Audio Description for the Arts (Routledge Advances in Translation and Interpreting Studies) [1 ed.] 0367681005, 9780367681005

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Audio Description for the Arts

This book traces the development of audio description (AD), a form of audiovisual translation delivered orally and consumed aurally that makes visual elements accessible primarily to people who are visually impaired, and in particular, art AD as an emergent sub-genre. Perego reflects on the static arts and the role of modern museums as key sites for art AD and multisensory environments that create memorable experiences for visitors. Based on professional, pre-recorded British and American English AD scripts, this book outlines the linguistic features of art AD and its most relevant textual patterns. It explores diverse AD practices across different contexts, including stand-alone ADs for specific paintings and sculptures that can be consumed independently to enhance the appeal and accessibility of cultural environments. Moreover, the book investigates AD tours, which provide descriptions of a selection of interconnected artworks while also assisting, through focused instructions, visually impaired individuals in navigating the museum space, as well as touch tours, which incorporate procedural instructions on how to experience three-dimensional art or reproductions through tactile senses. Offering unique insights and future research directions for this growing area, this volume will be of interest to students and scholars in translation studies and media accessibility. Elisa Perego is Associate Professor of English Language and Translation at the University of Trieste, Italy. She is co-editor of The Routledge Handbook of Audio Description (with Christopher Taylor, 2022). She has published on audiovisual translation, language simplification, and media accessibility.

Routledge Advances in Translation and Interpreting Studies

Titles include: Translator Positioning in Characterisation A Multimodal Perspective of English Translations of Luotuo Xiangzi Minru Zhao Translating in the Local Community Peter Flynn Exploring Intersemiotic Translation Models A Case Study of Ang Lee’s Films Haoxuan Zhang Of Peninsulas and Archipelagos The Landscape of Translation in Southeast Asia Edited by Phrae Chittiphalangsri and Vicente L. Rafael Trajectories of Translation The Thermodynamics of Semiosis Kobus Marais Interactional Dynamics in Remote Interpreting Micro-Analytical Approaches Edited by Esther de Boe, Jelena Vranjes, and Heidi Salaets Audio Description for the Arts A Linguistic Perspective Elisa Perego For more a full list of titles and more information about this series, please visit: www. routledge.com/Routledge-Advances-in-Translation-and-Interpreting-Studies/book-series/RTS

Audio Description for the Arts A Linguistic Perspective

Elisa Perego

First published 2024 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 Elisa Perego The right of Elisa Perego to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. ISBN: 978-0-367-68100-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-68102-9 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-13423-7 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003134237 Typeset in Sabon by codeMantra

To my caring family and my tiny loving dog

Contents

List of Figures, Examples and Tables ix Forewordxiii Acknowledgementsxv

Introduction and methodological considerations

1 Introducing AD 1.1  Translating semiotically complex texts  9 1.2  Translation and accessibility  11 1.3  What is AD?  13 1.4 Historical overview 14 1.5 Target users 17 1.6 Visual disability 19 1.7 AD language 22 1.8  Procedural discourse in AD  27 2 AD for the arts 2.1  What is art?  38 2.2  Museums and galleries  39 2.3 Art AD 44 2.4 Enriched AD 46 2.5  Live and recorded AD  52 2.5.1 AD delivery 52 2.5.2  The AD script  53 2.5.3 Receptor tools 60 2.6 Listenability 61

1 9

38

viii Contents 3 Stand-alone AD: paintings 3.1 Paintings 73 3.2 Corpus overview 73 3.3 Typifying verbs 78 3.4  Tense, aspect, and modality  83 3.5 Lexical specificities 87 3.6 Colour names 89 3.7 In-text orientation 95 3.8  Writing in the third person  97

73

4 Stand-alone ADs: sculptures 4.1 Sculptures 104 4.2 Corpus overview 104 4.3 Typifying verbs 107 4.4  Tense, aspect, and modality  108 4.5 Lexical specificities 112 4.5.1 Body parts 113 4.5.2 Material names 116 4.5.3 Adverbs 118

104

5 AD tours 5.1 Working stages 122 5.2 Tour structure 126 5.3 Corpus overview 131 5.4 Typifying verbs 132 5.5 Lexical specificities 134 5.6 Colour names 137 5.7  Engaging the visitor  139 5.8 Directional language 143

121

6 Touch tours 6.1  Touch and art  157 6.2 Corpus overview 161 6.3 Typifying verbs 164 6.4  Tense, aspect, and modality  166 6.5 Lexical specificities 167 6.6  The exploration process  170

157

Conclusion

179

Index183

Figures, Examples and Tables

Figures 2.1 Maidservant close to an amphora preparing beverages, carved on a cinerary urn. Photograph by the author 2.2 Men and women drinking and chatting, carved on a cinerary urn. Photograph by the author 2.3 Snuffbox in the Form of a Ram’s Head, Edinburgh, Scotland, 1881–1882. Science Museum, London Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) 2.4 David Wilkie. The Chelsea Pensioners Reading the Waterloo Dispatch. 1822. Oil on canvas. 158 × 97 cm. Apsley House, London. Wikimedia Commons 4.1 Bronze figure of a Spartan running girl. 520–500 BC. British Museum. Wikimedia Commons 4.2 Iris Goddess of the Rainbow. Sculpture from the west pediment of the Parthenon, British Museum. © Marie-Lan Nguyen. Wikimedia Commons 5.1 Decision making in AD tour creation: Higher- and lower-level functional moves 5.2 AD proper information structure 5.3 Collocation network showing the left-collocates of the node room 6.1 Relief drawing of a candelabrum created by the Institute for the Blind in Milan. Photograph by the author 6.2 White plaster reproduction of Reni’s Atalanta and Hippomenes. Photograph by the author 6.3 Hands guided to the relevant spots during a haptic exploration. Photograph by the author 6.4 Main stages and procedural tasks for the preparation of tactile AD scripts

47 47 54 57 109 111 123 129 136 159 160 161 171

x  Figures, Examples and Tables 6.5 Adjusting one’s position in front of a bas relief. Photograph by the author. Thanks to Christopher Taylor 6.6 Ancient well with lavabos. Piazza Sant’Antonio, Gorizia, Italy. Photograph by the author

172 175

Examples 1.1 AD excerpt from the Accessible Itinerary: Museums and Gardens (yesmilano.it)29 2.1 Labels of Mirror Frame Showing a Female Head (Victoria and Albert Museum) 42 2.2 Enriched AD proposal for a funerary urn 48 2.3 Enriched AD proposal for the jasmine plant: the haptic dimension48 2.4 Excerpt from the cinerary urn AD exhibited at the National Archeological Museum of Aquileia 49 2.5 Excerpt from the Hendel and Hendrix AD tour in London 50 2.6 Enriched AD proposal for the jasmine plant: the olfactory dimension51 2.7 Excerpt from an interactive live art AD  54 2.8 Excerpt from the AD of The Chelsea Pensioners (D. Wilkie, 1822) 56 3.1 Excerpt from the AD of Convergence (J. Pollack, 1952) 81 3.2 Excerpt from the AD of Pauline Bonaparte (R. Lefèvre, 1806) 84 3.3 Excerpt from the AD of The Battle of Waterloo (W. Allan, 1843) 84 3.4 Excerpt from the AD of Group in Crinolines (W. Kandinsky, 1909) 92 3.5 Excerpt from the AD of The Red Studio (H. Matisse, 1911) 97 3.6 Excerpt from the AD of Trunk of an Elm Tree (J. Constable, 1821) 98 3.7 Excerpt from the AD of Girl with a Mandolin (P. Picasso, 1910) 99 4.1 Excerpt from the AD of the Scarab Beetle 108 4.2 Excerpt from the AD of Iris Goddess of the Rainbow 112 4.3 Excerpt from the AD of Hapy 114 4.4 Excerpt from the AD of Ramesses 115 4.5 Excerpt from the AD of Osiris-Apis  118 5.1 Excerpt from the AD tour of Images of the Nature Gallery in the Natural History Museum 128 5.2 Excerpt from the AD tour of the Volcanoes and Earthquakes Gallery in the Natural History Museum 128

Figures, Examples and Tables  xi 5.3 Excerpt from the AD tour of Eltham Palace 137 5.4 Excerpt from the AD tour of the Hendrix and Handel Museum 138 5.5 Excerpt from the AD of the Volcanic eruptions: Shield volcanoes in the Volcanoes and Earthquake Gallery 142 5.6 Excerpt from the AD tour of the Hendrix and 148 Handel Museum 5.7 Excerpt from the AD tour of Walmer Castle149 5.8 Excerpt from the AD tour of Walmer Castle150 6.1 Excerpt from the AD of the tactile image of The Manby 166 Apparatus (W. Turner, 1831) 6.2 Excerpt from the AD of the tactile image of St. Cecilia and 168 the Angels (P. Delaroche, 1836) 6.3 Excerpt from the AD of the tactile image of The Virgin 170 and Child in Egypt (W. Blake, 1810) 6.4 Excerpt from the AD of the bas-relief of Atalanta and 174 Hippomenes (G. Reni, 1620–1625) 6.5 Excerpt from the AD of the tactile image of the Electric Locomotive E4 (Stephenson Railway Museum) 174 6.6 Excerpt from the AD of the bas-relief of Atalanta and 176 Hippomenes (G. Reni, 1620–1625)

Tables 3.1 Stand-alone painting ADs: Corpus details 3.2 Stand-alone painting AD corpus: Quantitative data 3.3 One-off lexical items longer than 15 characters in the painting corpus 3.4 Basic colour names and their frequency 3.5 Non-basic colour names and their frequency 3.6 LancsBox list of 3 grams calculated at a minimum frequency set at > 10 4.1 Stand-alone sculpture ADs: Corpus details 4.2 Stand-alone sculpture AD corpus: Quantitative data 4.3 Words longer than ten characters in the sculpture corpus. Raw occurrences higher than 1 are in brackets 4.4 Body part names in the sculpture corpus 4.5 Material names by decreasing frequency 4.6 Basic colour name frequencies in the painting and in the sculpture corpora 5.1 The main communicative moves and steps of AD tours 5.2 AD tour audio descriptions: Corpus details 5.3 AD tour corpus: Quantitative data

74 76 89 90 91 96 105 106 113 114 116 117 127 132 132

xii  Figures, Examples and Tables 5.4 Normalised frequency of the basic colour names in the tour, painting, and sculpture corpora 5.5 Normalised frequency of the pronouns used in diverse art AD corpora 5.6 AD tour directions sub-corpus: Quantitative data 5.7 The first 35 types found in the word list of the AD tour directions corpus 6.1 Touch tour ADs: Corpus details 6.2 Touch tour corpus: Quantitative data

139 140 146 147 162 163

Foreword By Christopher Taylor (University of Trieste)

Within the realm of audiovisual translation (AVT), itself a relative latecomer to serious academic research, the discipline of audio description (AD), principally for the blind and sight-impaired, has even less recently made its presence felt. However, over the last few decades, much progress has been made and Elisa Perego has been in the forefront of developments within the field. With numerous presentations at national and international conferences, many published articles and books, participation and leadership in important European research projects, and years of teaching university courses, she has made a very considerable contribution to audiovisual translation in general. More recently, she has focused particularly on two areas, that of audio description and the concept of easy language in its various guises. Narrowing the field even further she has conducted exhaustive research in the AD of museums and the arts, the results of which form the content of this most engrossing volume. Audio Description for the Arts therefore concentrates on the AD of two distinct kinds of static art, painting, and sculpture, and three methods of presentation of such artefacts in museum and gallery settings: live description, pre-recorded AD, and touch tours. The author has set out to provide the most far-reaching and complete analysis of what constitutes art AD. Through the use of extensive, carefully compiled corpora and appropriate software tools, this data-driven study gets to the heart of this specialised text type and provides other researchers, teachers, practitioners, and museum managers with a valuable overview of what art AD involves, all in the service essentially of the blind and sight-impaired, various members of which community also being researchers, teachers, and practitioners. Regarding this last point, the 2.2 billion people worldwide who suffer from some level of sight loss need the kind of assistance that AD can provide, but at the same time need to be involved in the description process, ideally from the beginning so as to dispel the idea that AD is simply a supplement to an already finished product. This is not yet established as a practice in

xiv Foreword any meaningful way but is a definite aim for the future, and this book can make a useful contribution to that objective. The keywords which appear throughout the volume include textual complexity, comprehensibility, listenability, accessibility, and usability, all pointing to a need to create the kind of social inclusion for long awaited by the blind community. The study of word length, sentence length, lexical density levels, parts of speech statistics, and so on provides the quantitative data to complement the qualitative content in terms of creating ‘vivid, varied and engaging’ discourse. The computer-assisted descriptive data illustrated in tables and diagrams concisely portrays the results of the painstaking research that has gone into charting the linguistic and semiotic specificities of the various strands of art AD. Audio description is seen as a text genre in its own right, as clearly demonstrated by the extensive linguistic analysis provided by this book, but also as a form of semiotic translation, that is ‘translating’ the visual to the verbal. It is here that the concept of multimodality can be seen to be an essential element in audio describing museum artefacts. The task of the describer is to convey the semiotic modalities or modes of meaning (shape, size, colour, material, lighting, etc.) of which a painting or sculpture is composed. Apart from the carefully prepared wording necessary to fulfil the task of auditorially informing and entertaining museum and gallery visitors, other senses can brought to bear, even taste and smell. But of particular importance and growing presence in museums is the touch tour, amply described and analysed here. The rigorous scientific aspect of the book is relieved for the reader by the abundant use of interesting and well-chosen examples, taken from famous and less well-known pictures and sculptures housed in famous and less famous institutions. Indeed the wide variety of artefacts selected for the research, including ADs in both British and American English, thereby recognising well-known differences in outlook, is further evidence of the rigorous nature of the efforts made to produce this volume. While the audio description of screen products (film, television, websites, etc.) has now spawned a large number of academic books, articles, congresses, and higher education courses, museum AD still has ground to make up. For this reason, there has been a gap in the literature which has now been admirably filled by Audio Description for the Arts. The author’s background in this field speaks volumes. A member of the original European ADLAB project, which produced strategic guidelines for AD including for museums, she became the leader of the following ADLAB PRO project which produced extensive online teaching materials, again including AD for the arts. More recently she co-edited the Routledge Handbook of Audio Description with a contribution on the same subject. No further recommendation is required to highlight the importance of this ground-breaking volume.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank those who supported me in this project, particularly Chris Taylor for being open enough to give me the freedom to fulfill my talents: you have been an invaluable mentor. I am indebted to Matthew Cock (VocalEyes) and Joel Snyder (Audio Description Associates) for providing me with part of the material used for the analysis.

