Audio subtitling : voicing strategies and their effect on film enjoyment

Media Accessibility, understood as a branch of Audiovisual Translation studies devoted to the study of access services to media, has experienced a growth in research in recent years. Even if some of the techniques in this field have produced a great number of works, others are still underresearched. This article reports on a pilot study carried out within the NEA Project1. The aim of the study is to compare different AST delivery styles in an experiment during which data will be gathered through subjective and objective measures. This article reports on the results of a pilot study in which the research procedure was set up and tested. Our main findings show that both subjective and objective assessment methods are valid to evaluate emotional experience induced by film

Rendering multilingualism through audio subtitles : shaping a categorisation for aural strategies

Multilingualism in films has increased in recent productions as a reflection of today's globalised word. Different translation transfer modes such as dubbing or subtitling are combined to maintain the film's multilingual essence when translated into other languages. Within media accessibility, audio subtitles, an aurally-rendered version of written subtitles, is used to make access possible for audiences with vision or reading difficulties. By taking Sternberg's representation of polylingualism (1981. Polylingualism as reality and translation as mimesis. Poetics Today, 2(4), 221-239), this article offers a categorisation of the strategies that may be used to reveal multilingualism in audiovisual content through audio subtitles similar to the way Szarkowska, Zbikowska, & Krejtz (2013. Subtitling for the deaf and hard of hearing in multilingual films. International Journal of Multilingualism, 10(3), 292-312) did with subtitles for the deaf and the hard of hearing. By taking a descriptive approach, two main strategies or effects for the delivery of audio subtitles - dubbing and voice-over - are highlighted and explained. By combining these two effects with the information provided by the audio description, the levels of the categorisation are defined from more to less multilingualism-revealing: vehicular matching, selective reproduction, verbal transposition, explicit attribution and homogenising convention

Audio subtitling and subtitling : a comparison of their emotional effect on blind / partially sighted and sighted users

Audio subtitling (AST) is a media accessibility service that allows for people who are blind, partially sighted or with any reading disability to access written subtitles in their aural form. Despite the existing literature on other media accessibility services such as audio description, the way written subtitles compare to orally delivered subtitles has not been researched. In this study, a group of 42 blind and partially sighted participants and a group of 42 sighted participants watched the same three video clips. Two of them pictured two emotions (sadness and fear) and the third was emotionally neutral. The clips were prepared with subtitles or audio subtitles, according to the target participants. The emotional effect of the clips was measured in two ways: with self-reports, by completing after each clip the SAM questionnaire (Bradley & Lang, 1994); and with psychophysiological measures: electrodermal activity (EDA) and heart rate (HR), that were recorded while participants watched each clip. The analyses of the data obtained in both experiments indicate that self-report measures revealed similar experiences for both blind and sighted participants, differentiating between valence (negative for fear and sadness, but not for neutral) and arousal (deemed higher for fear than for sadness and neutral). Data from EDA and HR measures are less conclusive

Text-to-speech vs. human voiced audio descriptions : a reception study in films dubbed into Catalan

This article presents an experiment that aims to determine whether blind and visually impaired people would accept the implementation of text-to-speech in the audio description of dubbed feature films in the Catalan context. A user study was conducted with 67 blind and partially sighted people who assessed two synthetic voices when applied to audio description, as compared to two natural voices. All of the voices had been previously selected in a preliminary test. The analysis of the data (both quantitative and qualitative) concludes that most participants accept Catalan text-to-speech audio description as an alternative solution to the standard human-voiced audio description. However, natural voices obtain statistically higher scores than synthetic voices and are still the preferred solution

The Effects Of Closed-Captioned Television On The Oral Reading Fluency Of Low Socioeconomic 2nd Grade Students

