Abstract:
Audio description (AD) is a language service that helps people who are visually impaired access audio-visual products. The process of AD is cross-modal, involving the translation of visual images into verbal text. In recent years, researchers have noted that many of the skills required for interpreters and audio describers are similar, and that interpreting trainees can benefit from AD training. However, when AD training is provided in an interpreting program, it is important to identify the criteria for both AD and interpretation, and to understand the discrepancies in perceptions between trainers and students, and between sighted people and people who are visually impaired. Based on an AD training program for interpreting students at a university in Hong Kong, this study introduces the training approaches and the different perceptions of trainers, learners and users of AD. The assessment criteria in AD and interpreting training are compared and analysed.

Biography:

Jackie Xiu Yan received her PhD from the University of Texas at Austin, USA. She is now Subject Leader of the MA Translation Program in the Department of Linguistics and Translation at City University of Hong Kong, President of the Hong Kong Audio Description Studies Association (HKADSA), and President of the Hong Kong Association of University Women (HKAUW). Her research and teaching interests include language and translator training, audio description studies, Applied Linguistics and classical Chinese translation. Her books include Cultural Identity and Language Anxiety (edited), Research on Translator and Interpreter Training: A collective Volume of Bibliometric Reviews and Empirical Studies on Learners; The Commentary of the Analects (translation), and Chinese Poems Translated by Arthur Waley (edited). She has also edited a series of history works in Chinese translation, and served as reviewer for important academic journals. In 2021, she won a silver medal in the International Exhibition of Inventions of Geneva.