Moving forward to improve SDH: the needs of Spanish audiences

ABSTRACT

Although Subtitling for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (SDH) is well established as a modality of audiovisual translation, many questions remain to be answered about viewers’ real needs. Despite the improvements in UNE standard 153010:2012, Spanish digital television broadcasters still do not offer equal SDH services. This limits the audience’s access to the multimedia content on their channels. This study aims to discover the needs and wishes of Spanish viewers regarding the subtitling services currently offered by Spanish digital television, to highlight the subtitle features that should be modified to enhance the accessibility of subtitling services. To collect this data, a survey was created and distributed among both the d/Deaf and hearing audiences of Spanish digital television. A total of 104 volunteers took part in the study: 42 d/Deaf and Hard of Hearing and 62 hearers. The results show that the two groups have similar opinions about the Spanish SDH service, which might benefit all users. Indeed, the new goal is to offer the best solutions for subtitling services to the widest audience possible. The study also confirms many of the findings of the Long questionnaire in Spain by Arnáiz-Uzquiza, and in the UK by Romero-Fresco.

KEYWORDS:

• Subtitling for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (SDH)
• audiovisual translation
• media accessibility
• Deaf and Hard of Hearing
• Spanish SDH service
• accessibility

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Neves (2005, p. 84) explains: ‘Basically, “deaf” simply refers to someone who cannot hear well enough to process aural information conveniently. Considering somebody “Deaf” means accepting the fact that that person belongs to the Deaf community that, even if a minority, has rules and codes of conduct that differentiate it from all others’.

2 Delfina Aliaga Emeterio, from Pompeu Fabra University, did the translation into CSL.

3 CESyA (Centro Español del Subtitulado y la Audiodescripción – Spanish Center for Subtitling and Audio Description).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Roberta Cepak

Roberta Cepak, PhD, is from Pompeu Fabra University, Department of Translation and Language Sciences. Her fields of research include Accessibility Studies and Audiovisual Translation for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. She holds a BA in Cultural Mediation and MA in Translation and Cultural Mediation. Both degrees were obtained at the University of Udine, Italy. At the moment she is one of the researchers of the EASIT Project funded by the SEPLE (Servicio Español para la internacionalización de la Educación), co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.

Montse Corrius

Montse Corrius, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Vic – Central University of Catalonia (UVic-UCC). She is member of the research group TRACTE (Traducció Audiovisual, Comunicació i Territori) where she leads the line of research on Audiovisual translation. Her main research interests include audiovisual translation (with a special focus on multilingual texts, gender and accessibility). She has lectured on these areas of research and published several articles in prestigious international journals such as Target, The Interpreter and Translator Trainer, Perspectives: Studies in Translatology, The Interpreter and Translator Trainer, among others, and in publishers such as John Benjamins, Oxford University Press or Peter Lang. She was one of the main researchers of the funded project TRAFILM, on the translation of multilingual films in Spain (trafilm.net), and at present, she is one of the researchers of the MUFiTAVi Project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Finance and Competitiveness.