD), in particular for people with sight loss speaking less-resourced languages, one of these obstacles is the lack of trained language professionals who can create or translate AD's for audiovisual media. Having performed a pilot study, in which we investigated the effectiveness of neural machine translation (NMT) for AD for the English - Dutch language pair (Vercauteren et al., 2021), we found several error types related to the idiosyncratic character of the language of AD and to its multimodal nature, in addition to the more general error types MT is prone to. Based on these preliminary findings from a limited case study, we concluded that full post-editing (PE) would be needed in order to reach the translation quality that can be achieved by human translators and to consider machine translation as a viable means to ensure a dramatic rise in Dutch AD scripts. Building on the results of this pilot study, a four year PhD project was developed (2022-2024), combining the analysis of corpus data (to be presented at the Languages and the Media conference 2022) with the analysis of experiment data. The present presentation focusses on the experiment. We carried out an experiment in the spring and summer of 2022, in order to gain insight in the human translation (HT) and postediting (PE) processes of audio describers working on AD scripts, as well as PE effort, and HT and PE quality. In addition to key and screen logging data, we also conducted post-experiment interviews with all participants, as well as pre- and post-questionnaires, aiming to gain a deeper understanding of certain HT or PE decisions that were made, to compare participants' opinions and preferences on both tasks before and after performing the experiment, and to compare the perceived effort and actual effort for both tasks. In this presentation, we will focus on the qualitative analyses of the key and screen logging data, which will shed light on the temporal and technical effort in both the HT and PE processes of AD scripts. These data will be compared to the insights derived from the interviews with the participants, in order to learn whether the perceived effort is indicative of the actual effort. MT for AD is still a mostly unexplored field, with only a limited number of publications for the English, Spanish and Catalan languages. Up to this date, we believe this is the only study on MT for AD in the English - Dutch language pair. Therefore, the above experiments will help us gain new insights into the effectiveness and efficiency of MT for AD, both in general and specific for this language pair, they will corroborate the findings of our pilot study, and contribute to the ongoing debate on the feasibility of MT for AD.

Kim Steyaert is a PhD student at the University of Antwerp. She holds a BA in Applied Linguistics, an MA in Translation, and an MSc in Artificial Intelligence. Her research focuses on machine translation for audio description from English to Dutch. Her main research interests include audio description, media accessibility, machine translation and translation technology.

Transdescription – human agency in translation of AD scripts

Iwona Mazur

Translation of audio description (AD) scripts is emerging as one of the methods of AD creation. Preliminary studies have shown that this method may be more time- and cost-effective than describing from scratch (e.g. Jankowska, 2015; cf. López Vera, 2006), efficient in terms of content selection (e.g. Remael & Vercauteren, 2010), and useful for describing local cultural references (Jankowska et al., 2017). Another step in optimizing the AD creation process in terms productivity gains appears to be machine translation of AD scripts, followed by post-editing (see e.g. Oncins, 2022; cf. Fernández-Torné & Matamala, 2016). However, despite the advantages that (machine) translation of AD scripts offers, it does come at a cost. Over the years, different countries have developed their AD practices, resulting in certain ‘expectancy norms’ (cf. Chesterman, 1997). For example, Polish AD, taking advantage of Polish being a synthetic language, often uses non-SVO word order and an implied subject, or elliptical constructions and nominal phrases in lieu of regular sentences (Mazur, 2022). If, however, AD was to be translated from English (an analytic language) into Polish, it can be expected – based on Toury’s ‘law of interference’ (1995) – that some of those syntactic features will be lost in favour of a more SVO-oriented word order, longer clauses, including subordinate ones, and a more frequent use of an explicit subject. Also, since AD is already a translated product, and as such may exhibit explicitation (Vercauteren, 2022), its translation into another language is likely add another layer of explicitation – which is considered to be a universal of translation (Laviosa-Braithwaite, 1998) – potentially resulting in ‘double explicitation’. Finally, regular interlingual translation, especially in its automated form, may not take into account cross-cultural contextual and functional issues, such as the background knowledge or the cultural context of the translated AD target audience (Mazur, 2020). A method to offset some of these disadvantages could be offered by an approach to translating AD which we would like to call ‘transdescription’ (akin to ‘transcreation’ in Translation Studies), where the interventions of the translator-cum-describer would be greater than in regular interlingual translation and in line with the prevailing AD expectancy norms. To illustrate the point, results of a small-scale experiment will be presented, which involved eight AD trainees whose task was to perform an annotated English-Polish translation of a movie clip. Analysing the translations along with the students’ comments will allow us to look at both the product and the process of the AD translation and assess whether it is possible to draw the line between transdescription, on the one hand, and ‘standard’ AD translation, on the other, however fuzzy that line might be. The ideas underlying the concept of transdescription would be applicable to both human AD translation and post-editing of machine-generated translations of AD scripts. It is hoped that the discussion of the results will be useful for the future training of ‘transdescribers’ as well as for the development of possible AD translation workflow models for AD service providers.  