Introduction and methodological considerations

Audio description (AD) is a form of accessible audiovisual translation (AVT) that has become increasingly common in contemporary cultural institutions to make visual content accessible to people who are blind or visually impaired. It involves providing a verbal rendering of the salient visual aspects of a given cultural product, often in the form of a pre-recorded, pre-planned, edited, narrative-descriptive script that is delivered orally and consumed aurally. AD can be applied to a variety of semiotically complex settings to make them accessible to visually impaired individuals and ensure experiential equivalence whenever visual elements are integral to the meaning of the source text. Nowadays, this includes AD for film or screen; for theatre, opera, and dance; and for live events, such as weddings, sports competitions, circus performances, and religious services, among others. This book traces the development of AD in general (Chapter 1) and of art AD as a sub-genre of AD (Chapter 2). It defines the static arts and the role of modern museums as key cultural sites for art AD and multisensory environments that create informative and memorable experiences for visitors. Based on professional, pre-recorded British and American English AD scripts, this book outlines the textual and linguistic features of art AD and its most relevant communicative structures. It further explores diverse AD strategies across different contexts, including authentic, stand-alone ADs for specific paintings (Chapter 3), and sculptures (Chapter 4) that can be consumed independently and in any order to enhance the appeal and accessibility of cultural environments. Moreover, this book investigates AD tours, which provide descriptions of a selection of interconnected items while also assisting, through focused instructions, visually impaired individuals in navigating the museum space (Chapter 5), as well as touch tours, which incorporate procedural instructions on how to experience three-dimensional art or reproductions through the use of tactile senses (Chapter 6).

DOI: 10.4324/9781003134237-1

2  Introduction and methodological considerations Overall, this book aims to offer a descriptive data-driven quantitative and qualitative overview of these specialised types of text to reveal frequent and salient linguistic patterns, and to assess whether they either align with current art AD guidelines or breach them to offer unexplored solutions. Furthermore, identifying and illustrating systematic or relevant language patterns might inspire readers to create art ADs in English or in other languages by, potentially, implementing or adapting the observed behaviours. Currently, few formal curricula are available to study AD, and what emerges from a descriptive approach to AD is likely to be understood by practitioners (and ‘practisearchers’, Gile 1994) and taught to interested groups, such as museum personnel or volunteers; it will likely have practical implications for improving the type of information provided to assist museum-goers who are blind or partially sighted. Accordingly, we followed a corpus-driven approach and selected some quantitative linguistic measures of analysis that have already been proven useful in similar contexts (Arma 2011, 2012; Perego 2018; Salway 2007). The corpusdriven approach has enormous potential in the AVT field (Baker 2020; Forchini 2012; Pavesi 2019, 2022); corpora are flexible resources suitable for addressing a wide range of research questions and providing reliable generalisations while achieving accurate descriptive adequacy. In addition, corpora provide research- and data-based information that can improve the quality of translation for audiovisual products, including AD. While larger datasets are better overall for avoiding intuitive judgements and enhancing findings’ representativeness (Baker 2020: 125; Forchini 2012: 55), irrespective of their dimension, corpora allow us to identify retrospectively otherwise imperceptible patterns and regularities; noteworthy aspects of the attitude or ‘prosody’ of analysed texts can then be highlighted. Texts for our analysis were selected based on representations of art AD. Our four reference corpora included the scripts of stand-alone ADs of paintings and sculptures, as well as AD tours and touch tours. These were secured by established British and American service providers (e.g. the British VocalEveys and the US Audio Description Associates) and professional describers (including Joel Snyder), or collected and transcribed manually from museum websites (e.g. MOMA). This was done to generate a DIY (do it yourself), monomodal, small-scale, specialised corpus that has a total size of 87,878 running words. Each raw or un-annotated sub-corpus (not enriched with tags encoding linguistic information to allow the computing of specific phenomena) was analysed via software programmes that are normally used to explore language patterns. The results were occasionally compared to patterns found in established art books, in particular, The Story of Art by Ernst Hans Gombrich (1950/1995), which is a survey of the history of art from ancient times to the modern era. It is considered one of the most famous and popular books on art ever written.

Introduction and methodological considerations  3 Several software programs were used in the study, including LancsBox, developed at Lancaster University (Brezina et al. 2020), WordSmith Tools 8, developed by the British linguist Mike Scott (Scott 2022), and the free online software Analyze My Writing, a text content and readability analyser for English. Although LancsBox and WordSmith Tools 8 calculate similar data, we primarily relied on LancsBox to compute complexity statistics (i.e. mean word length calculated in characters and mean sentence length, with standard deviation (SD) for each) and lexical statistics (i.e. number of lemmas, types, and tokens in a given body of texts). We provided the type-token ratio (TTR) and the standardised type-token ratio (STTR) of each corpus as calculated by LancsBox in decimals and WordSmith Tools 8 in percentages.1 We used Analyze My Writing to compute the number of characters (with and without spaces), the syllable count, the number of complex words (intended as equal or greater than three syllables), and the Gunning fog index for readability, the lexical density of the text, the percentage of sentences with passive voice structure, and parts of speech used. Most of these indices were useful in quantitatively supporting the qualitative analyses of the excerpts under scrutiny and understanding the nature of the texts and their level of complexity. Regarding the measures of language analysis used, we selected a number that we believe can provide an overall insight on the style and specificity of art AD as well as information on its indicative textual complexity, comprehensibility, and listenability (par. 2.6; Perego 2018, 2020). Measuring text complexity and comprehensibility unequivocally is challenging, if it is possible at all; beyond objective and measurable data (e.g. the lexical difficulty of the words per se or the length and syntactic complexity of a sentence), there are diverse user-dependent variables affecting the degree to which someone will comprehend input. These include, for instance, the receiver’s motivation in the text-related activity, their language proficiency, their literacy skills, their reading/listening skills, their cultural background, their familiarity with the words. Still, we believed that attempting to measure it was necessary. Regarding selected measures of analysis and the implications thereof, we aimed to highlight that the number of characters, syllables, and tokens offer the extent of each corpus. The TTR was selected as an established indicator of vocabulary variation within a text and refers to the range of different words used, with a higher TTR indicating a higher degree of lexical diversity (Castello 2008; Halliday 1989; Johansson 2008). Lexical variation stands as a crucial variable to language comprehension: a lexically varied text is more challenging than one with a low TTR.2 Because TTR varies depending on corpus size, TTR comparison is only meaningful between comparably sized corpora. Each corpus was made of a collection of diversely sized texts, and each STTR was calculated and used for comparisons between corpora. Lexical density, defined

4  Introduction and methodological considerations as the number of lexical words divided by the total number of words in a text, is the percentage of words in a text which give us information about what is being communicated. This is a reliable measure of how informative (cf. the idea of information packaging; Johansson 2008: 65) a text is (Castello 2008: 97; Johansson 2008). Lexical density, which is reduced when lexical words are repeated, can vary considerably among registers; it can also signal how close the text is to either the written or the spoken ends of the communication continuum. A large majority of the spoken texts have a lexical density of less than 40%, whereas written texts have a lexical density of 40% or higher. Fiction typically scores between 49% and 51%, and general prose is often between 48% and 50%. These scores can be used to determine the overall text difficulty of a piece of writing (Biber et al. 1999; Johansson 2008). Mean word length is calculated in characters, which can give us information about the nature of the words used in a text; it is also a predictor of semantic and textual complexity and the user’s perceived difficulty of a text. English is a lexically mixed language and is rich in foreign loans, even though its most commonly used items in writing and speaking are monosyllabic native English words (Gramley and Pätzold 1992). Loan words, which are longer and more peripheral, differ in the frequency of their use depending on text type, style, and topic. For instance, they increase in formal texts that deal with specialised subjects which are highly removed from everyday experience (Gramley and Pätzold 1992: 18). The average word length in language varieties that enhance comprehensibility, like Plain English, is 5.1 letters (Cutts 2013; Hearle 2011; Inclusion Europe 2009); polysyllabic words are likely to complicate the meaning of content. Mean sentence length is calculated based on the average number of words in a text and can be a reliable indicator of a text’s difficulty concerning readability and listenability. For instance, according to surveys by the Associated Press in the United States, eight words or less are considered ‘very easy to read’, 11 words are considered ‘easy’, 14 words are considered ‘fairly easy’ (Cutts 2013; Gunning 1964; Hearle 2011), 17 words are considered ‘standard’, 21 words are considered ‘fairly difficult’, 25 words are considered ‘difficult’, and 29 words or more are considered ‘very difficult’. As part of our overall quantitative dataset, we utilized the Gunning fog index, a readability test devised specifically for English writing. The index estimates the years of formal education a person needs to understand a written text from their first reading of it. For instance, a fog index of six means that the respective text requires the reading level of a US sixth grader (approximately 12 years old) (Gunning 1952, 1964). TIME magazine and The Wall Street Journal have an average score of 11. Finally, because the

Introduction and methodological considerations  5 readability, listenability, and comprehensibility of a text can depend on the usage extent of passive structures (Inclusion Europe 2009), we calculated the percentages in each sub-corpus. Passive constructions involve restructuring the clause whereby the agent undergoes the verb’s action. They primarily serve the discourse functions of cohesion and weight management (Biber et al. 1999). Passive sentences can make it more difficult to determine who is performing an action, which is why most Plain (Cutts 2013: 63–72) and Easy Language (Inclusion Europe 2009: 11) recommendations suggest reducing or eliminating their use. Further, the distribution of parts of speech was considered empirical evidence of regularity patterns and was used to compare data to art AD guidelines (e.g. Giansante 2015). In Chapters 3, 4, 5, and 6, each corpus was analysed separately following the same pattern: first, quantitative data were provided and briefly discussed to infer possible (yet broad) complexity and informativity judgments and text-type specificities. Then, we presented a corpus-assisted qualitative overview of their main linguistic features and patterns of behaviour. Language patterns were collected inductively from the corpus data (cf. Pavesi 2019: 323) and served as confirmation or disconfirmation of some of the more salient recommendations formulated in literature and in guidelines. We generated frequency lists (a sorted list of words or word types and the number of times they occur in a given corpus; their rank is derived from their position in the list) and extracted lexical clusters, i.e. linguistic units or frequently co-occurring words which are also known as collocations, bundles, or N-grams (bigrams, trigrams, etc.) which could be defined as contiguous combinations of types, lemmas, and parts of speech (Biber et al. 1999; Brezina 2018; Forchini 2012). These lists enabled us to isolate typifying elements or patterns that characterise each AD sub-genre and to illustrate them with authentic examples used by professional describers. A corpus-assisted top-down approach was occasionally assumed to find specific word units or textual components that were useful in uncovering underlying patterns of meaning and regularities. Overall, the corpus is not exceptionally wide or homogeneous. This occurs for several reasons—specifically, the difficulty of gathering scripted texts in their final format, or of ADs of the same type that were drafted at the same time. Most AD tours, especially touch tours, are unscripted, and ADs can date from different periods. Another limitation relates to how it may not always be possible to set an AD in its authentic context and analyse it accordingly; the larger the corpus, the more difficult it is for the researcher to directly experience each AD within its own context. This forces the researcher to rely on scripts and literature, if any exist, which can cause misinterpretations. Furthermore, professionals who draft ADs do not necessarily have similar backgrounds, and those with greater

6  Introduction and methodological considerations experience may or may not follow established guidelines. Finally, retrieving the name of the audio describer is usually difficult, as they are not always credited in the AD script. We recognise our corpus’ limitations and the fact that we cannot transcend them. However, collecting material has clarified that a more collaborative, even cross-national, work is needed to pursue a large-scale corpus-based comparative study of art AD. While our descriptive results cannot be unquestionably generalised, we believe that they hold value. In this study, a step was taken to provide useful pointers for informing practice, substantiating intuitive consideration with evidence and examples, and encouraging further studies based on larger or more homogeneous corpora of art ADs. Furthermore, we believe in this exploratory work’s didactic potential. AD is being successfully used in diverse didactic contexts, to train prospective audio describers as well as to teach languages. What could be evident to an expert or a native speaker might allow non-native audio describers or language learners to focus on diverse forms of language, especially with descriptive and procedural functions, in terms of recurring collocations and clusters. In the example texts, short exemplifying AD excerpts are provided in italics and within parentheses. A semicolon separates excerpts taken from the AD scripts of different art items within the same corpus, and the use of capital or small letters, as well as the spelling (either British or American), are the same as those of the source text: […] to offer a vivid representation of people or things that cannot be seen by people with sensory disabilities (One woman wears a coral bonnet; a light pink sun emanates hazy red beams; And that is the Cathedral, which dominates the centre of this landscape). For the most relevant lexical units discussed in detail, the raw or absolute frequency of the search term (which refers to how many instances of the search term there are in the corpus) is provided in brackets with the relative frequency per 10k calculated by LancsBox (Brezina 2018; Brezina et al. 2020). This provides relative frequency normalised to the basis of 10,000 tokens, which is comparable across corpora and was used to infer similarities and differences between the different types of art ADs analysed. When provided, the two values are separated by a slash in the text: The tactile verb touch is used occasionally (18/14.56).

Introduction and methodological considerations  7 Notes 1 Conventionally, there are two ways of calculating TTR. LancsBox divides running words (tokens) by the different words in the text (types) and provides a decimal number. WordSmith 8 presents the TTR as a percentage of types for tokens, and calculates TTR as follows: (number of types/number of tokens) *100 (Castello 2008: 64). 2 Although ease of understanding might not always be an admirable aim for all describers or museum-goers, especially if they wish the audience to be fully engaged by what they are hearing irrespective of whether it is overwhelming, considering audience diversity is essential. Any text should be tailored to a specific audience; including people with cognitive difficulties necessarily entails reflections on the ease of understanding and the related issue of language simplification.

References Arma, S. (2011). The language of filmic audio description: A corpus-based analysis of adjectives [Unpublished doctoral thesis]. University of Naples Federico II, Italy. Arma, S. (2012). “Why can’t you wear black shoes like the other mothers?” Preliminary investigation on the Italian language of audio description. In E. Perego (Ed.), Emerging topics in translation: Audio description (pp. 37–55). EUT. Baker, P. (2020). Corpus-assisted discourse analysis. In C. Hart (Ed.), Cognitive linguistic critical discourse analysis (pp. 124–142). Routledge. Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., & Finegan, E. (1999). Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Longman. Brezina, V. (2018). Statistics in corpus linguistics: A practical guide. CUP. Brezina, V., Weill-Tessier, P., & McEnery, T. (2020). #LancsBox 5.x and 6.x [Software]. http://corpora.lancs.ac.uk/lancsbox. Castello, E. (2008). Text complexity and reading comprehension tests. International Academic Publishers. Cutts, M. (2013). The Oxford guide to plain English. OUP. Forchini, P. (2012). Movie language revisited. Peter Lang. Giansante, L. (2015). Writing verbal descriptions for audio guides. Art Beyond Sight. http://www.artbeyondsight.org/mei/verbal-description-training/writing-verbaldescription-for-audio-guides/ Gile, D. (1994). Opening up in interpretation studies. In M. Snell-Hornby, F. Pöchhacker & K. Kaindl (Eds.), Translation studies: An interdiscipline (pp. 149–158). Benjamins. Gombrich, E.H (1950/1995). The story of art. Phaidon. Gramley, S., & Pätzold, K.-M. (1992). A survey of modern English. Routledge. Gunning, R. (1952). The technique of clear writing. McGraw-Hill. Gunning, R. (1964). How to take the fog out of writing. Dartnell Corporation. Halliday, M.A.K. (1989). Spoken and written language. OUP. Hearle, N. (2011). Sentence and word length. http://ds.nahoo.net/Academic/ Maths/Sentence.html

8  Introduction and methodological considerations Inclusion Europe (2009). Information for all. European standards for making information easy to read and understand. https://www.inclusion-europe.eu/wpcontent/uploads/2017/06/EN_Information_for_all.pdf Johansson, V. (2008). Lexical diversity and lexical density in speech and writing. Working Papers, 53, 61–79. Pavesi, M. (2019). Corpus-based audiovisual translation studies: Ample room for development. In L. Pérez-González (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of audiovisual translation studies (pp. 315–333). Routledge. Pavesi, M. (2022). Corpora and the language of films: Exploring dialogue in English and Italian. In A. O’Keeffe & M. McCarthy (Eds.), Routledge handbook of corpus linguistics (pp. 547–561). Routledge. Perego, E. (2018). Into the language of museum audio descriptions: A corpus-based study. Perspectives, 27(3), 333–349. Perego, E. (2020). Accessible communication: A cross-country journey. Frank & Timme. Salway, A. (2007). A corpus-based analysis of audio description. In J. Díaz Cintas, P. Orero, & A. Remael (Eds.), Media for all: Subtitling for the deaf, audio description and sign language (pp. 151–174). Rodopi. Scott, M. (2022). WordSmith Tools version 8. Lexical Analysis Software.

