Paintings to my ears: A method of studying subjectivity in audio description for art museums

Luque, M Olalla; Gallego, Silvia Soler

doi:10.52034/lanstts.v17i0.472

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…For example, Matamala and Orero (2007) reviewed and summarised the skills and competencies of good audio describers, and put forward a series of sample activities that could be used in AD teaching. Luque and Soler (2019) introduced an AD internship in an art museum that had been integrated into the translation studies curriculum. Towards the end of their article, the authors reported the students’ perceptions of the internship as part of the intern assessment, and summarised the sub-competencies that the students perceived to have acquired through the internship experience.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment criteria in audio describer training: An investigation of learner perceptions in a university interpreting programme in Hong Kong of China

Yan,

Luo

2023

Interpreting and Society

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Audio description (AD), which renders images into words, is an important subject in the field of translation studies. Audio describer training (ADT) is provided in university translation programmes. However, research on AD pedagogy remains limited, and there are even fewer studies on AD learners. Based on the commonalities between AD and interpreting, especially in terms of quality assessment criteria, this study explored students’ perceptions of ADT and interpreter training in a postgraduate programme in Hong Kong of China. An Audio Description Rating Scale (ADRS) was designed to collect students’ perceptions of ADT, with a focus on quality assessment criteria. Thirty-six students participated in the study. The results show that three particular criteria of AD were identified as the most difficult to achieve: “no unjustified addition,” “appropriate language styles,” and “synchronisation with images.” Furthermore, significant correlations were found between students’ perceptions of certain AD and interpreting criteria, and between interpreting proficiency and AD learning. Individual differences were also recognised in AD learners. The findings shed light on the interactions between the learning of AD and interpreting. The study is expected to inspire trainers to develop more diverse and refined integrations of ADT into existing translation programmes.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment criteria in audio describer training: An investigation of learner perceptions in a university interpreting programme in Hong Kong of China

Yan,

Luo

2023

Interpreting and Society

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“…The aim is to investigate which elements show a higher degree of subjectivity in ADs and AGs produced for a selection of exhibits. Trailing previous studies focusing on subjectivity in museum ADs (Gallego & Colmenero, 2018;Gallego, 2019;Randaccio, 2020), a text-focused analysis based on the appraisal theory (Martin & White, 2005) was conducted on a corpus of ADs and AGs to highlight discrepancies between communicative practices aimed at two target audiences with differing abilities. The corpus includes AD and AG transcripts in English related to a selection of items from different museums in terms of collections, museological tradition, and location (Australia, Germany, Italy and the US).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Museum Audio Descriptions vs. General Audio Guides

Bartolini

2023

JAT

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The question of objectivity vs. subjectivity in audio description (AD) is still open and unresolved, even more so when considering less researched AD sub-genres, such as museum ADs. While sparse guidelines for describing artworks and cultural artefacts tend to favour neutrality, no clear consensus exists, and the limits of a factual style have already been highlighted (Hutchinson & Eardley, 2019). By crossing the borders of Translation Studies (TS) to gain insights from Museum Studies (MS), this paper claims that the ideal of achieving absolute objectivity is problematic and that a comparison between museum ADs and other tools for the visit would be a beneficial contribution to the objectivity vs. subjectivity debate. In light of current theories in MS, this study seeks to explore subjectivity in museum ADs (primarily addressed to visually impaired visitors) and general audio guides (AGs). Trailing previous research into subjectivity in museum ADs (Gallego, 2019), a text-focused analysis based on the appraisal theory (Martin & White, 2005) was conducted on a corpus of ADs and AGs to highlight discrepancies in terms of subjectivity between museum communicative practices aimed at different target audiences. Lay summary Audio description (AD) is a service addressing primarily blind and partially sighted people to provide them access to visual or audiovisual products, such as images, objects, places and films. Whether AD should describe something objectively is still an open and unresolved question, even more so when considering less researched types of AD, such as museum ADs, which describe specimens, artefacts, and artworks that are exhibited in museums. Few specific guidelines on how to describe artworks and cultural artefacts exist and tend to favour a neutral approach. However, no clear consensus exists, and some scholars have already highlighted the limits of a factual style. This paper claims that the ideal of achieving absolute objectivity in museum AD is problematic and that a comparison between museum ADs and other tools for the visit, such as general audio guides, would be a beneficial contribution to this debate. This study draws on research focusing both on audio description and museums and seeks to analyse subjectivity in museum ADs and general audio guides (AGs), which are similar texts describing museum objects for different target audiences (non-sighted and sighted visitors respectively). Trailing previous research into subjectivity in museum ADs, the analysis focuses on a collection of AD and AG texts. We have analysed them by adopting the appraisal theory to highlight differences between the two groups of texts.

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Training audio describers for art museums

Gallego

Colmenero

2020

LANS-TTS

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Audio description (AD) for art museums and exhibitions is a growing professional field. This article investigates the profiles of audio describers for art museums that exist today and presents a curriculum proposal for one of these profiles, namely the graduate in Translation Studies. This proposal consists of the incorporation of an internship in art museum AD into the Translation Studies curriculum. More specifically, this article describes the internship offered by the Kaleidoscope non-profit association, based in Granada, to graduates in Translation. Our proposal is discussed in relation to Kiraly’s (2000, 2012) social constructivist and holistic–experiential approaches to translator education and recent studies that advocate more internship opportunities for Translation graduates to help their meta-competence emerge (Kiraly & Hofmann, 2016) and to foster their employability (Schnell & Rodríguez, 2017).

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Paintings to my ears: A method of studying subjectivity in audio description for art museums

Cited by 4 publications

References 23 publications

Assessment criteria in audio describer training: An investigation of learner perceptions in a university interpreting programme in Hong Kong of China

Assessment criteria in audio describer training: An investigation of learner perceptions in a university interpreting programme in Hong Kong of China

Museum Audio Descriptions vs. General Audio Guides

Training audio describers for art museums

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