1. The ADLAB project: An international audio description reception study
Iwona Mazur
Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan

2. Overview
The ADLAB project
Aim and methodology
Results
Conclusions/Discussion
Acknowledgments

3. ADLAB project
Three-year project ( )
Financed by the European Union under the Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP)
Eight partners from six European countries: Italy, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Poland and Germany
Coordinator: Christopher Taylor, Italy
Aim: to produce sets of comprehensive audio description guidelines (valid across Europe)
Eight work packages (WPs)
WP3 – Testing (lead partner: Poland)
WP3 aim: to test different AD solutions on a group of blind and visually-impaired respondents

4. AD issues
Opening credits (naming actors with protagonists, AD authors)
Text-on-screen
Naming characters
Gestures
Filmic language/technique (lighting, camera movement, shots)
Intertextual references
Information sequencing and fragmentation
Describing sounds
Explicitation
Narration vs. description

5. WP3: Methodology
Materials:
clip from Inglourious Basterds (Q.Tarantino 2009) with 2 ADs (one ‘literal’ - cf. literal or ST-oriented translation and one ‘narrative’ - cf. free or TT- oriented translation)
questionnaire (34 questions: comprehension, preference; answers: multiple choice, Likert scale, open-ended)
Procedure: respondents shown the clip and then interviewed individually
Respondents: two groups of 12 VIPs each+ a control group of approx. 12 (per country)

6. Data
Germany: 14 VIPs, 10 controls
Belgium: 13 VIPs, 16 controls
Italy: 11 VIPs, 12 controls
Portugal: 12 VIPs, 12 controls
Poland: 12 VIPs, 12 controls
Spain – 18 VIPs, 15 controls
TOTAL: 80 VIPs, 77 controls

7. Gender
Female
Male
VIP
47.5%
52.5%
CNT
65%
35%
Total
56%
44%

8. Age
VIPs
CNT
a) %
b) %
c) %
d) %
e) %
f) %
g) 75+ 4%
a) %
b) %
d) %
e) %
f) 65-74
g) 75+

9. Education VIPs CNT a) primary 4% b) vocational 21% c) secondary 16%
d) college/university student 4%
e) university degree 55%
a) primary
b) vocational 5%
c) secondary 5%
d) college/university student 39%
e) university degree 51%

10. Type of visual impairment
blind 63% (31% of them congenitally blind)
partially sighted 38%

11. Gestures (1/3)

12. Gestures (2/3)
AD1
AD2
10:11:29
‘ages of the children’
(breathing)
Landa looks at him and moves his hand and head.
Landa looks at him and gestures ‘more or less’.

13. Gestures (3/3)
Show the gesture Landa makes.
A: 12% correct (gesture described)
B: 30% correct (gesture named)
What is meant by the gesture?
A: 20% correct
Cnt: 50% correct

14. Filmic language (1/6)

15. Filmic language (2/6)
AD1
AD2
10:11:37
‘nine or ten’
Fast: Landa writes ‘nine or ten’ next to ‘Amos’.
[no AD]

16. Filmic language (3/6)
How old is one of the missing Jews Amos?
A: 63% correct (close-up described in AD-A)
B: 76% correct
cnt: 99% correct
Information overload?

17. Filmic language (4/6)

18. Filmic language (5/6)
AD1
AD2
10:18:46
‘line from dialogue’
His black boots walk over the hideout area to the door.
10:03:49
‘wie wünschen Sie, Herr Oberst’
Landa, in a gray coat and black boots, crosses the meadow.

19. Filmic language (6/6)
What colour are Landa’s boots?
A: 44% correct (close-up described in AD-A)
B: 16% correct
cnt: 63% correct

20. Intertextual reference (1/3)

21. Intertextual reference (2/3)
AD1
AD2
10:16:14
‘make yourself at home’
Quickly Landa takes out an enormous, saxophone shaped pipe.
Quickly Landa takes out a “Sherlock-Holmes- Style”-Calabash.

22. Intertextual reference (3/3)
Did the following description of Landa’s pipe help you visualize it? (Likert 1- definitely not, 5 – definitely yes)
A (an enormous, saxophone shaped pipe): 4.1
B: (Sherlock-Holmes-Style”-Calabash): 2.1
Cnt: Did you associate Landa’s pipe with the one smoked by Sherlock Holmes?
a) yes 13%
Preference question:
A: saxophone – 79%
B: saxophone – 62%

23. Conclusions/Discussion (1/2)
Gestures – naming better than describing
Filmic language – partially yes (information overload)
Intertextual references – not helpful in this case
Memory/concentration as confounding variables (but recognition vs. recall questions to offset their impact, same condition for all groups)
Preference questions – audio books and AD exposure influence expectations
Reception studies? (different factors)
Applicability to guidelines?

24. Conclusions/Discussion (2/2)
AD = translation
AD strategies (on the domestication- foreignization continuum)
A functional approach: text type, audience design, etc.
ADLAB – guidelines in the form of strategies
JewsA with filmic language

25. Acknowledgements
Belgium: Aline Remael, Nina Reviers, Gert Vercauteren, Erik de Snerck, Ludo Schats, Dries Maes, De Markgrave, samenwerkende voorziening voor blinden en slechtzienden ( VeBeS, De vereniging van Blinden en slechtzienden Licht en Liefde vzw (
Germany: Haide Völz, Bernd Benecke, Lothar Völz, Gabi Altenbach, Birgit Roberts, Diana Gaul, Friedrich Schloffer, Katja Schild
Italy: Elisa Perego, Christopher Taylor, Selene Sordo, Guido Bettagli
Poland: Agnieszka Chmiel, Bartosz Zakrzewski
Portugal: Josélia Neves, Manuela Francisco
Spain: Anna Maszerowska, Pilar Orero, Anna Matamala