Subtitling for deaf children. Granting accessibility to audiovisual programmes in an educational way

This thesis is a contribution towards the subtitling practice of audiovisual programmes for deaf children. It starts by offering an overview of relevant research on Subtitling for the Deaf and the Hard of Hearing (SDH), conducted both in the UK and abroad. A descriptive and comprehensive study on how children’s programmes broadcast in British television are subtitled for deaf children constitutes the starting point of the project. In an attempt to gain an understanding on how deaf children read subtitles, the linguistic difficulties encountered in the acquisition of a spoken language as well as their reading characteristics are examined. In doing so, contributions from both Deaf Studies and Audiovisual Translation are considered. Deaf children are placed in their social context and the different types of hearing loss, prelingual and postlingual deafness, and cochlear implantation are discussed. Education for the deaf is also tackled, encompassing the history, philosophies and current trends.
The ultimate aim of the project is to contribute to the subtitling practice of deaf children by conducting empirical analysis. Hands-on research is conducted with a group of deaf children recruited from a mainstream school. Case studies are used in the piloting leading to the main experiment, which consists of exploring techniques to enhance word recognition and content comprehension. The findings of the main experiment, analysed using statistics, and the children's feedback, obtained orally at the end of the main activity and presented in a narrative form, are discussed as a contribution towards future research.