Title
The importance of being relevant? The benefits of using pragmatic and cognitive approaches to conceptualise audio description
Conference name
Arsad 2015
City
Country
Spain
Modalities
Date
19/03/2015
Abstract
The many challenges of audio description, especially the limited time to describe visual images and scenes, necessitating specific strategies of information selection, condensation and/or omission, have led to a view of AD (and other forms of audiovisual translation) as constrained and partial translation (Bogucki 2004; Benecke 2014). Inspired by the belief that pragmatic and cognitive models of communication enable us to re-evaluate these perceptions and offer great potential for the study and practice of AD, this presentation aims to review such models and illustrate their benefits. The focus will be on two models, Relevance Theory (Sperber & Wilson 1995), which is the most comprehensive pragmatic model of communication, and Mental Model Theory (Johnson-Laird 1983, 2006), which underlies cognitive models of discourse processing. Although these models have so far mainly been used to explain monomodal verbal discourse, it will be argued, by drawing on the small but growing body of relevant research, that they can be applied to multimodal discourse as such (e.g. Forceville 2014; Yus 2008) and to AD (e.g. Braun 2007, 2011; Kruger 2012; Fresno 2012; Martínez 2010; Vandaele 2011), and that the benefits of their application to AD are wide-ranging. It will be shown, for example, how the chosen theoretical models can raise awareness and create understanding for the difficulties with lay requests for “objectivity” and “describing just what you see”; how they can provide a fruitful basis for training; and how a pragmatic and cognitive reconceptualization of AD contributes to the empowerment of the audio describer as a linguistically, culturally and socially responsible agent and creative decision maker. The presentation will provide a brief introduction to the two models and explain how apply to multimodal discourse and then use this framework to discuss and question common perceptions of AD as being “constrained” and “partial” translation. This will be followed by an outline of the benefits of adopting the proposed theoretical framework, drawing on practical examples of AD and discourses relating to AD. The presentation will conclude with a brief discussion of questions for further research in this framework.