Chesterman, A. (1997). Memes of translation. The spread of ideas in translation theory. Amsterdam: Benjamins. 

Fernández-Torné, A. & Matamala, A. (2016). Machine translation in audio description? Comparing creation, translation and post-editing efforts. SKASE Journal of Translation and Interpretation, 9(1), 64-87. 

Jankowska, A. (2015). Translating audio description scripts: Translation as a new strategy of creating audio description. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. 

Jankowska, A., Milc, M. & Fryer, L. (2017). Translating audio description scripts … into English. SKASE Journal of Translation and Interpretation, 10(2), 2-16. 

Laviosa-Braithwaite, S. (1998). Universals of translation. In Baker, M. (Ed.), The Routledge encyclopedia of translation studies. London: Routledge. 288-291. 

López Vera, J.F. (2006). Translating audio description scripts. The way forward? Tentative first stage project results. In Carroll, M., Gerzymisch-Arbogast, H. & Nauert, S. (Eds.), MuTra 2006 – Audiovisual translation scenarios conference proceedings. Saarbrücken. 1-10. 

Mazur, I. (2020). A functional approach to audio description. Journal of Audiovisual Translation, 3(2), 226–245. https://doi.org/10.47476/jat.v3i2.2020.139 

Mazur, I. (2022). Linguistic and textual aspects of audio description. In Taylor, C. & Perego, E. (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of audio description. Abington, Oxon / New York: Routledge. 93-106. 

Oncins, E. (2022). Audio description translation. A retrospective. In Taylor, C. & Perego, E. (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of audio description. Abington, Oxon / New York: Routledge. 447-459. 

Remael, A. & Vercauteren, G. (2010). The translation of recorded audio description from English into Dutch. Perspectives, 18(3), 155-171. 

Toury, G. (1995). Descriptive translation studies – and beyond. Amsterdam: Benjamins. 

Vercauteren, G. (2022). Narratology and/in audio description. In Taylor, C. & Perego, E. (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of audio description. Abington, Oxon / New York: Routledge. 78-92.

Iwona Mazur is an Assistant Professor at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland, where she teaches translation and audio description (AD). Her current research focuses on translation theory and AD. She has co-authored a book on AD in Polish (Audiodeskrypcja, 2014) and co-edited a special issue of Linguistica Antverpiensia on media accessibility training (2019). She has participated in a number of Polish and international research projects, including ADLAB (2011-2014) and ADLAB PRO (2016-2019). She is a former Executive Board member at the European Society for Translation Studies EST and the European Association for Studies in Screen Translation

What is the experience of blind and partially sighted people watching sports broadcasts

Jonny Marshall

“I would only watch what I know I can follow. I discovered that quite a lot of sports which I would like to follow I can’t because the commentary doesn’t tend to talk about what is happening. They tend to be discussing the profile of an athlete”. (Sports fan)

“There are probably also a lot of other sports I don’t watch because of the commentators. It just puts me off as there is not much description of what’s happening”. (Sports fan) 

These quotes from the RNIB’s research on sports broadcasts succinctly highlight some of the key barriers that blind and partially sighted people face whilst watching sports. This is a common experience as the majority of sports coverage does not have audio description, or a commentary style that provides sufficient detail for blind and partially sighted people to follow an event accurately. During 2022 many live sporting events returned, including the Winter Olympics, Winter Paralympics, the Commonwealth Games, the Euros and the Football World Cup. On UK television, these events often lacked audio description, thus excluding a section of society from becoming fully immersed. This research explores the barriers blind and partially sighted people encounter and their preferences for improving the accessibility and enjoyability of sports broadcasts by drawing on end user’s experiences. It will discuss the advantages and disadvantages associated with using different forms of audio description, including integrated, traditional and a specially produced description track. A variety of sports were covered during the research with an emphasis on understanding whether fast paced and detailed sports, such as football or judo would benefit more from description than slower paced sports. Another area of interest raised which covers all forms of audio description or commentary style is the importance of the language used to provide a clear but concise description of the action. 