1 Introducing AD

1.1

Translating semiotically complex texts

Audio description (AD) is a form of accessible audiovisual translation that transforms the most relevant meaning-making visual elements of a semiotically complex source text into words for the benefit of a blind and visually impaired audience. It can be considered both a process and a product; it has a specific communicative purpose and a primary target audience. Thus, when discussing AD—also known as ‘video description’ or ‘described video’ (Piety 2004; Snyder 2014)—notions such as multimodality, semiotic complexity, accessibility, usability, and the broadest meaning of translation must be included in the discussion. We have always lived in a semiotically complex or multimodal world. Consequently, monomodality is rare, especially in contemporary communication, where both the visual and the aural modes of meaning making are increasing, and the combination determines the new grammar of most media (Baker 2012; Kress and van Leeuwen 1996, 2001; Taylor 2015b, 2017, 2020). The major and irreversible shift towards the prominence of visual content and its integration into several communicative contexts (websites, newspaper articles, promotional material, books, etc.) has impacted the translator profession, catalysing the growth of audiovisual translation (Baker 2012). Currently, we operate in a predominantly visual culture where purely verbal stretches of text are rarely consumed or translated. In addition, expressing and receiving meaning through several semiotic channels, modalities, or modes is easier and comes more naturally to us (Kress and van Leeuwen 2001). Semiotically complex texts, or multimodal texts, ‘combine and integrate the meaning-making resources of the AURAL (verbal) and the VISUAL (non-verbal) channels, which in turn can include linguistic and non-linguistic realisations or signs’. The aural channel is the ‘physical, sensory, and physiological medium or mode through which one hears (aural) and produces sound (oral)’ (Chandler and Munday 2011). The visual channel conveys ideas and information received through sight. DOI: 10.4324/9781003134237-2

10  Introducing AD Multimodal texts combine visual and aural communication signs; thus, we refer to them as audiovisual texts, too. Translating audiovisual or semiotically complex texts implies the interpretation and subsequent transposition, transformation, or adaptation of parts of multimodal source texts and their addition or relocation within the same complex ensemble. This is done to form a new multimodal target text with the same communicative function as the source text; however, it is addressed to a different audience. For instance, an audio-described film is a film with visual elements transposed into linguistic verbal signs that are added to the source text while respecting specific constraints. This forms a new additive and accessible target text that can be accessed by visually impaired users (Fryer 2016; Perego 2019; Remael et al. 2015; Snyder 2007, 2014). While audiovisual translation is currently an established term in the Translation Studies field (Bogucki and Deckert 2020; Pérez Gonzáles 2019), it was once characterised by considerable lexical uncertainty and ambiguity. Several expressions (including media translation, multimodal or multimedia translation, screen translation, film translation, and constrained translation) have a history of interchangeable use in describing the process of interlingual transfer in a multimodal context (Perego and Pacinotti 2020: 34–35). Accordingly, most research in the field was initially dedicated to the study of audiovisual translation of films, cinema, television, and DVDs only. Screen products normally comprise both aural and visual components, and it is the aural verbal component of a source text that undergoes transformation. For instance, dialogue can be translated into a different language and then added to the source text as interlingual subtitling, or one might substitute the source text entirely applying dubbing or other revoicing techniques, such as voice-over and commentary. While more researchers are showing interest in studying the translation of screen texts, the translation of other semiotically complex products (theatre plays, live events, dance, and artworks) is still relatively under researched (Braun and Starr 2021; Perego and Pacinotti 2020; Taylor and Perego 2022b). The AD (or intersemiotic translation) of art, for instance, requires the ability to accurately analyse and decode source texts that comprise varying levels of semiotic complexity and interpretative ambiguity, making accessible translation increasingly challenging depending on the type and number of semiotic modalities involved. This is especially true of artworks that are difficult to categorise. To begin with a straightforward example, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa exemplifies a typical monomodal artwork that communicates through an assortment of visual elements, including light effects and the presence of a frame. Conversely, the British Museum’s modern Pharmacopoeia installation, Cradle to Grave, exemplifies a semiotically more complex artwork. Its central theme (i.e. the dominance of the biomedical approach to health and illness within Western

Introducing AD  11 societies) (Pharmacopoeia 2009) is expressed through visual verbal and visual non-verbal elements (notes on paper, medical records, prescriptions, old pictures, objects, etc.). Hence, making an inclusive and accessible version is challenging because its interpretation would be complex. An example of an audiovisual experience (visuals supported by soundscape) is an installation about Henry VIII at Hampton Court Palace in Surrey, where five permanent audiovisual installations of Henry VIII’s Kitchens transport viewers to the era using sounds from the time such as boiling pots, chopping boards, etc. When translating the installation’s meaning-making signs, the tactics employed should be varied and highly target oriented; the more inclusive the translation, the more thorough the source text analysis, and the broader and more creative the approach to each source text channel to make it accessible. Accordingly, some scholars have re-branded inherently creative translation activities as transcreation, when good translation is the re-creation of a text into another language (Katan 2016). Surely, the growth and evolution of the text types that can be translated and the audience types they are for suggests a possible revision in how we should refer to their translation: using the label multimodal translation in place of audiovisual translation is more accurate and includes more recent products on the market (e.g. podcasts), making it the more inclusive option. 1.2

Translation and accessibility

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities includes a full article (Art. 9) on accessibility as necessary ‘to enable persons with disabilities to live independently and participate fully in all aspects of life’ (United Nations 2006: 9). This comprises implementing appropriate measures to accessibility that are equal to those afforded to able-bodied people in terms of physical space, services, facilities, and communication and information. The multimodal nature of modern texts makes them communicatively rich and powerful, but it simultaneously poses considerable accessibility challenges (Perego 2020). Translation has always been a matter of accessibility, even though this term was never used in antiquity. Texts were translated—normally interlingually—to expand access to content, or to successfully conduct commercial transactions (Munday 2008). Translation has therefore always been necessary to disseminate information, knowledge, and ideas, and for effective and empathetic communication between cultures. A large part of Western cultural heritage has been transmitted through translation: ‘[f]or two thousand years, Latin translation from the Greek was an important medium in the progress of occidental civilization’ (Lockwood 1918: 115). In other words, text translation, even historically, fosters access. Accordingly, in early Audiovisual Translation Studies, dubbing and interlingual subtitling were considered means of

12  Introducing AD overcoming language barriers (Luyken and Herbst 1991; O’Sullivan and Cornu 2018; Perego and Pacinotti 2020). It was only when non-interlingual forms of translation were established that the term accessibility took hold. In the media and translation landscape, accessibility refers to forms of communication that enable broad participation in information, including participation from people with disabilities. This inclusion is made possible through services that limit exclusion from content, including multimodal content (Perego 2020). This encompasses media accessibility, where media products, services, and environments are made accessible for those who cannot access them in their original form (Greco 2018; Matamala 2021). Accessible and inclusive translation comprises processes or services such as AD for people with sight loss, intralingual subtitling for the D/deaf and hard of hearing,1 respeaking, live subtitling, and translation from standard into Sign, Plain, or Easy Language.2 Based on the three seminal categories proposed by Jakobson in the 1960s (1959), AD represents an inverse instance of intersemiotic translation, whereby visual signs are transformed into verbal signs. Subtitling for the D/deaf and hard of hearing and translation into Plain or Easy Language are indicative of Jakobsonian intralingual translation, where signs in a language are translated into other signs of the same language. Although accessible forms of audiovisual translation originated with specific targets in mind, their usefulness soon expanded beyond these initial targets, partially due to the shift from a particularist account of access to a universalist one (Greco 2018; Matamala 2021). The former considers accessibility either mainly or exclusively for specific groups of persons with disabilities, while the latter considers accessibility for all human beings, and accessibility services as a means of life improvement for everyone. Typical examples include subtitles that can benefit hearing people when watching audiovisual content in a quiet place with the volume off, and AD that can benefit sighted users who want to watch a film while doing something else, e.g. driving, cooking, or ironing. For inclusivity, enabling people to comfortably access content and services is crucial, but it is not sufficient. Accessible content should also fundamentally be intuitive, effective, efficient, and satisfying for users to achieve specific goals in a specific context. In sum, accessibility requires usability. These terms are currently widely used in audiovisual translation; however, they were originally coined for the internet (Mosconi and Porta 2012). Both are user-centred concepts constructed around users’ needs, limits, and preferences and advocate for the human right of social inclusion, which enables vulnerable people to participate and integrate into social and cultural life through media services. Accessibility (i.e. reachability) is a technical concept that refers to participation and availability regardless

Introducing AD  13 of a user’s physical or cognitive impediments. Usability is a cognitive concept that refers to something’s ease of use. For instance, texts can be ‘perfectly accessible but poorly usable or, conversely, very usable but not accessible at all’ (Mosconi and Porta 2012: 107). Regarding AD, there are examples where the AD is easy to retrieve and to use, but the descriptive text is excessively complex, technical, dense, fast, or difficult to follow and understand. Conversely, there are examples wherein a listenable, easy-tounderstand narration might not be accessible because there are not enough devices for its delivery, the devices are not intuitive or are too difficult to use, or their availability is not adequately sign posted. In these situations, the devices are the barriers to entry rather than the service itself (Figiel and Albin 2022). Finding the right balance between accessibility and usability determines the quality of any inclusive service and is necessary to produce a successful and target-focused product. 1.3

What is AD?

AD is one of the most recent methods of audiovisual translation, itself a sub-discipline of the broader, yet young, Translation Studies sector, and AD is considered both a practice and discipline (Braun and Starr 2021; Fryer 2016; Maszerowska et al. 2014; Munday 2008; Perego 2019; Remael et al. 2015; Snyder 2014; Taylor and Perego 2022a). The term AD indicates a process, product, and service simultaneously. As an intersemiotic (or intermodal; Holsanova 2022; Reviers 2017) translation process comprising the transfer from a nonverbal system of symbols (visual semiotic signs or images) to a verbal system of symbols (acoustic verbal signs or spoken language) (Jakobson 1959; Snyder 2007, 2014, 2022; Taylor 2020), AD is selective (or partial, Reviers 2017) and additive. An audio describer must identify and select the most salient meaning-making and plot-propelling visual components of a source text and translate them into words that will grant users full comprehensibility of its message without overwhelming or taxing them. AD is designed to transfer enough information, concisely and objectively, without explicating information that can be retrieved by senses other than sight (Fryer 2016; Salway 2007). It is additive because ‘it does not function as an independent text’ but is in conjunction with information conveyed through a seamless blend with other semiotic modes (Mazur 2022: 93). Concerning consumption time, AD can be synchronous or asynchronous depending on its source text. When synchronous, it accompanies the source text and is consumed with it. In films or events where ADs are inserted between dialogue and other significant sounds, it should ideally serve to substitute plot-carrying visual elements with an equally vivid verbal rendering. When asynchronous, AD

14  Introducing AD can be used irrespective of the source text it describes. For instance, art AD can be made available prior to a museum visit and used differently depending on visitors’ preferences and needs. As a product, AD refers to texts that have the specific communicative purpose of making visual elements accessible, primarily to a blind and visually impaired audience. In this respect, a text or script qualifies as AD based on its linguistic behaviour, which is determined by how it is delivered (orally) and received (aurally), irrespective of genre. As a service, AD qualifies as assistive or ‘enabling’ (cf. Seeley 2022; Snyder 2022; Holsanova 2022), that is supporting users with disabilities to access information due to its usability and making visually impaired persons’ experiences equivalent, or at least comparable, to that of the sighted audiences (Piety 2004; Remael et al. 2015). 1.4

Historical overview

As a functional or assistive practice, AD has always been used nonprofessionally to put visual information into words for people who are blind or visually impaired. This descriptive process traces back to prehistoric times, whenever the visual image contributed to experiencing an event (Mazur 2020; Snyder 2014). Descriptive narration was not originally specifically for the blind; it was used in several contexts for several reasons. For instance, when working as a sports announcer in 1934, President Ronald Regan improvised a fictional play-by-play when he stopped receiving feed via his telegraph during a baseball game (Snyder 2014, 2022). In 1976, the UK stateswoman Margaret Thatcher opened her Iron Lady speech to the Finchley Conservatives with a subtlety humorous and ironic description of herself: ‘I stand before you tonight, in my Red Star chiffon evening gown. My face softly made up and my fair hair gently waved: the Iron Lady of the Western world’. These anecdotes point to the pervasive nature of the descriptive practice. However, the first professional instance of AD was documented in the early 1940s in Spain. Its formal use for visually impaired people traces back to the 1980s, when Margaret and Cody Pfanstiehl, from the Metropolitan Washington Ear, began producing and promoting it for live theatre performances across the United States and created the first television (TV) and museum ADs (Mazur 2020; Seeley 2022; Snyder 2014, 2022). By the end of the 1980s, over 50 US establishments were producing described performances. In the 1990s, the Descriptive Video Service for AD provision was developed, and in 2010, President Barack Obama passed a law that required the top nine US broadcasters to provide four hours of AD programming a week on the 25 biggest TV markets (Snyder 2014: 19–27). However, AD rose to prominence in the United States because of

Introducing AD  15 Gregory Frazier, a pioneer in the field and the founder of Audio Vision. Audio Vision is a non-profit organisation that has provided description services since 1989 and has set the standard for descriptive services ever since (Hardy 2012). Although most of AD’s development and establishment is in the United States, other countries have also assisted and encouraged its development. In Canada, a series of firsts were achieved in the last 20 years, particularly in live AD, and issues concerning how to describe various race, gender, and disability groupings within a highly multicultural nation were addressed (Singh 2022). In Brazil, great progress was being made before changes occurred in the government and policies regarding culture (Franco and Santiago 2022). In Australia, while AD’s development varies depending on the state, it is still less-developed overall. The country is a relative newcomer in this field, but it has promising prospects that draw from established global practices and adapts them for the Australian context (Seeley 2022). In Russia, AD has made significant strides since denying blind people’s existence in the 19th century and negating the expression AD in favour of the term typhlocommenting. Typhlocommenting was coined in the early 2000s and considered more comprehensive. After the end of the Soviet Union, and a period of ‘terminological iron curtain’, audio describers have been able to embrace international terminology, AD guidelines, literature, and workflows (Borshchevsky and Kozulyaev 2022). In Europe, where the regular AD provision in theatres preceded its diffusion in other sectors, the UK remains the leading country based on the number of venues that regularly offer AD performances. While other European countries are catching up, they still show substantial variation regarding availability of AD as well as the necessary regulatory frameworks for assistive forms of translation. This is mostly due to broadcasters’ reluctance to offer a service that is unlikely to deliver substantial returns on investment (ADLAB 2012: 17; Perego 2019: 116).3 While the original primary use of AD was in theatre and cinema, it has slowly but steadily expanded to most cultural fields and now describes any multimodal product, including art. Compared to screen AD, art AD is currently at an earlier development stage in both provision and research. For instance, AD in museums did not emerge until the 2000s (Fineman and Cock 2022; Hutchinson and Eardley 2019, 2022). Today, it is particularly established in Anglophone countries due to encouraging legislation as well as targeted organisations and service providers (e.g. Art beyond Sight (US) and VocalEyes (UK)) that promote AD more systematically than in other European countries (ADLAB 2012; ADLAB PRO 2017b; Perego 2021). Despite being well established as a professional practice, AD is still a young academic discipline. Its inception dates to the 1970s, when Gregory Frazier developed the first set of AD principles as part of his master dissertation in broadcasting (Frazier 1975; Hardy 2012; Snyder 2014).

