The Routledge Handbook of Audio Description

The American Council of the Blind (ACB) Recipient of the 2022 Dr. Margaret Pfanstiehl Audio Description Achievement Award for Research and Development This Handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the expanding field of audio description, the practice of rendering the visual elements of a multimodal product such as a film, painting, or live performance in the spoken mode, for the benefit principally of the blind and visually impaired community. This volume brings together scholars, researchers, practitioners and service providers, such as broadcasters from all over the world, to cover as thoroughly as possible all the theoretical and practical aspects of this discipline. In 38 chapters, the expert authors chart how the discipline has become established both as an important professional service and as a valid academic subject, how it has evolved and how it has come to play such an important role in media accessibility. From the early history of the subject through to the challenges represented by ever-changing technology, the Handbook covers the approaches and methodologies adopted to analyse the “multimodal” text in the constant search for the optimum selection of the elements to describe. This is the essential guide and companion for advanced students, researchers and audio description professionals within the more general spheres of translation studies and media accessibility.

List of Illustrations List of Contributors Acknowledgements Introduction The question of accessibility - Gian Maria Greco Access services for the blind and partially sighted: a social and legal framework for the promotion of audio description - Joan Bastard-Bou and Blanca Arias-Badia A profile of audio description end-users: linguistic needs and inclusivity – Elisa Perego and Christopher Taylor A cognitive approach to audio description: production and reception processes – Jana Holsanova Narratology and/in audio description – Gert Vercauteren Linguistic and textual aspects of audio description – Iwona Mazur Audio description and culture specific elements – Anna Jankowska "Ut pictura poesis": the rendering of an aesthetic artistic image in form and content -Loretta Secchi Audio description for the theatre: a research-based practice – Aline Remael and Nina Reviers Opera and dance audio description – Joel Snyder and Esther Geiger Audio description for the screen - Maria Joaquina Valero Gisbert Museum audio description: the role of ADLAB PRO – Christopher Taylor and Elisa Perego Audio description in museums: a service provider perspective – Anna Fineman and Matthew Cock Visitor studies: the impact of inclusive museum audio description experiences – Rachel Hutchinson and Alison Eardley Audio describing churches: in search of a template – Ralph Pacinotti The audio description professional: a sociological overview and new training perspectives – Elisa Perego Audio description: a public broadcaster’s core business and headache – Gunter Saerens, Tine Deboosere and Jan-Willem Van Hoof Profiling audio description service providers: a questionnaire-based snapshot – Irene Hermosa-Ramirez Research in audio description – Nazaret Fresno Audio Description Software – Vincenza Minutella Receptor Tools - Wojciech Figiel and Kamila Albin Artificial Voices - Agnieszka Walczak and Gonzalo Iturregui Gallardo Video games and audio description – Carme Mangiron and Xiaochun Zhang Automating audio description – Sabine Braun and Kim Starr Audio description personalisation – Pilar Orero Audio introductions – Pablo Romero-Fresco Audio subtitling – Anna Matamala Audio description translation: a retrospective – Estella Oncins Audio description translation: a pilot study Chinese/Spanish – Yuchen Liu and Irene Tor-Carroggio Audio description for the non-blind – Kim Starr University training – Agnieszka Chmiel In-house training: the course at Bayerischer Rundfunk . Bernd Benecke Audio description in the United States – Joel Snyder Audio description in Canada – Rebecca Singh Audio description in Australia – Kari Seeley Audio description in Russia – Ivan Borschevsky and Alexey Kozulyaev Audio description in Brazil – Eliana Franco and Vera Lucia Santiago Araujo Audio description in Slovenia – Mateja Vodeb and Veronika Rot Index

Christopher Taylor is Full Professor (retired) of English Language and Translation at the University of Trieste, Italy. He is author of Language to Language (CUP, 2000) and more than eighty articles on general translation, audiovisual translation and audio description. Elisa Perego is Associate Professor of English Language and Translation at the University of Trieste, Italy. She is author of Accessible communication: A cross-country journey, and numerous articles on audiovisual translation, audio description, and language simplification.