This book traces the development of audio description (AD), a form of audiovisual translation delivered orally or consumed aurally that makes visual elements accessible primarily to people who are visually impaired, and in particular, art AD as an emergent sub-genre. Perego reflects on the static arts and the role of modern museums as key sites for art AD and multisensory environments that create memorable experiences for visitors. Based on professional, pre-recorded British and American English AD scripts, this book outlines the textual and linguistic features of art AD and its most relevant textual patterns. It explores diverse AD practices across different contexts, including stand-alone ADs for specific paintings and sculptures that can be consumed independently to enhance the appeal and accessibility of cultural environments. Moreover, the book investigates AD tours, which provide descriptions of a selection of interconnected artworks while also assisting, through focused instructions, visually impaired individuals in navigating the museum space, as well as touch tours, which incorporate procedural instructions on how to experience three-dimensional art or reproductions through tactile senses. Offering unique insights and future research directions for this growing area, this volume will be of interest to students and scholars in translation studies and media accessibility.

The American Council of the Blind (ACB) Recipient of the 2022 Dr. Margaret Pfanstiehl Audio Description Achievement Award for Research and Development This Handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the expanding field of audio description, the practice of rendering the visual elements of a multimodal product such as a film, painting, or live performance in the spoken mode, for the benefit principally of the blind and visually impaired community. This volume brings together scholars, researchers, practitioners and service providers, such as broadcasters from all over the world, to cover as thoroughly as possible all the theoretical and practical aspects of this discipline. In 38 chapters, the expert authors chart how the discipline has become established both as an important professional service and as a valid academic subject, how it has evolved and how it has come to play such an important role in media accessibility. From the early history of the subject through to the challenges represented by ever-changing technology, the Handbook covers the approaches and methodologies adopted to analyse the "multimodal" text in the constant search for the optimum selection of the elements to describe. This is the essential guide and companion for advanced students, researchers and audio description professionals within the more general spheres of translation studies and media accessibility.

Topics covered include: Psychoactive consumption in Cypriot Bronze Age mortuary ritual; food consumption and ritual at the Early Iron Age tholos cemetery of Moni Odigitria, south-east Greece; elite ideology and feasting practices in Early Iron Age Greece; intoxicating drinks and drunkards in ancient Indian art and literature; sixteenth-century polemics about cold-drinking; food in prehistoric coastal southern Brazil; the deceased as metaphorical food in Iron Age Veneto; food diversity in Mesolithic Scotland; ritualized feasting goods from Norwegian graves; feasting and the state in Uruk Mesopotamia; prehistoric spoons.

Humour found in audiovisual products is, of course, performative in nature. If we consider instances of humour – any droll moment occurring in today’s fare of mixed-genre products as a composite of cognition, emotion, interaction and expression – we see that the verbal code becomes just one component of four equally significant elements. And, as ‘expression’ is not limited to verbal output alone, humour may of course be created in absence of a verbal code. Translating humour for audiovisuals is not too different from translating verbal humour tout court. What makes humour occurring within audiovisual texts more problematic is the fact that it may be visually anchored; in other words a gag or a joke may pivot on verbal content directed at a specific element that is present within the graphic system of the same text. As the term itself suggests, audiovisuals contain two overlying structures: a visual and an auditory channel each of which contain a series of both verbal and non-verbal elements which inextricably cross-cut one another. The contributors in this collection of essays present a series of case studies from films and video-games exemplifying problems and solutions to audiovisual humour in the dubs and subs in a variety of language combinations.