Media accessibility within and beyond audiovisual translation

The chapter discusses the new position reached by media accessibility as a consequence of several shifts. After placing access as a necessary requirement for the enjoyment of human rights for all, the chapter summarises: (a) the shift from particularist accounts of accessibility to a universalist account; (b) the shift from maker-centred to user-centred approaches; and (c) the shift from reactive to proactive approaches. Greco and Jankowska then present a first classification of some modalities and services according to the universalist definition of media accessibility. Following this, the chapter highlights various pedagogical and theoretical implications. The chapter concludes by addressing the need for media accessibility to move beyond audiovisual translation and translation studies, and embrace its status as an area within the interdisciplinary field of accessibility studie

Audiovisual translation through the ages

The chapter outlines the history of audiovisual translation (AVT) from its inception, approximately fifty years after the first film was released, to the present day. It tackles the difficulty that AVT faced before being recognized as a discipline and illustrates its fast development and dynamic expansion. It also deals with the changes that occurred in the research approach to the discipline, which has slowly shifted from text-centred, isolated, and mononational to user-centred, collaborative, and crossnational. After discussing the terminological issues that brought to the establishment of the label \u201caudiovisual translation\u201d, silent movies, intertitles and film explainers are illustrated along with early talkies, the birth and the chief features of the main AVT modalities, including the accessible ones and those that were born a few decades into the Internet era: fansubbing, non-professional subtitling, crowdsourcing and fandubbing. The chapter closes with a brief overview on current and new trajectories in the field