Integral Captions and Subtitles: Designing a Space for Embodied Rhetorics and Visual Access

Abstract

Integral captions and subtitles are specific forms of captions and subtitles that are designed to be essential elements of videos in coordination with sound, signs, and other modes of communication. Integral captions reflect the importance of embodied rhetorics in Deaf culture, particularly in the kinetic language of ASL and Deaf Space design practices. Designing a (Deaf) space for integral captions that embody multimodal and multilingual communication is an essential multimodal literacy practice that benefits d/Deaf and hearing composers and viewers. Five criteria that characterize integral captions provide instructors and scholars with a tool for captions and embodied rhetorics.

Notes

¹ The capitalized Deaf is used to refer to those who identify as members of Deaf culture. The lowercase deaf is used to refer to the physical state of being deaf.

² I thank RR reviewers Julie Jung and Sean Zdenek for their constructive feedback and suggestions as well as editor Elise Verzosa Hurley for her support.

³ For a study on how viewers can focus on faces and saccade between subtitles and faces, see Perego et al.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Janine Butler

Janine Butler is an Assistant Professor at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, a college of Rochester Institute of Technology, where she teaches writing courses. Her scholarly interests center on accessibility, multimodality, and embodiment. Her writing has appeared in Kairos and Composition Studies. She can be contacted at [email protected].