Research into the use of closed-captioning has provided exciting evidence into the possibilities of its usefulness as a literacy tool. Although previous studies have shown the efficacy of closed-captioning as a tool that can assist the deaf and hard-of-hearing, those learning a second language, and hearing students, the existing scholarship lacks important information regarding closed-captioning and its impact on oral reading fluency. Previous scholars have proven that CC can assist all students on word recognition, vocabulary, and reading comprehension; however, there is a dearth of new research focusing on low socioeconomic students from rural communities. This quantitative, quasi-experimental, comparative study explores this missing research by examining the effects that closed-captioning television could have on the oral reading fluency of elementary children living in poverty. 2nd grade students from a Title I school in the Mississippi Delta were assigned to two different groups: the treatment group participated in viewing the Arthur video series with captions, while the control group participated in viewing the same videos without captions. Pretests and posttests were given using Reading Curriculum Based Measures from Aimsweb. The results of the ANCOVA shono statistical differences between the two groups; however, the study did uncover a specific need for further studies on how closed-captioning can impact the literacy of children living in poverty

The Informal Language Learning of Female Saudi Undergraduates

Informal language learning provides opportunities to assimilate languages under natural conditions by providing authentic language learning materials: this is especially true in cases of drip-feed English in a foreign language context where English is not spoken outside the classroom. However, to date, informal language learning has not been as thoroughly investigated as a formal learning strategy due to certain difficulties in quantifying its effects and in observing learners outside the classroom. In light of this, the present interpretive study aimed to explore whether, and to what extent, female Saudi BA English language students engaged in informal language learning, the types of activities involved, and the materials they used to do so. The study also explored participant perceptions of the impact of informal language learning on their language proficiency. In order to fully interrogate the core research questions, this research design draws on a ‘mini ethnographic’ approach comprising two qualitative research methods (semi-structured interview and collected documents of examples of the activities used by the participants) for data collection. The study participant cohort consisted of eight female third- and fourth-year Saudi undergraduates, majoring in the English language. The ensuing data confirmed that these students employ various activities outside the classroom to learn English. In fact, the participants reported that the considerable time they maintained on informal language learning activities both assisted and supported their overall language learning and language development. In addition to social media, pop-songs, movies, other virtual materials such as TV programmes, were found to be the most commonly used informal language learning activities. The learning affordances arising from these activities were perceived to create numerous occasions and prospects to hone fluency and the accurate use of English. The participants specified a diversity of reasons for using informal language learning activities and materials: most notably, a sense of privacy and enhanced self-confidence in using the target language. Other factors included flexibility, portability, and the ubiquitous availability of tablets, mobile phones, and laptops, which offer greater learner privacy and control than the formal class setting. Moreover, the findings indicated that the participants find these types of activities more interesting. The study additionally reflected on the main difficulty encountered by Arab learners in adopting informal language learning from their perspective: namely, the significant lack of face-to-face English language usage in the Saudi context. The thesis concludes by offering practical recommendations for both language learners and TESOL teachers. The findings underscored learners’ belief that their use of informal language learning can provide an authentic source of language input to contribute to the development of overall language proficiency. I argue that English language teachers should promote more ‘natural’ extramural situations to extend student learning affordances beyond the paradigms of the traditional classroom environment

Mapping audiovisual translation investigations : research approaches and the role of technology

This article maps audiovisual translation research by analysing in a contrastive way the abstracts presented at three audiovisual translation conferences ten years ago and nowadays. The comparison deals with the audiovisual transfer modes and topics under discussion, and the approach taken by the authors in their abstracts. The article then shifts the focus to the role of technology in audiovisual translation research, as it is considered an element that is impacting and will continue to impact both research and practice in this field. Relevant research in audio-related, text-related and image-related technologies applied to audiovisual translation is summarised. The last section briefly discusses how technological tools can also help audiovisual translation professionals, users and researcher

PLATICA: Personalized Language Acquisition Training & Instruction Chatbot Assistant

English is immensely important and useful in our society, however there are many people across the world who are learning English as a second language and have limited options to practice. Casual English conversations with native speakers is one of the most proven and immersive ways to practice a language. However, not everyone has those opportunities or the resources to attend ESL classes. We aim to solve this issue with our project PLATICA, a robust, low-cost mobile application that anyone can use to build experience conversing in English. PLATICA takes advantage of state-of-the-art deep learning and natural language processing techniques to emulate real conversations while providing real-time grammar feedback to assist the user in improving their English skills. PLATICA as an end-to-end learning pipeline could also be adapted to other languages in the future