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Audio Description in China

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Audio Description in China ADVERTIMENT. Lʼaccés als continguts dʼaquesta tesi queda condicionat a lʼacceptació de les condicions dʼús establertes per la següent llicència Creative Commons: http://cat.creativecommons.org/?page_id=184 ADVERTENCIA. El acceso a los contenidos de esta tesis queda condicionado a la aceptación de las condiciones de uso establecidas por la siguiente licencia Creative Commons: http://es.creativecommons.org/blog/licencias/ WARNING. The access to the contents of this doctoral thesis it is limited to the acceptance of the use conditions set by the following Creative Commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/?lang=en Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Departament de Traducció i d’Interpretació i d’Estudis de l’Àsia Oriental Doctorat en Traducció i Estudis Interculturals Audio Description in China: Past, Present and Future Author: Irene Tor-Carroggio Supervised by: Dr. Helena Casas-Tost Dr. Sara Rovira-Esteva 2020 To my brother Carlos. Because there are many ways of becoming a doctor. Abstract Despite China being the country with most disabled people in the world, the provision of media accessibility services and their academic study are still in their infancy, including audio description. Audio description is a “description of visual information delivered via an audio channel” (Salway, 2007, p. 151) catering people with sigh loss, but not exclusively. Audio description is currently mainly offered in the so-called “first-tier cities” in China, such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. This is not surprising considering that the provision of audio description relies on the priorities of each regional government, along with grassroot initiatives. The academic side of audio description does not come off better, although the state of Audio-visual Translation is quite vibrant in China. In the light of the precarious state of audio description and the challenges it still has to face in China, the present thesis sets out to not only contextualise audio description in the country as a first step to launch academic research on the topic, but also offers an audio description-related alternative that will facilitate the provision of audio description. More specifically, the general aims of this thesis are the following. First, to describe the history and the current state of audio description in Mainland China, both as an access service and as an object of study, with special focus on the city of Shanghai. This is carried out by reviewing the history and the current state of audio description in China; profiling audio describers in Mainland China; investigating the habits, needs and satisfaction of audio description users towards this access service; and analysing some Chinese audio description guidelines currently in use. Second, to compare the Chinese case with the European context regarding the aspects mentioned in the first objective. Third, to determine whether text-to-speech audio description can be accepted in movies in China. The methodology employed includes questionnaires, interviews and a focus group, all of which were distributed or carried out in China. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected. The results reveal that audio description in Mainland China is still in its infancy, both as professional practice and as an object of study, especially when compared to some countries in the West. It is mainly offered in films and thanks to volunteers, who write the scripts and voice them. Our user participants were mainly retired old people with little or no education that consume audio described films quite frequently mainly for entertainment purposes. They are all satisfied with the service provided so far, despite it not being delivered by persons who have been professionally trained in this field. Regarding our reception study, the results show that, although natural voices have statistically higher scores than synthetic voices, these can be viewed as both an interim alternative and even as a permanent solution by our participants if that translates into more access to audio described movies. The findings offer important insights into the situation of audio description in China, especially in Shanghai, and recommendations are put forward for future developments to serve the community. Keywords: accessibility studies; media accessibility; audio-visual translation, audio description; China; audio describers; user needs; user satisfaction; AD guidelines, text-to-speech; reception studies Acknowledgements I would like to start thanking the two persons that have accompanied me throughout the whole process: my PhD supervisors, Dr. Sara Rovira-Esteva and Dr. Helena Casas-Tost. I will never be able to express with words how grateful I feel to them for their trust and for their unconditional support. I would not have been able to finish this thesis without their encouragement and patience and I will always remember how easy they made my life during these (extremely challenging) years. I have learnt so much from them, not only academically but also from a more human point of view. They have inspired me and have taught me that being a good researcher is compatible with being kind, generous and humble. I would also like to thank all the Chinese persons that have contributed to my research. From my one-semester Chinese tutor at Shanghai International Studies University, Dr. Xiao Weiqing, to all the audio description stakeholders that have assisted me. Without them, this would have never happened, and my research would not make any sense. Special thanks to my dear prof. Han Ying, prof. Qu Dapeng, prof. Jiang Hongyuan, prof. Huang Yiqing and the end users participating in the study. Thanks for trusting this laowai (foreigner). My colleagues at MRA have also played a key role these years. Sharing our worries and achievements has been a sorce of great comfort during this journey, probably more than what they actually imagine. So, thank you, Belén, Dani, Gonzalo, Anita, Irene, Felipe, Joan and Blanca. Last but not least, I would like to thank my family, especially my mother and my husband. Thank you for not losing your faith in me not even for one second, for your company, for your interest in my work, for providing doses of reality every time I lost hope and, in the case of Jose, for patiently waiting for me on the other side of the world. To you all, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Irene Tor-Carroggio Barcelona, 22 April 2020 This research was supported by the European project EasyTV: Easing the access of Europeans with disabilities to converging media and content [GA: 761999], the RAD project (PGC2018-096566-B-I00) and the Confucius Institute thanks to a Joint Research Ph.D. Fellowship (2019) for this thesis’ fieldwork. Contents Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................... 15 1.1. Motivation and justification ................................................................................. 16 1.2. Objectives and hypothesis ................................................................................... 21 1.3. Theoretical framework ......................................................................................... 24 1.4. Methodology ........................................................................................................ 31 1.5. Structure of the dissertation ................................................................................. 37 Chapter 2. Article 1: Chinese audio describers’ profile ................................................. 41 2.1. Introduction ......................................................................................................... 43 2.2. Methodology ....................................................................................................... 46 2.3. Audio description in China ................................................................................. 48 2.4. Profiling audio describers: Results of the questionnaires ................................... 54 2.5. Conclusions and proposals for the future ........................................................... 62 Chapter 3. Article 2: Chinese persons with sight loss’ opinion on their experience with audio description ............................................................................................................ 67 3.1. Introduction ......................................................................................................... 68 3.2. Research background .......................................................................................... 71 3.3. Methodology ....................................................................................................... 73 3.4. Results of survey 1 .............................................................................................. 75 3.5. Results of survey 2 .............................................................................................. 78 3.6. Discussion ........................................................................................................... 82 3.7. Conclusions ......................................................................................................... 85 Chapter 4. Article 3: Chinese AD guidelines ................................................................. 93 4.1. Introduction ......................................................................................................... 95 4.2. European Guidelines and Standards ..................................................................
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