EASIT: Easy Access for Social Inclusion Training
This is unit 1, Media accessibility;
element 4, What is media accessibility?;
video lecture "Understanding the audiovisual text".
I am Anna Matamala, from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
And in this short lecture I will explain the concept of audiovisual text
and link it to that of multimodality.
When we talk about a text, we often think about a written text:
a newspaper article, a written essay.
However, the concept of text is not limited to the written word.
One can talk about an "audio text", about an "audiovisual text",
even about a "multimodal text".
Let's focus on the concept of "audiovisual text",
which is at the centre of audiovisual translation studies.
An audiovisual text
is made of audio (or acoustic) elements and visual elements.
These elements can include both linguistic (or verbal)
and non-linguistic (or non-verbal) elements.
Non-linguistic sound elements would include music, sound effects,
special effects and paralinguistic sounds,
such as sneezes, clicks, cries, coughs, etc.,
but also silence, which can be really meaningful.
These sounds can be part of the story being told
known as diegetic sounds
or may have been added afterwards, during the postproduction process
extradiegetic sounds, in this case.
Imagine someone is playing the piano in a movie.
The music is part of the story.
The characters in the story hear this music.
This sound is diegetic.
Now imagine that in a scene piano music is added.
The characters are not hearing the music because it has been added
during the film editing.
This sound is extradiegetic.
In respect of the sound elements of a linguistic nature there are:
monologues, narrations,
dialogues, polylogues and lyrics.
These linguistic elements can be
in the main language of the audiovisual text
or in another language, especially in multilingual productions.
Among the visual elements which are non-linguistic,
we can find images and all related aspects
(photography, light, costumes, etc.),
and visual features associated with text on screen
(for instance, the colour, font type or size of a caption on screen).
Finally, visual elements of a linguistic nature
include different types of text on screen:
logos, film credits, superimposed captions, graphs,
maps, subtitles, etc.
Also, written information which is part of the plot:
a sign at the entrance of a city,
an email written on a laptop screen.
And again, these visual elements can be diegetic or extradiegetic.
They can be part of the story or may have been added
during the postproduction phase.
The distribution of audio and visual elements,
of linguistic and non-linguistic elements,
may change in each audiovisual text.
Prototypical examples, such as contemporary Hollywood films,
will include elements of all types,
whereas non-prototypical examples may be lacking one element.
For instance, a silent film with intertitles.
Audio and visual elements can have different types of relationship:
the information being presented orally may be reinforced visually
or, on the contrary, the information may be contradictory.
If you are interested in this topic,
I recommend you to read the papers by Patrick Zabalbeascoa.
In any case, if you are a professional and work on an audiovisual text
or if you are a researcher and want to analyse an audiovisual text,
there are some questions that you may want to ask yourself:
Who created the audiovisual text?
When was it created?
Why?
For whom was it created?
What type of audiovisual text is it?
Where and how will the audience enjoy this text?
At what stage is it? Is it finished or not?
Is it content on the making?
Replying to these questions will allow you to better understand
the source audiovisual text that you may want to translate
or render accessible.
Similarly, you can ask most of the previous questions
about the target audiovisual text that you want to create or analyse.
Although I have put the focus on the audiovisual text,
a key concept you should also be familiar with
is that of "multimodal text".
A multimodal text can be understood as a text that combines
more than one mode in a specific context.
In this sense, an audiovisual text
could be seen as a type of multimodal text.
But let me posit another example.
A written text could be combined with images
and that would make it a multimodal text.
In fact, we could take this example a step further
and make sure that the images contain alternative written text
and that the written text is also available in an audio version.
Multimodal texts construct meaning
through the interaction of different modes.
Multimodal texts can also be an excellent way to convey meaning
through different modes,
guaranteeing access to a wider range of users.
In any case, always bear in mind that a text is not only
a printed paper or a digital file with words in it.
A text here goes beyond the concept of written text.
This video lecture has been prepared by Anna Matamala,
from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
You can reach me at anna.matamala@uab.cat.
Pictures.
Source: pixabay.com, pexels.com.
License: Pixabay License, Pexels License.
The project EASIT has received funding
from the European Commission
under the Erasmus+ Strategic Partnerships
for Higher Education programme,
grant agreement 2018-1-ES01-KA203-05275.
The European Commission support for the production of this publication
does not constitute an endorsement of the contents,
which reflect the views only of the authors,
and the Commission cannot be held responsible
for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Partners of the EASIT project:
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona,
Università degli Studi di Trieste,
Universidade de Vigo,
Stiftung Universität Hildesheim,
SDI München,
Dyslexiförbundet,
Radiotelevisija Slovenija,
Zavod Risa.
EASIT: Easy Access for Social Inclusion Training