16  Introducing AD Since then, AD has been implemented globally and studied systematically, though each country has followed different timeframes for legislation enforcement, service provision, guideline production, research support, and training initiatives. Over time, AD has been studied to identify its role and status in different countries, outline its textual and linguistic features and best practices (Frazier 1975; Snyder 2007, 2014), compare diverse guidelines (Rai et al. 2010), assess it as a form of translation, and consider whether it can be translated from one language to another (Jankowska 2015; Taylor 2020). More recently, AD reception, its use for typically sighted audiences, delivery from text to speech, personalisation, automatisation, and simplification have also been explored, and the research horizons have expanded (Bernabé and Orero 2021; Braun and Starr 2022; Chmiel and Mazur 2014; Krejtz et al. 2012; Orero 2022; Starr 2022; Walczak and Szarkowska 2012). In academia, AD has gained considerable recognition and visibility mainly since the turn of the 21st century, when AD-specific events and thematic sessions within specialised conferences started taking place on a regular basis (e.g. the Media for All conferences or the ARSAD seminars). In addition, the number of academic publications on AD’s various aspects has also increased significantly, revealing the multi-faceted nature of the topic and the considerable relevance of multiple disciplines to the development of its research. Moreover, it has attracted scholars from different areas, including non-academic institutions that have always acted independently, contributing unique perspectives, methods, and approaches to its study and transforming it into a greatly prolific interdisciplinary research avenue (Mazur 2020; Orero et al. 2018; Perego 2018b). The field has seen collaboration, synergy, and an exchange of ideas from a crossnational perspective implemented in diverse European Union (EU) projects with a common goal of exploring inclusion and accessibility through AD. In the 21st century, projects resulting from the audiovisual translation sector collaboration include Audio Description: Lifelong Access for the Blind (ADLAB, 2011–2014, http://www.adlabproject.eu/home/), Audio Description: A Laboratory for the Development of a New Professional Profile (ADLAB PRO, 2016–2019, https://www.adlabpro.eu/), and Easy Language for Social Inclusion Training (EASIT, 2018–2021, http://pagines. uab.cat/easit/en), all of which delivered remarkably successful results. The ADLAB project provided the first consistent European guidelines for film AD practices (Remael et al. 2015) by conducting transnational research and field work that tested visually impaired users’ reactions to diverse AD solutions for numerous crisis points. The findings assist AD professionals and students in creating quality services and to better understand the challenges of this evolving and growing practice (ADLAB 2012;

Introducing AD  17 Maszerowska et al. 2014; Perego 2018a; Taylor 2014). Thereafter, its successor, the ADLAB PRO project, developed a curriculum of open, free, and fully customisable AD training materials for both academic and vocational contexts. These materials can be adapted to trainers’ and trainees’ needs and educational or professional backgrounds (ADLAB PRO 2017a, 2017b; Perego 2017). The EASIT project explored incorporating simplified language principles into the translation of semiotically complex texts to expand audiovisual services to include people with intellectual and cognitive difficulties. In addition, it developed specific curricula and training materials to establish professional experts in easy-to-understand AD and simultaneously enabled researchers to focus on this new variety by considering the textual and linguistic interventions needed to simplify AD and expand access (Bernabé and Orero 2019; Maaβ 2020; Perego 2020). 1.5

Target users

Since being introduced in the 1970s, AD has increased television access, freedom, and cultural independence and improved the quality of life of visually impaired audiences—its primary target. Based on the literature, in the United States, since its introduction on television, visually impaired people have exhibited an overall positive reaction to the service. They stated that AD makes media more interesting and informative and aids their understanding of key elements in film plots, thus allowing for greater overall enjoyment (Frazier 1975; Peli et al. 1996; Perego 2016a; Schmeidler and Kirchner 2001). Further, AD has sometimes been described as preventing blind people from feeling excluded, for instance, when watching humorous audiovisual content on TV, wherein the visuals trigger laughter or, in general, when watching content that includes substantial silent portions (e.g. the first 20 minutes of Dances with Wolves). Further, studies have demonstrated that screen AD has helped enhance visually impaired people’s comprehension to the extent that they perform at par with sighted viewers, sometimes even outperforming them, on comprehension tests (Frazier and Coutinho-Johnson 1995; Peli et al. 1996; Schmeidler and Kirchner 2001). This is true even when specific AD styles (e.g. cinematic vs. standard)4 are tested (Fryer and Freeman 2012, 2013). Moreover, AD increases a sense of immersion5 for people with sight loss (Fryer and Freeman 2012, 2013), helping them fully experience audiovisual products’ emotional content (Fryer and Freeman 2014). Similarly, in museums and galleries, AD, especially in its enriched form, can ensure or increase visitors’ understanding, engagement, and enjoyment of the experience (Eardley et al. 2016, 2017; Hutchinson and Eardley 2019, 2022; Neves 2012, 2016). Given its cognitive, social, and psychological

18  Introducing AD benefits, AD is a powerful tool that helps prevent isolation and fosters social integration. It has become an invaluable asset for a large section of the visually impaired population worldwide (Cronin and King 1990; Piety 2004; Schmeidler and Kirchner 2001). Although AD was originally intended exclusively for visually impaired people, nowadays it is targeted at, and known to be beneficial to, other, smaller interest groups, including users without any visual impairment; these groups are considered secondary targets for AD (ADLAB 2012; Remael et al. 2015; Starr 2022). Secondary AD users can include anyone who can see but who also needs or prefers to listen, such as sighted viewers choosing films with AD for the aesthetic pleasure derived from its artistic merits (Edelberg 2021), and language learners. AD’s value as a pedagogical implement has been demonstrated in several contexts: it is an aid to literacy (Snyder 2014: 86) and a great source of comprehensible input for second language learners (Beyond Language Learning 2018). By listening, language learners can improve their oral, cultural, lexical, and phraseological competence in a foreign language (e.g. Ibáñez and Vermeulen 2013). AD’s acquisitional potential has been proven in very young users (aged eight to nine years) who accessed educational AD content in their mother tongue. As such, AD is an effective aural guide for children’s visual attention; it facilitates content understanding and helps them to remember and use specialised vocabulary actively, thus increasing their specialised lexical competence (Krejtz et al. 2012; Walczak 2016). A similar effect was also observed via eye-tracking data in teenagers (aged 15–17 years) exposed to audio-described works of art. They focused their eyes on the described elements in the painting significantly, thus developing their visual literacy (Szarkowska et al. 2013). The considerable benefits of AD, however, are not limited to contexts where users are passively exposed to this accessible translation form. Actively using AD can be equally helpful; for example, AD tasks (such as describing clips or images in a foreign language, writing, discussing and comparing ADs collaboratively) also enhance diverse language competences, including oral production skills (Navarrete 2018; Talaván and Lertola 2016), and prompt complex activities such as writing, editing, and summarising, which are instrumental to both L1 strengthening and L2 learning (Perego 2021). In its simplified version, AD has been widely accepted as a powerful accessibility tool for cognitively heterogenous audiences and people with intellectual difficulties, who can benefit from a soundtrack describing what they see using an easy-to-understand language (Bernabé and Orero 2021; Franco et al. 2015; Maaβ 2020; Perego 2020). Recently, the idea of using standard or easy-to-understand AD as often as possible (on television, at cinemas, in museums and galleries) to follow a universalistic approach to

Introducing AD  19 accessibility, therefore promoting social integration, and to favour the sociable (vs. solitary) nature of cultural experiences, has emerged. However, in some circumstances, making AD available to all means having sighted viewers listen to ADs with visually impaired people. This poses the question of what effect ‘unwanted’ AD could have on sighted audiences and whether it would disrupt their immersive experience. Even though empirical research on this matter cannot give a definite answer, it seems to indicate that AD does not pose major challenges to general audiences; sighted viewers who watched AD for a year with their visually impaired families did not find it obtrusive (Cronin and King 1990). This was confirmed in recent research demonstrating that, when AD is added to a film, sighted viewers’ cognitive performance does not deteriorate and a favourable attitude towards AD is promoted despite a lack of familiarity with this translation method (Perego 2016; see Fryer and Freeman 2013). 1.6

Visual disability

In Europe, people with disabilities make up about 16% of the working population, a figure that is constantly increasing for several reasons, including the strong correlation between disability and ageing. Disability is multi-faceted, although people tend to associate it primarily (or only) with physical disability and think that architectural barriers are its only obstacle. Disability barriers are in fact diverse and not necessarily visible. For instance, inappropriate food, difficulties in eating, allergies, complex metabolic diseases, and extreme sensitivities are some barriers. People with disabilities have specific needs, and identifying factors that help them cope with their disability is crucial. An accessible environment can make a considerable difference in making one feel abled or disabled and allowing either participation or exclusion. The European project Accessible Culture & Training (ACT, 2015–2018, https://pagines.uab.cat/ act/), for instance, focussed on promoting equal opportunities and accessibility to cultural events across countries and languages to empower all citizens, especially people with disabilities. They have done so by creating the position of Media Accessibility Expert (or Manager for the Scenic Arts) and developing training activities associated with it. Disability is a complex concept that has evolved over time. Significantly, in 2001, the World Health Assembly approved and published the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) (WHO 2001), an internationally shared tool or framework for describing and organising information on functioning and disability. The ICF Model is a multipurpose classification system designed to serve various disciplines and sectors, providing a standard language and a conceptual basis for the

20  Introducing AD definition and measurement of health and disability, which integrates the major models of disability and recognises the role of environmental factors in their creation as well as the relevance of associated health conditions and their effects. As a result of this approach, disability is seen as multidimensional and interactive: all components of disability are important and each one interacts with the others. Therefore, the ICF Model offers a descriptive profile of an individual’s pattern of functioning rather than state whether someone is disabled. In other words, where to draw the line between no disability and disability depends on the purposes for doing so. There are multiple dimensions of disability and multiple perspectives to consider; therefore, the ICF Model works on a continuum and applies to anyone, whatever their health status, rather than being a classification of people with disabilities only. Accordingly, the term disability is ‘an umbrella term for impairments, activity limitations and participation restrictions. It denotes the negative aspects of the interaction between an individual (with a health condition) and that individual’s contextual factors (environmental and personal factors)’ (WHO 2001: 213). Blindness is a form of disability and has various definitions and degrees. However, such a complex and nuanced concept make it challenging to define a homogeneous and standardised reference group and provide a set of accessibility tools useful for this diversified target. There are no definitive classification guidelines adopted everywhere, and while EU countries share some similarities, they also reflect differences when it comes to defining visual disability, and more specifically, legal blindness (ADLAB 2012; Bianquin and Bulgarelli 2017; Giudice 2018; Perego and Taylor 2022). The WHO classification, also used by the European Blind Union, is a crucial common reference (WHO 2019, 2021). According to this source, at present, at least 2.2 billion people around the world, mainly over 50 years old, have a vision impairment,6 that is, an eye condition affecting the visual system and limiting one or more of its visual functions, ‘which cannot be recovered by usual means (glasses, for instance)’ (WHO 2019: 10). Visual impairment leads to loss of visual acuity, loss of visual field, visual distortion, or visual perception difficulties, and it ranges from partial to total loss of sight (Bianquin and Bulgarelli 2017: 82–83; Giudice 2018). A person experiencing visual impairment or blindness normally faces environmental barriers, such as not having access to eye care services and assistive products. They are likely to experience other limitations in everyday functioning and higher degrees of disability (WHO 2019: 14). At least half of visually impaired people have conditions that could have been prevented or are yet to be addressed, with numbers that are likely to increase given population ageing—a problem that poses an enormous global financial burden (WHO 2019, 2021).

