Audio Describing for an Audience with Learning Disabilities in Brazil: A Pilot Study

Abstract

For almost a decade now, audio description (AD) has been a key topic at many audiovisual translation (AVT) conferences and in publications focusing on the issue of accessibility. As a relatively new audiovisual mode of translation, AD has been the subject of heated debates both on the relevance of images and how these should be put into words so that the target audience — vision impaired addressees — could make better sense of the original film soundtrack that, in the case of the blind, was the only source of information on the audiovisual product to which they had access. Regional and individual practices and research have resulted in a discussion concerning the adoption of norms nationally, norms that have ended up vying with each other. At the 2011 Media for All conference, held in London, it became clear that some scholars had begun to realize the futility or, indeed, point-lessness of the wish to nationalize or homogenize AD norms, believing that each audiovisual product should be unique owing to the fact that the audiences concerned are heterogeneous, both within and beyond national borders. The universality of norms is now out of the question and concerns about the uniqueness of the audiovisual product have become more important than simply following instructions on how to audio describe.