Audio Description in Translation Studies: Challenges, Opportunities and Future Development

Audio Description (AD) renders images into words that assist people with visual impairment to access audio-visual products. Over the past 20 years, AD has received increasing attention from both the public and academia. As a result, the AD-related research has developed rapidly. Given the high degree of similarity between the processes of translating visual content into words and translating between languages, it is possible to apply the principles of translation studies (TS) to AD. A considerable number of researchers in the field of TS have focused on AD, and most of them have studied this field from the audiovisual translation (AVT) perspective. Translation techniques, as a way of selecting appropriate AD strategies and analyzing cultural elements, gestures, and facial expressions, have been adapted and applied to AD research by scholars. However, the current status quo of AD research, in terms of how it is now situated in the field of TS, has yet to be revealed. In addition, the recent development in technological innovations such as ChatGPT, automatic speech recognition, machine translation, have dramatically changed the prospect of translation and AD studies. This study, based on a bibliometric review of AD-related research in the past 20 years, will present the challenges, opportunities and possible direction for future development in this field.