Overall, no clear preference emerged from end users as to which audio description style/commentary style was the best for sports broadcasts. People’s personal preferences played a large role in this, as some end users particularly enjoyed certain aspects of one audio description style, but disliked elements of the other formats. However, there was a consensus that sports broadcasts need audio description, or a detailed commentary style to make a sporting event accessible and enjoyable. It was also highlighted that sports which are fast paced, or that are particularly detailed would benefit more from audio description in comparison to slower paced sports. End users also agreed that the language used to describe the venue, equipment, athletes and sporting action is particularly important, as it needs to be clear yet detailed enough for them to follow the event accurately. This research provides useful insights into how sports broadcasts can be made more accessible and enjoyable for blind and partially sighted people, but with events such as the Paris 2024 Olympic Games already on the horizon, more research in this area would be beneficial.

Jonny Marshall. Prior to this, completed an MA in Social Media and Political Communication at Loughborough University and a BA (Hons) in Politics and Internal Relations at the University of Nottingham, where I developed my research skills.

Taking stock of the audio description research landscape: a bibliographic approach

Nina Reviers, Gert Vercauteren

As Taylor & Perego (2022, p. 1) state in the recently published first edition of the Routledge handbook of Audio Description, AD “is no longer merely a niche interest in the much wider field of audio-visual translation (AVT)”, but has developed as an independent field of study in its own right. Since the turn of the millennium, this field has developed its own specialized conference series, graduate and postgraduate programmes, research groups and publication outlets. Therefore, we feel it is time to take stock of what has been achieved in terms of research in AD so far. The aim of the present paper is to offer an exhaustive overview of the research landscape to date, its evolution, trends, scientific output and research foci, by adopting a bibliographic approach. 

Through the analysis of AD publications since the beginning of the century, the present paper wants to explore the following questions: 

• How much has been published on AD since the beginning of the century and how has the number of publications evolved since then?
• How well represented is AD research in established TS citation-indexes and databases? 
• What are the most frequent publication types in the field (journal, book, dissertation, other)? 
• What have been the most frequently explored research topics and research methods and what are the blind spots that still need to be researched? 
• Have the main research foci evolved over the years? What are the most recent developments? 
• Which journals and articles have been the most highly cited? 

Bibliographical studies are only as strong as the bibliographical data that have been accumulated for the envisaged analysis. As a result, for the present paper a comprehensive bibliography on AD related research (books, journals, dissertations, guidelines, etc.) will be compiled, based on searches in some of the most representative indexes, databases and projects (Scopus, ERIC, BITRA, Translation Studies Bibliography, Web of Science, MAPAccess, etc.). This bibliography will form the basis for a series of quantitative and qualitative analyses, including citation and content analysis as well as a diachronic analysis, that allow us to formulate an answer to the questions set forth above. 

Taylor, C. & Perego, E. (2022). Introduction. In C. Taylor & E. Perego (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of audio description. (pp. 1-9). Taylor & Francis.

Nina Reviers (University of Antwerp) is a tenure-track professors in Audiovisual Translation and Media Accessibility at the Department of Applied Linguistics, Translators and Interpreters. She holds a PhD in Translation Studies  (University of Antwerp, 2018) in the field of Audio Description, for which she was awarded the EST Young Scholar Prize in 2019. Her research addresses linguistic and multimodal aspects of audio description, computer-aided translation of audio description, integrated access for the (scenic) arts and technology for access. As manager of the OPEN Expertise Centre for Accessible Media and Culture, Nina fosters a close collaboration with stakeholders as a key factor in her research and teaching activities. 

Gert Vercauteren is a tenure track professor at the University of Antwerp where he teaches translation technology and audiovisual translation/communication. He holds a PhD in Translation Studies (University of Antwerp), more specifically in the field of Audio Description. His current research focuses on narratology in audio description with a particular focus on sound and on cognitive load in/and audio description. He also works as an audio describer, maintaining a close link with the audiovisual translation industry.

