How easy are audio descriptions? Exploring the viability of hybrid access services across English, Spanish and Catalan

Abstract

Easy-to-understand (E2U) language has typically been used for written content, but there has been a recent interest in applying this concept to audiovisual content and access services on streaming platforms. In this regard, the EASIT project addressed whether the hybridisation of E2U language with audio description (AD) could produce a new access service. This new form of easy AD may be key soon for streaming platforms to create an environment where individuals with diverse profiles can engage with media in ways that are accessible and enjoyable. While professionals from AD and E2U language hold diverging views on the topic, one central aspect remains to be investigated: how easy are current audio descriptions? This paper presents a contrastive analysis of a corpus of film AD in English, Catalan and Spanish, to assess the extent to which AD scripts share the principles of E2U language as described in international standards. Materials validated as easy in the same languages are used for comparison. This descriptive study sheds light on current practices with a cross-linguistic perspective and allows us to identify commonalities and divergences between E2U language and AD. The paper reports on features connected to sentence complexity, namely sentence length, part-of-speech distribution, verbs per sentence, and frequency of verbal periphrases. It also offers a lexical analysis considering corpus aboutness, lexical density, vocabulary richness, and information load, as well as relevant readability indexes. Additionally, it contributes to the development of the so-called concept of easy audios, as proposed by the ongoing WEL project.