This is an ADLAB PRO video.
ADLAB PRO is a project funded by the European Union.
This video is made available to you
on a Creative Commons licence.
-Hello. I’m Aline Remael, from the University of Antwerp,
and in this ADLAB PRO video
I will survey some of the main research trends in AD.
This is Unit 3, "Research",
in Module 1, "Additional services".
AD has developed fully into an academic discipline
since the turn of the 21st century.
This means it has developed its own conceptual framework,
it has its own publications and conferences,
and has been integrated into university programmes.
AD can also be seen as a sub-discipline
of Audiovisual Translation and/or Media Accessibility.
Both disciplines study translations for audiovisual texts
and have become virtually indistinguishable.
Both disciplines encompass intralingual, interlingual
and intersemiotic translation.
Very specific to research into AD is also its link
and interaction with practice, the industry,
stakeholders, legislative developments
and technological innovation.
This interaction has resulted in a constant diversification
of research topics and methods.
Early research questions aiming at understanding
how AD functions, going back to the 1990s,
continue to be investigated alongside new ones,
now often more empirically.
Initially, research by practitioners and academics alike
was mostly analytical-descriptive.
It asked questions related to AD as a text type
and focused on screen AD,
aiming to identify its nature and challenges.
Early research also focused on the development of guidelines.
It wanted to understand the challenges
involved in the transition from a multimodal text
that can impart a lot of information at once,
to a verbal narration that is linear.
In other words, research focused
on determining what content to select for AD.
It dealt with what to include in the AD and how much.
It dealt with when to include the information
and how to include the information.
And it considered how objective an audio describer should be
and whether equivalence is possible in audio described films.
As AD was developing at different speeds in different regions,
this resulted in studies focusing on the establishment
of national or regional traditions.
Initial views about the nature of AD
tended to be rather intuitive since they were practice-based,
relying on the responses of small focus groups only,
or on case studies using limited data.
Technology has enabled researchers to compile
larger, digitized multimodal corpora for textual analysis
and, more generally, this has led to a strong increase
in experimental and empirical research.
Reception research has benefitted greatly
from technological developments such as eyetracking
and electroencephalography, which can measure
the physical and emotional reactions of AD users.
As we pointed out before,
this means that questions about audience preferences
and the functioning of AD can now be answered more accurately.
Interdisciplinarity and collaboration with experts
from such diverse disciplines as engineering
or experimental and cognitive psychology
has become central to AD research.
The same goes for project research.
European projects such as HBB4ALL
aim to create large-scale implementable solutions
to the benefit of the industry as well as AD users.
Some research aims to optimize production methods
and minimize costs, looking into the use of
machine translation and artificial voices for AD,
while research into quality issues
aims to guarantee the quality of the AD thus produced.
To conclude,
the concept of inclusive or universal design in AD
is gaining ground. It aims to create products
that can be used by all from their inception.
Several new research initiatives also investigate how AD
can be integrated into the creative process of filmmaking
and theatre directing, for instance.
This may eventually lead to the merger of AD research
with the larger discipline of accessibility studies.
Well, this has been a bird’s eye view of research in AD.
I hope it has kindled your curiosity.
-The preparation of this presentation
was supported by ADLAB PRO. Audio Description:
A Laboratory for the Development of a New Professional Profile
financed by the European Union under the Erasmus+ Programme,
Key Action 2, Strategic Partnerships.
Project number:
2016-1-IT02
KA203-024311.
The information and views set out in this presentation
are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect
the official opinion of the European Union.
Neither the European Union institutions and bodies
nor any persona acting on their behalf
may be held responsible for the use
which may be made of the information contained therein.
This was an ADLAB PRO video.
ADLAB PRO partners are: University of Trieste,
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona,
University of Antwerp, Adam Mickiewicz University,
RTV Slovenia, Utopian Voices,
Soundfocus and Royal National Institute of Blind People.
ADLAB PRO was funded by the European Union.
This video was made available to you
on a Creative Commons licence.