Audio Description

Audio description as a complex translation process: a protocol technical and practical level.

It is not a question of the indiscriminate application of a general and universal methodology, but rather the research, application, checking and approval of solutions relative to specific and real problems. As Risku puts it (ibid:142): "The goals and methodology of translation cannot exclusively depend on specific previously described problems. Translation competence is neither based on rules nor innate, but depends completely on experience. It is impossible to provide a single goal for every intercultural communicative situation, or a universal translation method" . Through experience and a method of trial and error, AD scriptwriters will draw their own conclusions which, while not being universal translation strategies, may be applied to similar situations in the future. This approach may in turn feed future translation strategies which may be put into practice on the particular script on which the audio describer is working. Before covering the production stages, some questions regarding how AD is understood professionally should be addressed. During the preparation process of the ADS, the film is regarded as the source text (ST) whereas the ADS, which is eventually recorded over the film’s soundtrack, makes up the target text (TT). In order to correlate the stages of the translation process with those of the ADS preparation, I shall draw on the translation stages protocol designed by Risku (1998). In Table 1, Risku’s stages appear alongside the professional AD stages.

New Insights into Audiovisual Translation and Media Accessibility. Amsterdam, NL: Rodopi, 2010. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 11 March 2016.

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