Same film, different audio descriptions: describing foreign films from a functional perspective

Abstract

The article discusses a functional approach to audio describing foreign films. First, a functional model of audio description (AD) is outlined, aimed at identifying functional priorities in audio-visual content with a view to determining AD macro- and micro-strategies. Second, the skopos theory is discussed and its principles adapted for AD purposes, by proposing four rules that stand in a hierarchical order: the Skopos rule (i.e. the fact that AD should be determined by its purpose), the cohesion rule (i.e. that the AD should be internally coherent as a text), the coherence rule (i.e. that the AD should be coherent for the target audience given their presupposed background knowledge and socio-cultural circumstances), and the correspondence rule (i.e. that there should be intersemiotic coherence between the source text and the AD). Then, the article presents a case study in which it is demonstrated how the functional aspects may have an impact on the audio describer’s choices both in terms of content and form of AD, and how one film may have different ADs depending on its target audiences and the intended purposes. All in all, it is argued that functionalism in general and the skopos theory in particular as applied to AD provide a theoretical conceptualisation of AD, but more importantly, may serve as a practical tool for effective audio description as well as translation of AD scripts.