Working conditions and job satisfaction of audio describers in Mainland China

Qi Liu, Huihuang Jia, Anna Jankowska, Ching Lin Pang

Translations as products are the consequence of who translators are and how and where they do their work. This epistemology underpins the sociological turn that evolved in Translation Studies in the 1980s when translation began to be considered a social practice as well as Cognitive Translation Studies and the concept of embodied cognition (Muñoz Martín, 2016). This idea reflects a shift in focus from texts to translations’ agents (e.g., translators) and the translation process’s context. In the field of Audiovisual Translation (AVT), few studies adopt a sociological or translation process viewpoint. However, this approach is essential for understanding the realm and developing new concepts, criteria, recommendations, and training methods (Taylor & Perego, 2022).

In Translation Studies, working conditions and job satisfaction have been thoroughly investigated (Ehrensberger-Dow & O'Brien, 2015). The study of audiovisual translators, particularly audio describers, is scarce. To date, only one study has thoroughly investigated this topic - a survey was carried out within the ADLAB PRO project to map the professional profile of describers by looking into their educational background, skills and competencies in Europe (Taylor & Perego, 2022). Although Tor-Carroggio and Casas-Tost (2020) replicate the project’s questionnaire to investigate the profiles of the audio describers in Mainland China, little is known about the working conditions and job satisfaction of the profession. 

In this presentation, we report on an online survey carried out among audio describers - professionals and volunteers - in Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and Mainland China. The main goal of this study was to explore their working conditions and job satisfaction and their professional image and identity. In our presentation, we also compare the results against the data gathered in Europe (Zajdel & Jankowska, 2022) to draw parallels and distinctions. 

Understanding the current working conditions of audio describers and what factors and how they influence the professionals’ job satisfaction is vital for the profession’s future. It is hoped that this study will contribute to promoting their visibility and understanding their professional image and status in society.

Huihuang Jia (MSc, UCL) is a PhD Candidate, Postgraduate Teaching Assistant, and Postgraduate Tutor in the Centre for Translation Studies (CenTraS), at UCL, where he contributes to modules such as Subtitling, Voiceover & Dubbing, Audio Description, and Translation Technologies. He serves as a Production Editor of the Journal of Audiovisual Translation (JAT) and as a Reviewer for several Translation Studies journals. His research interests lie in the field of Audiovisual Translation, and he is involved in international research projects focused on this area. He also works as a freelance translator and subtitler. Since 2022, he has been an Associate Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy (AFHEA). His publications appeared in Babel, Translation and Interpreting Studies, Perspectives and LANS-TTS. 

Qi Liu is a Doctoral Researcher at the School of Television, Communication University of China (Beijing), currently also serving as a Visiting Researcher at the Department of Applied Linguistics, Translation and Interpreting at the University of Antwerp (Belgium), supported by China Scholarship Council (CSC). His areas of expertise and research lie in Audio Description and Media Accessibility. He also works as a former TV News announcer at State Media and a senior volunteer at Bright Cinema, a prominent non-profit organization that specializes in accessible movie production in China.” 

Anna Jankowska is a AVT & MA researcher, trainer and consultant, former audio describer and access manager. She is now a research professor at of University of Antwerp. SHe is the founder and was the CEO of the Seventh Sense Foundation which provided access services in Poland. Her recent research projects include studies on audio description process, mobile accessibility and software. 

Ching Lin Pang  is trained as anthropologist and political scientist with a focus on transculturalism, mobilities and identities in China and EU. She is Associate professor at the University of Antwerp and KU Leuven. At UAntwerpen she is co-ordinator of the Chinese Language and Culture Group, in the Department of Applied Linguistics and director of the postgraduate program ‘China-EU Cultural Curatorship Studies’. At KU Leuven she teaches the course ‘China and Global Politics’.  

Audio description, ideology and the normalization of violence

Purificación Meseguer Cutillas, Marina Ramos Caro

Translating is not (nor should it be) an innocent act. Baker (2006, 2010) and many other authors, such as Tymoczko (2007), Gentzler (2017), Vidal Claramonte (2018) and Carcelén-Estrada (2020), see translation as an act of rebellion, of activism, an opportunity to give voice to different realities, to fight against the established power. In his concept of post-translation, Genztler himself speaks of a rewriting of reality, of an original message that has already been manipulated by others and their own beliefs and perceptions. However, decoding the semiotic and sound elements that accompany these rewritings and, in turn, carry meaning, is not an easy task. Violent narratives in advertising, where women's bodies are transformed into a surface of ideological inscription (Rodríguez Arcos, 2019), are a good example of this. We see these images, but the violence they exude goes unnoticed. But what happens when we must focus precisely on what we are seeing? Do we really become aware of the information that reaches us through the visual channel? 