Introducing AD  21 Visual disability is often linked to a range of altered physical and cognitive abilities (Bakke et al. 2019; Besio et al. 2017; Bianquin and Bulgarelli 2017; Giudice 2018; Houwen et al. 2008; Topor 2014; Wyver and Livesey 2003) that cannot be overlooked by professionals working to enhance effective and inclusive communication for blind patrons. Regarding physical abilities, a visually impaired individual’s motor milestones tend to slow down and may need development motivators and assistance. For instance, visual information serves both as stimulus for children to move and feedback for learning to correct and improve movement. Thus, motor development in children with visual impairment is expected to be different from that of typically developing peers (Giudice 2018; Wyver and Livesey 2003): [t]he perception of visual stimuli affects the organisation of human motor actions, and its absence constrains the child to the space that his or her body occupies, restricting his or her exploration to the area closer to him or her and to the objects in which the child is in direct contact. (Bakke et al. 2019: 1) Consequently, they develop a different perception of localisation and orienting and have problems with surrounding perception. It should be noted, however, that orienting is not usually based on external reference points, and being able to refer to oneself is a lifelong need. Yet, persistent disabilities in perceptive spatial experiences, poor body awareness, and difficulties in intricate manipulative processes involving fingers and hands (e.g. picking up and manipulating objects) can continue in adulthood. For such poor manual dexterity, which tends to be less intense and precise, touch is not always a good enough replacement, and an overuse of the legs over the arms is often observed. Visual impairment can also affect cognitive development and behaviour; for instance, the development of logical reasoning can be invalidated, which delays operations of classification and seriation and compromises the conservation of physical quantities, etc. Moreover, visual impairment can cause speech and/or language problems, favouring a mechanical acquisition of language, a poor lexical development, the preferred use (and reception) of catchphrases, as well as a poor ability to use language to maintain relationships and contact. All of which can cause social competence deficiencies and assertive behaviours in non-verbal communication, thereby delaying development of social skills. The level of assistance needed by a visually impaired person depends on the degree of their sight loss and when the loss occurred (Bianquin and Bulgarelli 2017). Understanding the potential effects of visual impairment is essential to help audio describers tailor their descriptive texts to

22  Introducing AD the physical and cognitive characteristics of their prospective target users, especially in art AD. In addition, audio describers should consider a variety of possible modifications to the environment and to the tasks required of the blind visitors to optimise their performance. Concerning art AD, possible adaptations can include extra time, stable and simple environments, the use of sensory cues, and/or handling real/tangible objects or copies without creating impositions (Houwen et al. 2008). People with low vision who have difficulty perceiving objects in poorly lit environments can be helped by the use of contrast, or by avoiding the representation of complex, three-dimensional shapes that have depth as well as figures that do not correspond to their vision potential. Overall, the visual function of people with visual impairment can be maximised by adjusting colour, contrast, lighting, space or distance, and time (Topor 2014). Moreover, their residual vision and fully functioning senses should be stimulated (Bakke et al. 2019), the environment should be simplified, with all excess information eliminated (Topor 2014); exploration with play can be useful, especially when children are involved (Besio et al. 2017). 1.7

AD language

According to Biber (1988), there is a distinction between genre and text type in that the former is a category based on external, non-linguistic, ‘traditional’ criteria, while the latter is based on the internal, linguistic characteristics of texts themselves (Biber 1988: 70, 170). Accordingly, the external criteria defining genre category are, for instance, intended audience, communicative purpose, use, and activity type or setting. Genre therefore ‘refers to a conventional, culturally recognised grouping of texts based on properties other than lexical or grammatical (co-)occurrence features, which are, instead, the internal (linguistic) criteria forming the basis of text type categories’ (Lee 2001: 38). Genres also have the characteristic of being recognised (or owned, Swales 1990) as having a certain legitimacy as groupings of texts (or text varieties) within a speech or discourse community (cf. the case of specialised genres, Swales 1990: 24–27). At present, external criteria are normally used or preferred to classify texts, even though ‘detailed, explicit recommendations do not yet exist in terms of identifying text types or, indeed, any so-called “internal criteria”’ (Lee 2001: 39). For ADs, studies have attempted a broad classification of AD regarding both genre and text type. Genre-wise, all ADs, irrespective of their field of application, are originally designed for a specific audience of visually impaired people. Their main communicative purpose is to make images explicit and intelligible through words that can enhance the cognitive and

Introducing AD  23 emotive experience of (audio)visual content consumption. ADs can be used wherever the visual component is a central meaning-making element of a product. Based on AD’s field of application, we can identify several AD sub-genres including, for instance, screen AD, art AD, theatre AD, opera AD, and dance AD. Even though each sub-genre will display specific textual features, AD has been described as belonging to the text variety known as language for specific purposes shaped by the communicative needs of the members of a particular subject field (Reviers 2017; Salway 2007). Regarding text type, AD has its own specificities (Mazur 2020, 2022; Reviers 2017; Taylor 2015a, 2017; Taylor and Perego 2022a, 2022b), but it should be noted that most studies have focused on English screen AD and overlooked other AD genres and languages. This is because screen AD is particularly widespread, given the popularity of film and TV as easily accessible forms of entertainment (Mazur 2020: 229), while other AD genres are produced and accessed less. Thus, finding other AD texts to analyse is more difficult, and these AD genres still need to be explored systematically in terms of text types. Overall, AD’s linguistic features are primarily determined by its target audience (an AD for children will differ from an AD for adults) and its technical constraints. In screen AD, the major technical limitations are the pace and density of the original dialogue and the relevance of the soundtrack. The audio describer has to fit concise and effective descriptions into the gaps between dialogue and other parts of the soundtrack (Mazur 2022; Perego and Taylor 2022; Rai et al. 2010; Reviers 2017). While this constraint is not prevalent in art AD, the audio describer must consider museum and gallery visitors’ attention spans (Fineman and Cock 2022; Giansante 2015; Ginley 2013; Salzhauer et al. 1996). Irrespective of AD genre, audio describers always have to mediate between the source text’s communicative purpose and the message it conveys, and AD recipients’ communicative needs and their receptive abilities by adapting AD accordingly and making adequate language and style choices (Reviers 2017: 34; Taylor 2015: 46). Language wise, recurring textual, grammatical, and lexical specificities are required. According to current literature, we can offer a reliable overview of some AD language regularities, mainly pertaining to screen AD, that can serve as a reference point for studying other AD genres. Studies on screen AD language primarily focus on the vocabulary that typifies this text type. Clear and concrete vocabulary is normally recommended by guidelines (ADC 2009; Fryer 2016; Ofcom 2000; Perego 2019; Rai et al. 2010; Remael et al. 2015; Snyder 2014) and is used to facilitate visualisation (Taylor 2015a: 47). Lexical words tend to prevail over grammatical items to ensure that the AD is highly informative and lexically

24  Introducing AD dense despite the limited time and space constraints imposed by the medium. Nouns are used frequently to describe characters and their body parts (Mazur 2015: 19) as well as objects and spaces that are important for the film’s plot development (Arma 2011: 339–340; Salway 2007).7 Verbs are used to focus on actions that can better define characters, that move the story forward and focus on temporal transitions (start, begin, stop). In English,8 semantically loaded and highly informative verbs, usually including manner-related information (skip, hurry, lean, grab), are preferred to general verbs (walk) or to longer explicit constructions (move along lightly) (Taylor 2015a: 47). Action verbs, especially verbs of movement and gaze, are far more common in AD than in general language, which empirically supports the autonomy and register-specificity of AD language (Arma 2011: 339–340; Salway 2007). Recurring constructions, such as the copular verbs be or look followed by a complement to describe a character’s physical appearance, are another frequent feature (Salway 2007). Adjectives which ‘convey carefully selected features of a visual content’ (Arma 2011: 284) are common in film AD (see Perego 2018a for their distribution in a small art AD corpus) where every one word out of twenty is an adjective (Arma 2011: 346)—a frequency pattern that likens English screen AD to English fiction (see Biber et al. 1999 based on the Longman Spoken and Written English Corpus). The adjectives concentrate at the beginning of the AD script and when dialogue is sparse (Arma 2011: 347). Their distribution, in terms of semantic categories, reveals a frequency pattern where colour adjectives prevail and are followed by adjectives of position/direction/order, age, quantity, material/fabric, container-contained relation, quietness/movement, weather-related adjectives, and adjectives denoting physical appearance and physical conditions (Arma 2011: 354). The use of colour adjectives is encouraged by guidelines (including art AD guidelines: Giansante 2015; Salzhauer et al. 1996) as they can convey both visual qualities and have cultural and emotional connotations (Fryer 2016: 68–69). Further, because visually impaired people are aware of colours and recognise their symbolic and metaphorical meanings, they share colour understanding with sighted adults (Kim et al. 2021). Traditional screen AD guidelines also call for the use of adjectives that are specific, varied, and vivid but not subjective or evaluative: ‘instead of saying that a sofa is hideous, it is better to describe it (e.g. “a moth-eaten sofa”)’ (ITC 2000: 20), and instead of saying that someone is beautiful or ugly, it is better to mention a feature that makes them appear beautiful or ugly (Mazur 2022), such as having ‘full red lips’ or ‘very dark circles under the eyes’ (see Kleege 2014 and 2016 for an opposite view). The use of appraisal language, that is, expressing approval or disapproval for things, people, behaviour, or ideas however can sometimes contribute to the concision required of some circumstances. Especially in screen AD, where this language is widely

Introducing AD  25 accepted (cf. e.g. the frequently used bundle sadly watch someone found in many AD scripts). In contrast, adverbs are often sacrificed, and whenever possible they are substituted by verbs incorporating modal information (Mazur 2022). When used, descriptive adverbs (angrily) should be preferred to vague or redundant adverbs (clearly) or to adverbs that are easy to infer by the context (then, now) (Fryer 2016; ITC 2000; Piety 2004; Salway 2007). Using vocabulary adequately to provide vivid, imaginative, and informative descriptions is an essential skill of the audio describer, and considering user preferences allows for balanced and usable texts. A survey conducted for the ADLAB PRO project with a group of end-users revealed that they are normally disconcerted by the use of unsuitable language and style. Thus, words need to be chosen accurately to provide precise and simple descriptions based on what is necessary to convey. These principles should facilitate AD’s social and educational functions of helping end-users learn about the world they cannot see (Perego and Taylor 2022: 42). Complex syntactic structures are equally disapproved of by end-users, and, in fact, screen AD can sometimes be off-putting to users. For instance, when simple sentence patterns include syntactic components with a complex internal structure, like in The English Patient’s AD—Dozens of tiny bottles hang from a twisted wooden branch resting upon the shoulders of a desert nomad. Here, we can observe a pre-modification of the noun in the subject and a heavily post-modified noun group embedded in a prepositional phrase following the verb. However, given the tight time constraints, we tend to find unmarked sentence patterns (e.g. SVO: He shakes his head), and overall short coordinates rather than long subordinates (Rai et al. 2010). Coordination is the preferred clause arrangement in screen AD because one needs to report the simultaneity of the events (She takes her notebook and opens the back-seat door in the Sound of Metal’s AD). In English, however, resorting to the use of the conjunctions as and while is equally effective (Taylor 2015b: 54). Further, cross-linguistic and genrebased differences can exist (Mazur 2022; Perego 2018a),9 and the tendency to arrange information in a listener-friendly way is considered: to favour smooth processing, known information is normally located in a sentenceinitial position to provide the best framework for what comes next, and a general to specific, distant to near information organisation pattern is favoured (Taylor 2015a: 48). However, the frequent use of constructions that compress information, such as isolated noun phrases and elliptical clauses, that rely on the elision of unnecessary and predictable elements, can sometimes result in structures that are taxing on the receiver. If simple isolated noun phrases can provide concise spatiotemporal information that is easy to understand (e.g. a bridge under construction; night time; day time), elliptical clauses with a higher descriptive load could require

26  Introducing AD additional processing time (On a table, an elaborate baby cake topped with a baby in a bassinette made of frosting, Lady Bird’s AD). Besides lexical and syntactic specificities, screen AD is characterised by other features. Events are related predominantly in the third person reflecting the voice of an omniscient narrator (She walks away); however, second-person pronouns can occur in some circumstances such as when audio subtitles report direct speech (The Latino guys speed off. Spider reverses up beside Tao. Spider: Those Punk Ass Mexicans messin’ with you?, Gran Torino’s AD) (Taylor 2015a: 48). Additionally, ADs scripted in the first person are another viable option. Here, the story’s main character becomes the describer. This choice allows the listener to question what is being described because of the narrator’s skewed (vs. omniscient and authoritative) perspective (Fels et al. 2006: 296). Screen AD also distinguishes itself through its use of tense and aspect. Describers work in realtime and provide an essentially immediate (Piety 2004: 26) and objective picture of events (Ofcom 2000; Rai et al. 2010. See e.g. Kleege 2016 and Fineman and Cock 2022 holding that neutral ADs cannot exist); thus, they almost exclusively use simple or continuous present tense constructions in declarative sentences. Aspectual choices are linked to the way the action is perceived by the speaker (Lewis 1986); therefore, the simple present is used for one-off or timeless events (Ruben nods and The church helps people in need, not religious people, Sound of Metal’s AD). In addition, they can be used to describe flashback scenes, usually after announcing them (A flashback shows…). Past tense use is limited to referring back to previous descriptions (She stops in front of the shrine and drops in the coins the man had given her as an offering, Memoires of a Geisha’s AD) (Taylor 2015a: 47), however, it is typically avoided because ‘using the past tense is thought to remind people not only of what they have missed, but also of the fact that they have missed it’ (Fryer, 2016: 64). The present continuous in its full construction is very rarely used for actions happening over a stretch of time (Young Iris is working in the beach hut or Iris is wearing a bright red dress, Iris’s AD). Instead, simple aspect tends to be used for these instances. That being said, naked -ing forms are preferred and typically used as modifiers (the flickering fire and the approaching boat, Brief encounter’s AD) or, far more frequently, as participles in non-finite phrases at the beginning of sentences, in theme position, and as an effective economic strategy (Carrying her cake plate, Martha leaves the party, Lady Bird’s AD). Occasionally, the present perfect is used, if the sequence of two events needs to be emphasised (Mazur 2022) (Thao hurries up the stairs and finds that Walt has locked him in the basement, Gran Torino’s AD). As a text, screen AD should be cohesive, therefore, helping receivers to understand it with reasonable ease and find a sense of continuity (Taylor

Introducing AD  27 2015a: 50). Cohesion is determined by implicit and explicit links (or semantic relations) that keep the text together and are considered meaningful to the reader. If the text is multimodal, such as in audio-described film, elements linking the spoken narration to the visual elements are also necessary for the user to follow the sequence of events. Cohesion relies on elements including linking words to words or expressions from the same semantic field, lexical elements (words or characteristic formulations) that re-occur regularly throughout the film AD, and the use of demonstratives referring backwards or forwards within the visual and the verbal text or even outside the text. Finally, regarding AD and language objectivity, there are differing opinions internationally (e.g. Fineman and Cock 2022; Hutchinson and Eardley 2020; Kleege 2016; Perego 2018a), with a difference in stance between US and UK audio describers. The UK describer community holds that true objectivity, neutrality, and detachment are not possible, which is predominantly based on the assumption that language inevitably comes with connotations and associations differing across audio describers, and that the receiver ‘can ascribe the particular word choices to the subjectivity of the author. With AD, the illusion of objectivity is reinforced because the description is delivered without authorship, as if it represents some unassailable truth’ (Kleege 2016: 94). Regarding art AD in particular, Fineman and Cock (2022: 218) highlight that ‘any form of museum interpretation is, precisely by its nature, an interpretation’. Therefore, good practice would imply that AD should explain why particular claims are made, e.g. the apparently subjective assertion ‘this painting has a sombre feeling’ could be substituted with a longer AD including both the descriptive details and an emotional reading, explaining why the describer is led to think that: ‘the painting’s muted colours— ochre, cream, and olive—and the man’s downcast gaze give this painting a sombre feeling’. Such AD would enable the listener to select a different interpretation of the colour palette and facial expression but would also provide a suggestion pertaining to the formation of meta images and possible aesthetic judgements for those who prefer learning about conceptualising visual phenomena or recognising pictorial conventions through an interpretative and emotive AD (Kleege 2014). This task cannot be achieved using a neutral stretch of text. 1.8

Procedural discourse in AD

When we think of AD, and especially of screen AD or stand-alone art ADs, we tend to consider its basic yet dominant scope—making the visual verbal (Snyder 2007, 2014). This is normally achieved through a narrative

