Audio Description in Hong Kong

Abstract

Audio description (AD) has been in existence in the Western world for more than 25 years and, in Europe, professional practices are being regulated through legislation and/or guidelines and codes of good practice (Orero 2007; Puigdomènech et al. 2010). In contrast, the development of AD in China is still at an early stage. According to the World Health Organization (2010: 5), with a total population of more than 1.3 billion inhabitants, China has approximately 75 million people with some kind of visual impairment, out of which 8 million are blind and 67 million have poor vision. Since AD services are not regulated by law, the provision of AD in mainland China is very limited at institutional level. After carrying out extensive research, it seems that only one public library, the China Braille Library (http://www.blc.org.cn), founded in Beijing in 2011, provides AD to cater for the special needs of those with some kind of visual impairment. The Audio Description Centre in this library consists of only three members of staff, who are responsible for both the writing and the delivery of audio described scripts. Audio described films are shown weekly, but only those who live in the city have ready access to these services. Nevertheless, the library uploads the audio described material on its official website to increase accessibility.