This study aims to reflect on the audio describer and his or her role in conveying an ideological message. For this purpose, the mythical scene of Daenerys Targaryen and Khal Drogo’s wedding night, from the series Game of Thrones, has been selected. If the woman's body is a text, the spectator will have no problem reading between the lines: those of her face, twisted in pain; those of her posture, at the mercy of another body that subjugates her; and those of her sobs, a physiological reflection of her suffering. But has this message reached all spectators? Is it possible that we have normalised violence against women in such a way that this scene does not seem violent to us? How does our ideological stance influence our reception of this moment? 

Our proposal aims to answer these questions through an experiment that includes the audio description of the aforementioned scene. The participants, 109 translation students from the University of Murcia, carried out the task. Our starting hypothesis predicted that their ideological beliefs would influence the way they would relate what was happening on screen. The results obtained from the audio descriptions and the ideological and self-report questionnaires reveal, on the one hand, that there is a tendency that points to a relationship between the students' beliefs and the strategies adopted in their audio description, while on the other hand, it shows a certain normalisation of the violence exercised against women in this scene.

Purificación Meseguer Cutillas (presenter) is a Lecturer at the Department of Translation and Interpreting at the University of Murcia (Spain), where she is currently Coordinator of the Master in Translation for the Publishing Industry. Her research interests are literary and audiovisual translation, the relationship between translation and censorship, and the impact of emotions in translation. She has written a book (Sobre la traducción de libros al servicio del franquismo: sexo, política y religión. Berna, Peter Lang, 2015) and published many articles in academic journals (RESLA, Babel, Revue Française de Linguistique Appliquée, Hermes, Translation, Cognition & Behavior). As a professional translator she has translated a wide range of fiction and non-fiction books from English and French into Spanish for publishing houses such as Tusquets, RBA or Random House Mondadori. 

Marina Ramos Caro (presenter) is a lecturer and researcher in Translation and Interpreting at the University of Murcia, specializing in the influence of emotions and personality on the process and reception of Audio Description and Translation. She has worked in subtitling, dubbing and transcreation (DE/EN/PT-ES), and directs the Inclusive Translation Laboratory of the University of Murcia (Latrium), dedicated to accessibility in the performing arts. With Latrium, she has created the AD of various types of stage productions, from physical theatre to contemporary dance. She is currently involved in the ADance research project, which focuses on the reception of audio described contemporary dance.

Expression of feelings in the short film bravura and its audio description: a comparative study of the interpersonal (meta)function in its visual and verbal narratives

Janaína Vieira Taillade, Igor A. Lourenço da Silva

This presentation aims to study the convergences and divergences in the expression of feelings in the short film Bravura (2014) and its audio-description (AD) script from a social-semiotic and multimodal perspective. As a study within Accessible Audiovisual Translation (ATAV), it addresses AD as a form of translation for visually-impaired people. It focuses on visual narrative and verbal narrative by drawing respectively on Painter, Martin and Unsworth’s (2013) systemic-functional approach and Martin and White’s (2005) Appraisal framework. It expands Praxedes Filho and Magalhães (2013; 2015) and Magalhães and Praxedes Filho (2018), who showed that actual AD scripts are not neutral, as usually prescribed. The methodology is adapted from Iedema (2001), with the short film divided into five levels of analysis: shot, scene, sequence, generic stage, and entire film. The generic stages of the AD script were delimited according to Martin and Rose (2008). Software ELAN 6.1 was used to annotate visual and verbal texts. Convergences and divergences between the visual and the verbal systems were identified building on the complementarities of semiotic systems as established by Painter, Martin and Unsworth (2013). Findings showed that Bravura features the expected stage structure, confirming Iedema (2001): Orientation (from shot 6 to 24) ꓥ Complication (25 to 62) ꓥ Resolution (63 to 76). The visual resources direct the audience’s attention mainly to the emotions of characters Paco and Bull, as well as to their confrontation in a bullfight. Close-up and medium shots as well as equality of power were often used to shorten the distance from the interactive participant, whereas oblique angles lengthened the distance. Appraisal resources instantiated more affects (54 times) and judgments (48), and fewer appreciations (19) and graduations (17). The majority of affects and judgments were evoked, whereas appreciation was mostly inscribed. As for polarity, affects were mostly negative, while judgments and appreciations were positive. As for complementarities, visual and verbal narratives stages coincided: Orientation ꓥ Complication ꓥ Resolution. The types of affects instantiated in both narratives converged. However, divergences included the fact that the verbal mode instantiated judgments that were absent in visual mode. The AD emphasized some affects which were attenuated in the visual narrative through resources from the social distance system. In contrast, there were more committed and coupled meanings in the visual narrative. For instance, ambience instantiated a nostalgic mood in the first and last sequences, but it expressed happiness and vivacity during the rest of the visual narrative. These feelings were completely absent in the AD. The same was found for the instantiation of graduation through images depicting bullfight audience.

