Co-translation, consultancy and joint authorship: User-centred translation and editing in collaborative audio description

Abstract

This article increases knowledge of collaborative translation and user-centred accessibility by describing the case of cooperative audio description in which blind and sighted professional audiodescribers work in teams to draft and edit audiodescription for film and television. Findings from a microethnographic analysis of authentic work processes of team AD in three countries are presented: these include the definition of different types of team AD (a translation approach and an editing approach), and various perspectives to collaboration (co-translation, joint problem-solving and decision-making, joint authorship). The data include video recordings of the teams’ work processes and interviews with agents involved. The analysis focuses on the roles of blind team members as (co-)author, consultant, and user representative, and on the manifold phases and subphases of (cooperative) audiodescription. The article demonstrates with data examples how teams solve translation problems in interaction. A classification of problem-solving techniques is also presented. In conclusion, the article reflects on the user-centered and “user-as-maker” approaches to accessibility and translation and discusses how these developments align with current developments in dis/ability studies, advocating a paradigm shift from the medical and social models of dis/ability to a cultural model in which people with dis/abilities become active producers of culture and society.