Confronting amateur and academic audiodescription. A Brazilian case study

Audiodescription has been the most recent linguistic device used in the cinema, theatre and on television to help the blind and visually impaired to fully enjoy a film, play or programme. Defined as an intersemiotic mode of audiovisual transfer, it has been practiced in the United States and Japan since the 1980s, followed by many countries in Europe, such as the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spainand recently Portugal. In Europe, audiodescription has been taught in Audiovisual Translation courses and specific seminars, those promoted by UAB in Catalonia, and discussed at a number of conferences, as that in Surrey (June 2007) where this paper was presented. In Brazil, the situation is different. Although supported by the Accessibility Law 10.098/2000, audiodescription became a reality on open television just from 1 July 2011 on, when channels were forced to broadcast two hours of audiodescribed programming per week, a very limited time compared to the daily two-hour programming that was firstly envisaged by the law.