Janaína Vieira Taillade Abud (presenter) is a researcher in audio description and member of research group LEAD (Legendagem e audiodescrição - Subtitling and Audio description) at Universidade Estadual do Ceará (UECE) (Brazil). She holds a master’s degree in Applied Linguistics from Universidade Estadual do Ceará (UECE) and PhD degree in Applied Linguistics from Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG) (Brazil). Her main fields of research comprise audiovisual translation, audio description, sociossemiotics and multimodality. Currently, she works as an audio descriptor and an audio description teacher. She has also published book chapters and articles in national peer-reviewed journals, some of them in English. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1838-7664 . E-mail: janataillade@gmail.com. 

Igor A. Lourenço da Silva is an assistant professor at Universidade Federal de Uberlandia (UFU), Brazil, where he teaches translation theory and practice in both English and Portuguese. He holds a master’s and PhD degree in Linguistics from Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil. His main fields of research comprise translation expertise, translation process, and human-computer interaction. He is an associate member of LETRA/UFMG (Laboratory for Experimentation in Translation) and permanent member of the Graduate Program in Linguistics (PosLin) at UFMG and the Graduate Program in Linguistics (PPGEL) at Universidade Federal de Uberlândia (UFU). He has worked as a translator, reviser and proofreader for over ten years and published articles in national and international peer-reviewed books and journals. ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0738-3262. E-mail: ials@ufu.br.

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ʼTo feel or not to feelʼ: when getting sexually aroused without seeing is the question: facial expressions, cortisol, HR and engagement

Ana María Rojo López, Laura Espín López

Audio description remains the cornerstone of accessibility for visually impaired audiences to all sorts of audiovisual content, including porn. Existing work points to the efficacy of audio description to guarantee immersion and emotional engagement, but evidence on its role in sexual arousal and engagement in porn is still scant. The present study takes on this challenge by comparing sighted and visually impaired participantsʼ experiences with porn in terms of the emotional response assessed in facial expressions, physiological measures of arousal—i.e., cortisol and heart rate—, self-reported measures of affect (PANAS, Positive and Negative Affect Schedule; Watson et al., 1988).), anxiety (the STAI, Spielberger et al., 1970), sexual reactivity (the SIS/SES, Moyano & Sierra, 2014; and the RSA, Mosher et al., 2011), and narrative engagement (The Transport Narrative Questionnaire, Green and Brock 2013). 69 Spanish participants were allocated into three different groups: 25 sighted participants who watched and heard the porn scenes in their audio-visual version (AV); 22 sighted participants who listened to the audio described version without images (AD); and 22 visually impaired participants who also listened to the audio described version without images (ONCE). Overall, results from the study point to the efficacy of audio description in providing sighted and visually impaired audiences with a similar experience to that offered by original AV porn scenes. This study is exploratory but provides valid, initial groundwork for further research on the impact of audio description on porn reception.

Marina Ramos Caro (presenter) is a lecturer and researcher in Translation and Interpreting at the University of Murcia, specializing in the influence of emotions and personality on the process and reception of Audio Description and Translation. She has worked in subtitling, dubbing and transcreation (DE/EN/PT-ES), and directs the Inclusive Translation Laboratory of the University of Murcia (Latrium), dedicated to accessibility in the performing arts. With Latrium, she has created the AD of various types of stage productions, from physical theatre to contemporary dance. She is currently involved in the ADance research project, which focuses on the reception of audio described contemporary dance. 

Ana María Rojo López (presenter) is Professor of Translation at the University of Murcia (Spain). Her current research interests focus mainly on the study of the translation process, with special emphasis on the role of emotions, creativity and other personality and individual differences. Her interests also lie within audience reception analysis and the contributions of cognitive linguistics to translation studies. An external associate of the MC2 Lab, she currently coordinates a research project on emotions and translation based on the study of the translation and interpreting process through cortisol analysis, heart rate variability measurement, eye-tracking, facial recognition and reaction time analysis. 