28  Introducing AD text that uses a language rich in descriptive words such as adjectives, adverbs, or verbs to enhance story details. Descriptive language adds depth to a piece of writing; it can evoke emotions while forming a picture in the listener’s mind, and it helps the listener become more connected to the text by appealing to their senses. There are circumstances, however, where descriptions stimulating imagination and visualisation are mixed with practical instructions about how something should be done or operated. This occurs most often when AD’s time constraints are relatively loose, such as in art AD, where the describer often has to deliver strings of texts which focus on practical information that give users instructions for action (Fina 2018: 29), namely (i) direct the listener towards the right physical and metaphorical steps to better enjoy and engage with the artwork, (ii) explain how to use receptor tools or audio guides, (iii) help blind visitors to navigate from one exhibit to the other through directional language, or (iv) guide the visitor’s hand in handling and deciphering an art object through tactile instructions. These rhetorical moves fall into the category of procedural texts, namely action-oriented texts with the aim of providing information (or rather instructions) that will enable people to successfully perform an activity fulfilling their expectations. Thus, procedural texts enable complex content and rhetorical moves, and the use of quasi-formulaic templates (Isani 2019: 4; see Anderson and Anderson 1997; Cacchiani 2013; Derewianka 1990). Normally, a procedural text is written. It is highly planned and coherent, avoids figurative language, uses technical and specialised terms, uses time connectives that indicate action’s chronological order, gives important procedural details, and assumes very little. Structurally, especially when written (e.g. instruction manuals, but also pre-recorded tourist guides), these texts can be organised in headings, sections, and subsections to ensure that the aims of a given procedure are clear, that users are offered the necessary warning regarding the following stages of the procedure, and that each new step is organised in clear sequences seamlessly moving from one to the next. Some recurring linguistic features, which are common in other text types with similar aims, are the use of the timeless present tense that enables readers to focus on the action expressed by the verb, and the regular use of the second person pronoun addressing the reader in a general way. Imperatives, especially at the beginning of each sentence, are meant to facilitate readers’ ability to follow the process outlined in the text step-by-step. Screen AD does not include any procedural texts. However, accessible art AD lends itself to including instructions and guiding texts, namely portions of procedural texts whose level of detail depends on the implied reader and their expected level of autonomy. The English track used to guide visitors from Porta Venezia to Piazza Duomo in Milan

Introducing AD  29 (Example 1.1) is a good example of how procedural discourse is exploited to provide way-finding instructions that are meant to help sighted people move around open-air spaces: Example 1.1 AD excerpt from the Accessible Itinerary: Museums and Gardens (yesmilano.it) From the side of the square that overlooks Corso Buenos Aires, cross the pedestrian crossing in the direction of the Bastioni (there is a 4-meter stretch of very uneven asphalt with tram rails), pass through the two Bastioni and walk along Corso Venezia, formerly named ‘Corso di Porta Orientale’, which connected the city centre with the homonymous gate. After 200 meters, at number 57, you reach the entrance to the Civico Planetario Hoepli. The text includes explicit and detailed instructions in the form of commands to reach the goal (e.g. cross, pass through, walk along). In addition, it includes risks and difficulty indicators (Dautriche and Saint-Dizier 2009: 75) (e.g. there is a 4-meter stretch of very uneven asphalt with tram rails) that contribute to the success of the goal encoded in the procedure. Overall, procedural texts are common in art AD when an enriched or multisensory approach is chosen (par. 2.4) and providing physical or metaphorical orientation is necessary. Specifically, these aspects will be analysed later in the book to assess whether recurrent patterns are used, with the awareness that this type of rhetorical patterning does not typify all AD genres available on the market. Notes 1 The term D/deaf is used to refer to two distinct groups: people who are deaf but who belong to the social context of the hearing majority and relate to the oral language as their mother tongue, and the Deaf, a social and linguistic minority, who use a sign language as their mother tongue and read the national language as a second language. (Neves 2008, Note 2) 2 Broadly speaking, Easy Language is a language variety with maximally enhanced comprehensibility for an audience with cognitive and intellectual disabilities (Maaß 2020; Perego 2020). Easy Language also concerns paralanguage. Accordingly, besides reducing a message to its minimum (content and language), it guides users through text via language-independent features, enhancing its comprehensibility and increasing its usability. In contrast, Plain Language covers the area between Easy Language and standard or even specialised language and is meant to make a message (especially that of specialised texts) readily available

30  Introducing AD to all (i.e. non-specialist users). Both Easy and Plain Language are user-centred, reader- vs. text-oriented varieties. 3 Slovenia, where media accessibility is regulated by a strong legal framework and its implementation is supervised and secured by the national broadcaster Radio Televizija Slovenija, is a notable exception in Europe (Vodeb and Rot 2022). 4 Cinematic audio description uses filmic terms referring to editing, mise-en-scène and cinematography. For instance, in the AD of Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes (1938) by CaptionMax: Now, in black and white footage, a mountain top view looks down over a village nestled in foothills, or further on: The camera pans from the depot to a small village. 5 A term referring to strong emotional involvement and reactions toward media exposure. For details on the notion of immersion, which traces back to the studies of the Hungarian psychologist Mihály Csikszentmihályi, see Wissmath et al. (2009). 6 According to the ICF Model, impairment is a general term used to describe a problem in the function or structure of a person’s body due to a health condition (WHO 2001: 58). 7 Salway (2007) examines an AD corpus created as part of the Television in Words (TIWO) project. It includes English AD scripts from 91 films (618,859 words) representing different genres (period dramas, thrillers, comedies, and children’s). He then compares the use of words in the special corpus (the language of AD) with the British National Corpus (representative of general language use) to determine the most striking differences between the two. Arma (2011) examines a corpus using 69 AD film scripts (of films released between 1947 and 2002) from the TIWO corpus and focuses on the adjectival patterns in AD and their frequency while also comparing English and Italian film ADs. 8 Other languages may behave differently, like Spanish; this understanding has emerged from a contrastive analysis of the English and the Spanish ADs of The Hours conducted by Bourne and Jiménez Hurtado (2007). 9 Comparing English and Italian, for instance, Arma (2012: 45) counts few secondary clauses in Chocolat’s English AD and a completely different clausal distribution in the Italian AD, where long embedded clauses and complex syntactic structures reflect the typical style of written Italian. Similarly, things can be different in art AD, where the length of the sentences can increase, and the preferred syntactic patterns and taxis differ (Perego 2018). This can sometimes require simplification processes to make art AD usable for special audiences (Taylor and Perego 2021).

Filmography Brief Encounter (N. Coward, 1945). AD written by Di Langford Chocolat (L. Hallström, 2000). English AD by RNIB, Italian AD by Senza Barriere ONLUS Dances with Wolves (K. Costner, 1990) Gran Torino (C. Eastwood, 2008). AD by deluxe Iris (J. Lespert, 2016). AD written by Di Langford Lady Bird (G. Gerwig, 2017). AD by Netflix Memoires of a Geisha (R. Marshall, 2005). Blu-Ray Audio Commentary

Introducing AD  31 Sound of Metal (D. Marder, 2019). AD by Media Access Group at WGBH, with funding of Amazon Studios The English Patient (M. Ondaatje, 1996). AD written by Di Langford, RNIB Home Video Service The Hours (S. Daldry, 2002). AD written and produced at IMS, Aquarium Studio The Lady Vanishes (A. Hitchcock, 1938). AD by CaptionMax

References ADC (2009). Standards for audio description and code of professional conduct for describers. http://www.audiodescriptioncoalition.org/adc_standards_090615.pdf ADLAB (2012). Report on user needs assessment. http://www.adlabproject.eu/ project/deliverables/ ADLAB PRO (2017a). Assessment of current AD training practices [Project report]. adlabpro.eu/ ADLAB PRO (2017b). Audio description professional: Profile definition [Project report]. adlabpro.eu/ Anderson, M., & Anderson, K. (1997). Text types in English. Macmillan Education. Arma, S. (2011). The language of filmic audio description: A corpus-based analysis of adjectives [Unpublished doctoral thesis]. University of Naples Federico II, Italy. Arma, S. (2012). “Why can’t you wear black shoes like the other mothers?” Preliminary investigation on the Italian language of audio description. In E. Perego (Ed.), Emerging topics in translation: Audio description (pp. 37–55). EUT. Baker, M. (2012, December 21). Mona Baker interview [Video]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erRbzFuOiQs Bakke, H.A., Cavalcante, W.A., de Oliveira, I.S., Sarinho, S.W., & Cattuzzo, M.T. (2019). Assessment of motor skills in children with visual impairment: A systematic and integrative review. Clinical Medicine Insights: Pediatrics, 13, 1–10. Bernabé, R., & Orero, P. (2019). Easy to read as multimode accessibility service. Hermeneus, 21, 53–74. Bernabé, R., & Orero, P. (2021). Exploring the potential of easy-to-read principles in simplifying AD. In S. Braun & K. Starr (Eds.), Innovation in audio description research (pp. 55–75). Routledge. Besio, S., Bulgarelli, D., & Stancheva-Popkostadinova, V. (Eds.). (2017) Play development in children with disabilities. De Gruyter Open Poland. Beyond Language Learning (2018). Audio description of TV and movies: A great source of comprehensible input for language learners. Beyond Language Learning. https://beyondlanguagelearning.com/ Bianquin, N., & Bulgarelli, D. (2017). Conceptual review of disabilities. In S. Besio, D. Bulgarelli & V. Stancheva-Popkostadinova (Eds.), Play development in children with disabilities (pp. 71–78). De Gruyter Open Poland. Biber, D. (1988). Variation across speech and writing. CUP. Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., & Finegan, E. (1999). Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Longman.

32  Introducing AD Bogucki, Ł., & Deckert, M. (2020). The Palgrave handbook of audiovisual translation and media accessibility. Palgrave MacMillan. Borshchevsky, I., & Kozulyaev, A. (2022). Audio description in Russia. In C. Taylor & E. Perego (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of audio description (pp. 579–595). Routledge. Bourne, J., & Jiménez Hurtado, C. (2007). From the visual to the verbal in two languages: a contrastive analysis of the audio description of The Hours in English and Spanish. In J. Diaz Cintas, P. Orero & A. Remal (Eds.), Media for all (pp. 175–187). Brill. Braun, S., & Starr, K. (Eds.). (2021) Innovation in audio description research. Routledge. Braun, S., & Starr, K. (2022). Automating audio description. In C. Taylor & E. Perego (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of audio description (pp. 391–406). Routledge. Cacchiani, S. (2013). Understanding written practical instructions. Aracne. Chandler, D., & Munday, R. (2011). A dictionary of media and communication. OUP. Chmiel, A., & Mazur, I. (2014). AD reception research: Some methodological considerations. In E. Perego (Ed.), Emerging topics in translation: Audio description (pp. 57–80). EUT. Cronin, B.J., & King, S.R. (1990). The development of the descriptive video service. Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, 84(10), 503–506. Dautriche, I., & Saint-Dizier, P. (2009) A Conceptual and operational model for procedural texts and its use in textual integration. Proceedings of the 8th international conference on computational semantics (pp. 73–89). Tilburg. Derewianka, B. (1990). Exploring how texts work. Primary English Teaching Association. Eardley, A.F., Fryer, L., Hutchinson, R., Cock, M., Ride, P., & Neves, J. (2017). Enriched audio description: Working towards an inclusive museum experience. In S. Halder & L.C. Assaf (Eds.), Inclusion, disability and culture. An ethnographic perspective traversing abilities and challenges (pp. 195–209). Springer International. Eardley, A.F., Mineiro, C., Neves, J., & Ride, P. (2016). Redefining access: Embracing multimodality, memorability and shared experiences in museums. The Museum Journal, 59(3), 263–286. Edelberg, E. (2021). 10 movies you should watch with audio description. https:// www.3playmedia.com/blog/10-movies-should-watch-audio-description/. Fels, D.I., Udo, J.P., Diamond, J.E., & Diamond, J.I. (2006). A comparison of alternative narrative approaches to video description for animated comedy. JVIB, 100(5), 295–305. Figiel, W., & Albin, K. (2022). Receptor tools. In C. Taylor & E. Perego (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of audio description (pp. 353–364). Routledge. Fina, E. (2018). Investigating effective audio guiding. Carocci. Fineman, A., & Cock, M. (2022). Audio description in museums: A service provider perspective. In C. Taylor & E. Perego (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of audio description (pp. 215–231). Routledge.

Introducing AD  33 Franco, E., & Santiago Araújo, V.L. (2022). Audio description in Brazil. In C. Taylor & E. Perego (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of audio description (pp. 596–612). Routledge. Franco, E., Silveira, D., & Carneiro, B. (2015). Audio describing for an audience with learning disabilities in Brazil: A pilot study. In R. Baños Piñero & J. DìazCintas (Eds.), Audiovisual translation in a global context (pp. 99–109). Palgrave MacMillan. Frazier, G. (1975). The autobiography of Miss Jane Pitman: An all-audio adaptation of the teleplay for the blind and visually handicapped [Unpublished MA dissertation]. San Francisco State University. Frazier, G., & Coutinho-Johnson, I. (1995). The effectiveness of audio description in providing access to educational AV media for blind and visually impaired students in high school. Audio Vision. Fryer, L. (2016). An introduction to audio description. Routledge. Fryer, L., & Freeman, J. (2012). Presence in those with and without sight: Audio description and its potential for virtual reality applications. Journal of Cyber Therapy and Rehabilitation, 5(1), 15–23. Fryer, L., & Freeman, J. (2013). Cinematic language and the description of film: Keeping AD users in the frame. Perspectives, 21(3), 412–426. Fryer, L., & Freeman, J. (2014). Can you feel what I’m saying? The impact of verbal information on emotion elicitation and presence in people with a visual impairment. In A. Felnhofer & O.D. Kothgassner (Eds.), Challenging presence (pp. 99–107). facultas.wuv. Giansante, L. (2015). Writing verbal descriptions for audio guides. Art Beyond Sight. http://www.artbeyondsight.org/mei/verbal-description-training/writing-verbaldescription-for-audio-guides/ Ginley, B. (2013). Museums: A whole new world for visually impaired people. Disability Studies Quarterly, 33(3), 1–15. Giudice, N.A. (2018). Navigating without vision: Principles of blind spatial cognition. In R.D. Montello (Ed.), Handbook of behavioral and cognitive geography (pp. 260–288). Edward Elgar. Greco, G.M. (2018). The nature of accessibility studies. JAT, 1(1), 205–232. Hardy, M. (2012, May 3). Gregory Frazier’s innovation in audio description [Video]. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GsGfV2yUIU Holsanova, J. (2022). A cognitive approach to audio description: Production and reception processes. In C. Taylor & E. Perego (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of audio description (pp. 57–77). Routledge. Houwen, S., Visscher, C., Lemmink, K., Hartman, E. (2008). Motor skill performance of school-age children with visual impairments. Dev Med Child Neurol, 50, 139–145. Hutchinson, R.S., & Eardley, A.F. (2019). Museum audio description: The problem of textual fidelity. Perspectives, 27(1), 42–57. Hutchinson, R.S., & Eardley, A.F. (2020). The accessible museum: Towards an understanding of international audio description practices in museums. JVIB, 114(6), 475–487.