 Laura Espín López is a lecturer in Psychobiology at the University of Murcia (Spain). Her research focuses on Psychoneuroendocrinology, and her main interest is to evaluate the stress response through psychophysiological, hormonal, and biochemical indicators. Laura collaborates in other lines related to attention, emotions and translation and has participated in studies on the evaluation of peripheral and hormonal correlates. She is currently working on a project related to individual factors modulating the effects of non-invasive brain stimulation on improvement in cognitive performance.

Audio description strategies for conveying characters' actions and emotions: case studies on Thai television drama

Kulnaree Sueroj, Mariana Lopez

The purpose of this research is to find effective strategies for Audio Description (AD) to convey actions and emotions expressed through characters’ gestures and facial expressions. With this aim in mind, four case studies that represent different characteristics of Thai television dramas and, as a result, different AD challenges, have been selected: Bad Genius, Bai Mai Tee Plid Plew, Buppesannivas, and In Family We Trust. 

This article focuses on the Textual Analysis of four sequences from these Thai television dramas, as well as the Reflexive Thematic Analysis of interviews with forty Blind and Visually impaired (BVI) Thai people. 

The Textual Analysis of the television extracts showed the use of four camera shot sizes related to the characters' gestures and facial expressions, which included information that was central to the Audio Description. The group of medium shots highlighted the movement of the physical actions of the characters. While close-ups and extreme close-ups conveyed the emotions of the characters. There were also many different types of sounds such as actual words, human nonverbal vocalisations, sound effects, foley, music and ambience that were also employed to convey meaning within television dramas. When audio describers were aware of the functions of each sound, they could more effectively locate sound gaps or used their judgment to determine which area was suitable for inserting AD. Forty BVI people were interviewed to determine the strategies that they used to follow the plot and the emotions of the characters by asking them to identify meaning of sounds, describe the plot, and characterise the feelings of the characters after listening to sample clips of these TV dramas. BVI participants mentioned that six main factors influenced their comprehension of storyline and character emotions: media experiences, sighted experiences, life experiences, the trait of audiences, synopsis details, and characteristics of TV dramas. In addition, the BVI participants were also asked to reflect on different possible styles of AD after listening to the sample clips, and how these different styles would enhance their understanding, enjoyment, and engagement with the four separate clips. The results demonstrated that the requirements for various AD strategies to be applied in each scene were influenced by genre, narrative styles, storytelling pace, the functions of soundtracks, and the density of dialogue. 

Therefore, the concept of binary opposition between the objective style and subjective style of AD was challenged because no single style could be applied to all cases. Additionally, the effective AD strategies for describing gestures and facial expressions also included identifying suitable sound gaps, choosing the key elements, and producing a comprehensible script.

Kulnaree Sueroj (presenter) is a PhD student at the School of Arts and Creative Technologies, University of York, she runs a project about Audio Describing gestures and facial expressions for visually impaired Thai television audiences. Moreover, she is also a lecturer from the Faculty of Journalism and Mass Communication, Thammasat university, Thailand since 2010.  She holds a master’s degree in Mass Communication from the Faculty of Communication Arts, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand. In 2013, she was offered a chance to be a describer and researcher in a pilot project on Audio Description production for Thais with visual impairment. Then, she is interested in media for disabilities services, and she continuously works on the Audio Description for television programmes in Thailand from 2013 to present. Her scope of Audio Description work in Thailand relates to AD script writing, AD consultation, AD training, and research on AD in several aspects. 

Mariana Lopez, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer in Sound Production and Postproduction at the School of Arts and Creative Technologies, University of York where she has been working since 2016. In 2013, she completed her PhD at the University of York on the importance of virtual acoustics to further our understanding of the York Mystery Plays. She has also received funding from the British Academy for the project ‘The Soundscapes of the York Mystery Plays. She has a background in music, sound design and acoustics. She is the Principal Investigator for the AHRC-funded project ‘Enhancing Audio Description II: Implementing accessible, personalised and inclusive film and TV experiences for visually impaired audiences’, a £1m project grant which started in November 2021. At doctoral level, she is supervising work on the Audio Description projects; Audio Description of gestures; Audio Description for live streamed games.