34  Introducing AD Hutchinson, R.S., & Eardley, A.F. (2022). Visitor studies: Interdisciplinary methods for understanding the impact of inclusive museum audio description experiences. In C. Taylor & E. Perego (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of audio description (pp. 232–245). Routledge. Ibáñez, A., & Vermeulen, A. (2013). Audio description as a tool to improve lexical and phraseological competence in foreign language learning. In G. George & D. Tsigari (Eds.), Translation in language teaching and assessment (pp. 45–61). Cambridge Scholars. Isani, S. (2019). Of technical writing, instructions for use as a specialised genre and discourse. La Revue du GEAS, 75, 3–23. ITC (Independent Television Commission) (2000). Guidance on standards for audio description. Ofcom. Jakobson, R. (1959). On linguistic aspects of translation. On Translation, 3, 30–39. Jankowska, A. (2015). Translating audio description scripts. Peter Lang. Katan, D. (2016). Translation at the cross-roads: Time for the transcreational turn? Perspectives, 24(3), 365–381. Kim, J.S., Aheimer, B., Montané Manrara, V., & Bedny M. (2021). Shared understanding of color among sighted and blind adults. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 118. Kleege, G. (2014). What does dance do, and who says so? Some thoughts on blind access to dance performance. BJVI, 32(1): 7–13. Kleege, G. (2016). Audio description described: Current standards, future innovations, larger implications. Representations, 135(1), 89–101. Krejtz, I., Szarkowska, A., Krejtz, K., Walczak, A., & Duchowski, A. (2012). Audio description as an aural guide of children’s visual attention: Evidence from an eye-tracking study. ETRA ’12, Proceedings of the symposium on eye tracking research and applications (pp. 99–106). ACM. Kress, G., & Van Leeuwen, T. (1996). Reading images: The grammar of visual design. Routledge. Kress, G., & Van Leeuwen, T. (2001). Multimodal discourse. Arnold. Lee, D.Y.W. (2001). Genres, registers, text types, domains and styles: Clarifying the concepts and navigating a path through the BNC jungle. Language Learning and Technology, 5(3), 37–72. Lewis, M. (1986). The English verb. Heinle. Lockwood, D.P. (1918). Two thousand years of Latin translation from the Greek. Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, 49, 115–129. Luyken, G.M., & Herbst, T. (1991). Overcoming language barriers in television: Dubbing and subtitling for the European audience. European Institute for the Media. Maaß, C. (2020) Easy language – Plain language – Easy language plus. Frank & Timme. Maszerowska, A., Matamala, A., & Orero P. (2014). Audiodescription: New perspectives illustrated. Benjamins. Matamala, A. (2021) Media accessibility [Video lecture]. EASIT educational materials. https://transmediacatalonia.uab.cat/easit/unit-1/element-4/what-is-mediaaccessibility/

Introducing AD  35 Mazur, I. (2015). Characters and actions. In A. Remael, N. Reviers & G. Vercauteren (Eds.), Pictures painted in words. ADLAB audio description guidelines (pp.19–23). EUT. Mazur, I. (2020). Audio description: Concepts, theories and research approaches. In Ł. Bogucki & M. Deckert, M. (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of audiovisual translation and media accessibility (pp. 227–248). Palgrave MacMillan. Mazur, I. (2022). Linguistic and textual aspects of audio description. In C. Taylor & E. Perego (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of audio description (pp. 93–106). Routledge. Mosconi, M., & Porta, M. (2012). Accessibility and usability in the context of human-computer interaction. In E. Perego (Ed.), Eye tracking in audiovisual translation (pp. 105–133). Aracne. Munday, J. (2008). Introducing translation studies. Routledge. Navarrete, M. (2018). The use of audio description in foreign language education. A preliminary approach. Translation and Translanguaging in Multilingual Contexts, 4(1), 129–150. Neves, J. (2008). 10 fallacies about subtitling for the d/Deaf and the hard of hearing. JoSTrans, 10, 128–143. Neves, J. (2012). Multi-sensory approaches to (audio) describing the visual arts. MonTI, 4, 277–293. Neves, J. (2016). Enriched descriptive guides: A case for collaborative meaningmaking in museum. Cultus, 9(2), 137–153. Ofcom (2000). ITC Guidance on standards for audio description. Ofcom. Orero, P. (2022). Audio description personalization. In C. Taylor & E. Perego (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of audio description (pp. 407–419). Routledge. Orero, P., Doherty, S., Kruger, J.-L., Matamala, A., Pedersen, J., Perego, E., Romero-Fresco, P., Rovira-Esteva, S., Soler-Vilageliu, O., & Szarkowska, A. (2018). Conducting experimental research in audiovisual translation: A position paper. JoSTrans, (30), 105–126. O’Sullivan, C., & Cornu, J.F. (2018). History of audiovisual translation. In L. Pérez-Gonzáles (Ed.). The Routledge handbook of audiovisual translation (pp. 31–46). Routledge. Peli, E., Fine, E., & Labianca, A. (1996). Evaluating visual information provided by audio description. JVIB, 90(5), 378–385. Perego, E. (2016). Gains and losses of audio description in sighted viewers. Target, 28(3), 424–444. Perego, E. (2017). Audio description: A laboratory for the development of a new professional profile. International Journal of Translation, 19, 131–142. Perego, E. (2018a). Into the language of museum audio descriptions: A corpusbased study. Perspectives, 27(3), 333–349. Perego, E. (2018b). Cross-national research in audiovisual translation: Some methodological considerations. JAT, 1(1), 64–80. Perego, E. (2019). Audio description. Evolving recommendations for usable, effective, and enjoyable practices. In L. Pérez Gonzáles (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of audiovisual translation (pp. 114–129). Routledge. Perego, E. (2020). Accessible communication: A cross-country journey. Frank & Timme.

36  Introducing AD Perego, E. (2021). Extending the uses of museum audio description: Implications for translation training and English language acquisition. Textus, 1, 229–253. Perego, E., & Pacinotti, A. (2020). Audiovisual translation through the ages. In Ł. Bogucki & M. Deckert (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of audiovisual translation and media accessibility (pp. 33–56). Palgrave MacMillan. Perego, E., & Taylor, C. (2022). A profile of audio description end-users: Linguistic needs and inclusivity. In C. Taylor & E. Perego (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of audio description (pp. 38–53). Routledge. Pérez Gonzáles, L. (Ed.). (2019) The Routledge handbook of audiovisual translation. Routledge. Pharmacopoeia (2009). Cradle to grave. In M. Wynants (Ed.), In sickness and in health: The future of medicine. VUBPress. Piety, P. (2004). The language system of audio description. JVIB, 98(8), 453–469. Rai, S., Greening, & J., Petré, L. (2010). A comparative study of audio description guidelines prevalent in different countries. RNIB. Remael, A., Reviers, N., & Vercauteren, G. (2015). Pictures painted in words: ADLAB audio description guidelines. EUT. Reviers, N. (2017). Audio description in Dutch: A corpus-based study into the linguistic features of a new, multimodal text type [Unpublished Doctoral dissertation]. University of Antwerp, Belgium. Salway, A. (2007). A corpus-based analysis of audio description. In J. Díaz Cintas, P. Orero & A. Remael (Eds.), Media for all: Subtitling for the deaf, audio description and sign language (pp. 151–174). Rodopi. Salzhauer, A.E., Hooper, E., Kardoulias, V., Stephenson, T., Keyes, S., & Rosenberg, F. (1996). AEB’s guidelines for verbal description adapted from making visual art accessible to people who are blind and visually impaired. Art Beyond Sight. http://www.artbeyondsight.org/handbook/acs-guidelines.shtml Schmeidler, E., & Kirchner C. (2001). Adding audio description: Does it make a difference? JVIB, 95(4), 197–212. Seeley, K. (2022). Audio description in Australia. In C. Taylor & E. Perego (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of audio description (pp. 560–578). Routledge. Singh, R. (2022). Audio description in Canada. In C. Taylor & E. Perego (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of audio description (pp. 544–559). Routledge. Snyder, J. (2007). Audio description: The visual made verbal. International Journal of the Arts in Society, 2, 99–104. Snyder, J. (2014). The visual made verbal. A comprehensive training manual and guide to the history and applications of audio description. Dog Ear. Snyder, J. (2022). Audio description in the United States. In C. Taylor & E. Perego (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of audio description (pp. 531–543). Routledge. Starr, K. (2022). Audio description for the non-blind. In C. Taylor & E. Perego (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of audio description (pp. 476–493). Routledge. Swales, J. (1990). Genre analysis. CUP. Szarkowska, A., Krejtz, I., Krejtz, K., Duchowski, A. (2013). Harnessing the potential of eye-tracking for media accessibility. In S. Grucza, M. Płużyczka, J. Zając (Eds.), Translation studies and eye-tracking analysis (pp. 153–183). Peter Lang. Talaván, N., & Lertola, J. (2016). Active audiodescription to promote speaking skills in online environments. Sintagma, 28, 59–74.

Introducing AD  37 Taylor, C. (2014). ADLAB: Aspetti di un progetto sull’audiodescrizione. In E. Perego (Ed.). Emerging topics in translation: Audio description (pp. 47–57). EUT. Taylor, C. (2015a). The language of AD. In A. Remael, N. Reviers & G. Vercauteren (Eds.), Pictures painted in words. ADLAB audio description guidelines (pp. 48–51), EUT. Taylor, C. (2015b). Language as access: Transposition and translation of audiovisual texts as a vehicle of meaning and a gateway to understanding. In S. Starc, C. Jones & A. Maiorani (Eds.), Meaning making in text (pp. 170–193). Palgrave MacMillan. Taylor, C. (2017). Audio description: A practical application of multimodal studies. In O. Seizov & J. Wildfeuer (Eds.), New studies in multimodality: Conceptual and methodological elaborations (pp. 153–174). Bloomsbury Academic. Taylor, C. (2020). Multimodality and intersemiotic translation. In Ł. Bogucki & M. Deckert (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of audiovisual translation and media accessibility (pp. 83–100). Palgrave MacMillan. Taylor, C., & Perego, E. (2021). New approaches to accessibility and audio description in museum environments. In S. Braun & K. Starr (Eds.), Innovation in audio description research (pp. 33–54). Routledge. Taylor, C., & Perego, E. (Eds). (2022a) The Routledge handbook of audio description. Routledge. Taylor, C., & Perego, E. (2022b). Museum audio description: The role of ADLAB PRO. In C. Taylor & E. Perego (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of audio description (pp. 200–214). Routledge. Topor I. (2014). Functional vision assessment and early intervention practices. In D. Chen (Ed.), Essential elements in early intervention: Visual impairment and multiple disabilities (p. 637). American Foundation for the Blind Press. United Nations (2006). The United Nations convention on the rights of persons with disabilities. https://www.un.org Vodeb, M., & Rot, V. (2022). Audio description in Slovenia. In C. Taylor & E. Perego (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of audio description (pp. 613–629). Routledge. Walczak, A. (2016). Foreign language class with audio description: A case study. In A. Matamala & P. Orero (Eds.), Researching audio description, new approaches (pp. 187–204). Palgrave Macmillan. Walczak, A., & Szarkowska, A. (2012). Text-to-speech audio description of educational materials for visually impaired children. In S. Bruti & E. di Giovanni (Eds.). Audiovisual translation across Europe (pp. 209–233). Peter Lang. WHO (World Health Organization) (2001). International classification of functioning, disability, and health. WHO. WHO (World Health Organization) (2019). World report on vision. WHO. WHO (World Health Organization) (2021). Blindness and vision impairment. WHO. Wissmath, B., Weibel, D., & Rudolf, D. (2009). Dubbing or subtitling? Effects on spatial presence, transportation, flow, and enjoyment. Journal of Media Psychology, 21, 114–125. Wyver, S.R., Livesey, D.J. (2003). Kinaesthetic sensitivity and motor skills of school-aged children with a congenital visual impairment. BJVI, 21, 25–31.

2 AD for the arts

2.1

What is art?

Providing a comprehensive definition of art is not within the scope of this book, especially since a concrete definition has consistently eluded academia. The notion of art is so multifaceted and nebulous that most definitions seem lacking or incomplete. For instance, definitions that emphasise the connection between art and beauty or highlight art’s ability to emotionally provoke tend to focus on how audiences respond to art. This idea is limiting—it confines the art experience. On the other hand, more abstract and enigmatic definitions leave the boundaries too open. Thus, although limiting it to one definition is not ideal, we will use the sufficiently broad and pertinent definition of art as the most effective yet basic mode of communication that exists for both artist and audience (Dewey 1934; Finlay 2020; Mittler 2006). In addition, art can be seen as an ‘activity through which people express particular ideas’ (Cambridge Dictionary), selfhood/ identity, moods, or emotions (Gombrich 1950/1995). Consequently, while art is not necessary for physical survival, it plays an essential role in our lives, especially for those who persist in creating, performing, and appreciating it (Mittler 2006: 6–8). Further, along with music, literature, and poetry, the visual arts in particular are a means of expression that capture the interest, imagination, and appreciation of others (Mittler 2006: 8). Art can take different forms, and two primary forms include fine arts and applied arts. In the visual arts, fine arts refers to painting, sculpture, and architecture; in other words, fine arts are art forms which have no practical function but are valued for providing visual pleasure or their success in communicating ideas or feelings. The one exception is architecture, which involves designing structures that strive to be both attractive and functional; thus, it is also considered an applied art. Accordingly, the distinction between fine arts and applied arts is vague, but generally, applied arts describes the aesthetic design or decoration of functional objects. They can be made by either hand or machine and are primarily intended to DOI: 10.4324/9781003134237-3

AD for the arts  39 serve a useful function. Artists who create applied arts or crafts are usually referred to as designers, artisans, or craftspeople (Mittler 2006). Artists, driven by a shared impulse to create, use their imagination, creativity, and skills to express themselves in a tangible, visually appealing way (Finlay 2020; Mittler 2006). Therefore, anyone working to make art accessible to diverse audiences should aim to be active art readers and critical art viewers. Gaining an understanding and appreciation for an artwork requires preparation but can be deeply satisfying. Further, for audio descriptors, understanding art elements (colours, values, lines, textures, shapes, forms, and space relationships) and being able to interpret their combinations or grammar, especially in the complex multimodal contexts of an increasingly visual culture (HooperGreenhill 2000; Kress and Van Leeuwen 1996), is essential. Therefore, understanding visual narratives, developing an adequate visual vocabulary, being acquainted with processes and materials, and recognising the value of artistic disciplines will be crucial for art audio describers to examine and critically respond to a variety of visual art forms. In addition, this type of knowledge is crucial to effectively provide a verbal description of a given artwork’s aesthetic qualities, thus providing AD users with an optimal experience. Art has the power to enrich, inspire, enlighten, stir the imagination, arouse curiosity, instil wonder and delight, and incite strong emotional reactions (Mittler 2006: 21); visually impaired people deserve these experiences as well. AD provides them these experiences so that they can participate in keeping culture alive. 2.2

Museums and galleries

In Europe, museums and galleries have been in existence since the 17th century, while in many other parts of the world they have been created more recently (Alexander and Alexander 2008; Mason et al. 2018). One might expect to find museums and galleries in any large city, with visitors of the same scope, role, and pattern. In fact, museums and galleries come in many forms and sizes and have diverse functions. Furthermore, what we call museums and galleries have different names in different languages and societies, thus reflecting the complexity of cultural ecology and the different approaches of institutions and funders (Mason et al. 2018: 15, 33, 36). Broadly speaking, the word gallery is the British English synonym of the American English art museum. However, museums and galleries function as two different types of entities. Galleries can exhibit artwork that is still owned by the artists, and they are generally private spaces that contain, show, and sell either contemporary art or historical art objects and experiences, holding either a permanent collection or, preferably, a temporary exhibition. Museums own their collection of artworks and tend to be public and non-commercial institutions that permanently house, preserve, curate, and display an enormous range of mostly historical artefacts, resulting either in big thematic museums

40  AD for the arts (such as natural history museums) or in smaller local specific-interest museums (such as The Fan Museum in Greenwich, London) (Mason et al. 2018: 7, 34–35, 39). The International Council of Museums (ICOM)1 has always emphasised the non-profit quality of these institutions and their central role as public institution, with a strong educational purpose in the service of society and its development. They should unite people by both demonstrating cultural, social, and geographical differences and reinforcing traditions of lasting interest or value for future generations (Black 2012; Mason et al. 2018: 39–40). However, compared to the past, in the 21st century, museums and galleries have started focusing on accessibility, inclusivity, and attention to users. This aligns with the new ICOM definition of museums as institutions that are ‘accessible and inclusive’ fostering ‘diversity and sustainability. They operate and communicate ethically, professionally, and with the participation of communities, offering varied experiences for education, enjoyment, reflection and knowledge sharing’ (ICOM 2022). The museum and gallery visitor (or user2) has acquired an essential role (Black 2005, 2012; Hutchinson and Eardley 2022; Recupero et al. 2019; Samis and Michaelson 2017). This has reshaped these institutions’ collection and curation methods, which have become primarily user centred. Furthermore, the general user-focused approach of museums and galleries has made them embrace audiences who are traditionally under-represented and have lower artistic knowledge. They are required to increase their emphasis on diverse aspects of accessibility, specifically content accessibility (Black 2012; Dobbin et al. 2016; Eardley et al. 2016, 2017; Falk and Dierking 2013; Greco 2018; Levent and Pascual-Leone 2014; Mason et al. 2018; Recupero et al. 2019; Trench 2018). Regarding visitors, museums and galleries have realised they must consider the needs of new audiences who have a wider scope of leisure trends and opportunities, thus transforming their preferences, demands, and expectations (Black 2012: 33). Accordingly, the old image of the museum as a series of cluttered rooms housing ancient items with incomprehensible specialised captions has changed considerably and continues to transform (Black 2012). The refurbishing of museums and galleries has been decisive in the attempt not only to convert casual one-off visitors into regular art users and consumers but also to re-establish the role and the relevance of museums in society. To attract new audiences, museums have started to incorporate items that would have never been included in an exhibition space before. These include heritage belonging to non-local traditions and intangible heritage practices. Moreover, museums started to accept the selling of artefacts to reinforce their role as places of services and to present content in a more democratic, accessible, and engaging way by innovating collecting, curating, items display, and communication (Altin 2021; Kurin 2004; Mason et al. 2018; Samis and Michaelson 2017).

AD for the arts  41 There are clear and repeated patterns in the profiles of museums and gallery visitors and non-visitors globally (Mason et al. 2018: 86). Some predictors of whether a person will regularly visit them include high educational qualifications, status, motivation, and early exposure (i.e. childhood visits). Barriers to access are generally related to means and income. The tendency to visit museums and galleries can change over one’s lifetime (Black 2012; Collavini 2019; Colman 2020; Dodd and Sandell 1998; Mason et al. 2018; Randaccio 2018), especially because of new concerns about access and inclusion. As places of service, including for disabled visitors, museums and galleries have started to implement physical, sensory, intellectual, cultural, emotional, and financial access. For instance, wheelchair ramps and stairs that facilitate movement for wheelchair users or other wheeled objects have been implemented to allow for easier access to buildings or improved navigation between areas with different heights. In addition, accessible translation methods that have been integrated into museums and galleries include subtitled videos, sign-language guided tours for people who are deaf and hard of hearing, Braille or large-letter captions, and touch tours for blind and visually impaired visitors.3 Multimodal and simplified content (the latter in the form of Plain or Easy Language: see note 2 in Chapter 1) is often provided to help people with learning, cognitive, and intellectual difficulties engage with the museum’s collections. In addition, accurate explanations of the history and culture embedded in any displayed artwork are offered to audiences whose knowledge may be limited due to poor language competence or poor cultural literacy. Hospitable museum staff and a welcoming environment that includes cafés or seating areas can provide inclusive and participative spaces for stimulating interaction, conversation, reflection, creative thought, and imagination (Altin 2021; Black 2005, 2012; Levent and Pascual-Leone 2014; Mason et al. 2018: 104). Finally, free access to museums and galleries is ensured to some sectors of the audience. Regarding communicative inclusion, simpler and more engaging ways of communicating have started to appear in museums and galleries. The example reported by Trench (2018: 10–11) in the Victoria and Albert Gallery Text Writing Guidelines depicts the importance of adapting museum language to the new modern visitor. This is because old museum labels, addressed to fellow curators, experts, and peers, are difficult to understand and tend to discourage most users. Thus, according to the Victoria and Albert project, they have been translated into new usable texts using effective simplification strategies. In Example 2.1, the original 1970 museum caption for Neroccio de’ Landi’s painting Mirror Frame Showing a Female Head (Italy, 1475–1500) has been rewritten as less ambiguous, explains the concept behind the exhibit, and no longer assumes the Renaissancerelated background knowledge of non-specialist visitors.

42  AD for the arts Example 2.1  Labels of Mirror Frame Showing a Female Head (Victoria and Albert Museum) Old Caption

New Caption

MIRROR FRAME Painted Cartapesta (papier mâché) Workshop of NEROCCIO DEI LANDI (1447–1550) SIENNESE; last quarter of the 15th century 850–1884

MIRROR FRAME About 1475–1500 Workshop of Neroccio dei Landi (1447–1550)

This type of mirror frame, showing an emblematic female head, exists in several examples in various media; a maiolica version (C.2111-1910) is exhibited in room 14. This work is characteristic of NEROCCIO DEI LANDI, who trained under Vecchietta and was active in Siena as both a painter and a sculptor.

The mirror, which is now missing, would have been a disc of blown glass or polished metal. As well as being an expensive novelty, mirrors were thought to reveal inner truth. This frame invited a moral comparison, since the viewer’s face appeared below the beautiful (and therefore virtuous) image above. Italy, Siena Painted cartapesta (papier mâché) Museum no. 850–1884

The new text, approximately the same length as the original, explains why the artefact is described as a mirror frame when the mirror is no longer there and does not look like a frame. Furthermore, it eliminates misleading or unnecessary elements such as the emblematic nature of the female head and the extralinguistic reference to a maiolica version of the mirror exhibited elsewhere, and the reference to the Italian painter and sculptor Vecchietta, who might be unknown to most lay visitors. Therefore, it contextualises the descriptive text more clearly and makes it usable to nonspecialists, more enjoyable, and comprehensible. Besides communicating content in a simpler way, museums and galleries have also become more engaging. This is due, among other things, to the incorporation of inclusive and participative approaches to art utilise multisensoriality (Black 2005, 2012; COME IN! 2017; Eardley et al. 2017; Hutchinson and Eardley 2019, 2021; Levent and Pascual-Leone 2014; Neves 2016; Randaccio 2018; Stenslund 2015). Multisensoriality is the simultaneous combination of a set of senses used to communicate and access content and to broaden participation. Although it appears novel, multisensoriality in museums and galleries has always existed, even if museums and galleries were (and still are) mainly accessed through reading and observing. Early museums and galleries, in fact, sometimes relied on senses such as smell and taste to present their collections and to capture and hold

AD for the arts  43 visitors’ attention by making content more appealing and usable. Today, these experiences can be elevated through inclusivity for both general and sensorially disabled audiences, thus broadening participation (Black 2005; Colman 2020; Dobbin et al. 2016; Falk and Dierking 2013; Levent and Pascual-Leone 2014; Neves 2012, 2015; Stenslund 2015). If well designed, any access services for the disabled visitor, including multisensory communication, can be integrated in the museum experience of any user and ensure prolonged and meaningful user engagement for all. According to recent ‘visitor studies’, a growing research field, rather than just conveying information, exhibitions should focus on the whole visitor experience, which encompasses ‘a complexity of memory, personal drives, group identity, decision-making, and meaning-making strategies, as well as leisure preferences’ (Recupero et al. 2019: 2). Museums and galleries should aim to capture visitors’ attention, impact their emotions, and trigger memories. This can be done by displaying rich and vibrant programmes for temporary exhibitions or creating direct engagement with the exhibited object. Moreover, the simultaneous activation of several senses in cultural environments has diverse advantages, such as making it more intense, immersive, memorable, and closer to real-life—where information is absorbed multimodally—irrespective of the visitor’s sensory (dis)ability (Black 2005, 2012; Dobbin et al. 2016; Eardley et al. 2017; Neves 2010, 2012, 2016; Fineman and Cock 2022; Eardley et al. 2017; Giansante 2015; Hutchinson and Eardley 2022; Lehmann and Murray 2005; Levent and Pascual-Leone 2014; Moreno and Mayer 2000; Perego 2021; Randaccio 2018; Taylor 2020). It can offer alternative ways of experiencing reality, thus widening the target audience into a more comprehensive whole, making museums accessible to people with and without sensory, learning, cognitive, or intellectual difficulties. It can also help foster a new inclusive attitude towards culture for visitors and museum personnel who are looking for a new way to approach cultural venues. It may allow them to discover unexpected sensations when they see, touch, listen, smell, or even taste a work of art (Levent and Pascual-Leone 2014). This can be seen in participatory museums in particular, where visitors are directly involved in the visiting experience and in activities such as painting with the artist (Black 2005). There is no sense that cannot be exploited in a museum or gallery, even if some are easier to incorporate than others. Sight and hearing are the senses we are most familiar with. Touch, smell, and taste are gaining increasing importance and positive responses, but they are not yet systematically exploited. Each sense has its advantages and the ability to add a specific nuance to an exhibition. One of the major advantages of sound, for instance, is that it adds authenticity to the stories being told. As an example, adding the real voices of the men, women, and children who lived the scene that is represented in a history museum can make the story more believable,

44  AD for the arts attractive, and memorable. Scent has a similar function, and it supports what is already available visually. For instance, adding the recreated scent of war scenes in situ (i.e. enriching the visuals with a smellscape) can make the representation of the battlefield more evocative. Overall, we know that fragrances can enhance the visitors’ experience in diverse ways, so long as sensory overload is avoided and sensuous awareness is encouraged, e.g. via detailed ad hoc explanations (Majid and Burenhult 2014; Stenslund 2015). Taste is quite unusual: one cannot easily taste art, and anything that can be tasted has to be both reproducible and safe because people will ingest the material they taste. Thus, this sense is mainly exploited in food museums and associated restaurants to better connect visitors with products or the production processes, and with unknown or ancient tastes (Ellis et al. 2018; Everett 2019; Kim et al. 2020). Finally, touch can effectively be integrated into museums and galleries to increase participation, to pass on new information about artworks, or to offer an approach to experiencing beauty (Candlin 2006; De Coster and Loots 2004; Levent and PascualLeone 2014; Secchi 2014, 2022; Taylor and Perego 2021; Tiest 2010; Venier 2017). That being said, touch exhibits must include an awareness that some visually impaired users might have difficulty with dexterous activities involving hands and fingers (e.g. Bakke et al. 2019; par. 1.5 and 1.6). In sum, although museums and galleries have favoured simpler and more participative modes of expression, the types of experiences they offer have evolved over time. Currently, the ‘hands-on’ approach, increased sensuous awareness, and a more selective and creative presentation of exhibits, have contributed to making museums and galleries more attractive to a wider (Alexander and Alexander 2008; Black 2012). Not only do contemporary museums and galleries contain artefacts, but they also contain ideas, situations, relations, and questions that have transformed them into highly hybrid and complex institutions that can impact society and change perceptions. 2.3

Art AD

Similar to other types of AD, art AD (one of its newest forms) is an accessibility service designed for visually impaired audiences enabling access to artworks by translating their salient visual elements into audible words. Its professional and academic history is still quite recent, for two possible reasons. First, the traditional museum–temple model was characterised by a hands-off policy and a strictly encyclopaedic nature. In the 21st century, the model has become more open and participative (Black 2005, 2012; Hutchinson and Eardley 2022; Levent and Pascual-Leone 2014; Randaccio 2018). Second, for many years, audio tours that had been made for sighted visitors were considered sufficient for addressing the needs of

AD for the arts  45 visually impaired visitors. Only recently have separate verbal description tracks or specific tours emerged, with the collateral effect of affirming a discriminatory ghetto effect rather than an inclusive one (Greco 2018). Today, some museums still produce successful targeted descriptions, thus embracing a particularistic approach to accessibility. However, in recent years, others have begun advocating for tours that can work successfully for all (Giansante 2015; Hutchinson and Eardley 2022). This means adopting an inclusive or universalist (Greco 2018) approach to accessibility based on the idea that what is accessible for disabled categories is an opportunity for everyone else. In fact, recent views on the role of museum access, and therefore art AD, suggest that it could potentially serve as an important inclusive and universal design tool for any visitors who struggle to engage with the museum experience, regardless of their level of vision (Eardley et al. 2017; Hutchinson and Eardley 2022). Currently, a systematic and settled art AD practice has not yet been established, as art AD is continually revised and improved in response to visitors’ feedback. Consequently, there are variations in delivery, and individual museums maintain varying approaches (Fineman and Cock 2022). However, the sector is not completely adrift. There are some reference guidelines that can successfully assist those who deal with museum AD production.4 For instance, the Art Beyond Sight guidelines (Giansante 2015; Salzhauer et al. 1996) exist because of the organisation of art education for blind patrons in the United States. The ADLAB guidelines (Remael et al. 2015, and specifically Neves 2015)5 offer few but terse strategic indications on what can be described in art environments, and how these descriptions differ from more common screen ADs. The COME-IN! (2017) training handbook for museum operators, which is available in five European languages, is the result of a joint European effort and it comprises a set of rules, technical requirements, and legal references necessary to make small- and medium-sized museums accessible to all. The ADLAB PRO Course Materials, freely available online, offer the first flexible training opportunity to learn how to produce museum ADs from targeted lectures, tasks, and reading recommendations found in Module 4, which focuses on semi-live and recorded AD for static arts and environments (Perego 2017; Taylor and Perego 2022). The recent publication by Fineman and Cock (2022), based on the experience of the British service provider VocalEyes,6 charts the basic principles and phases of both live and recorded museum descriptions and offers logistical tips and recommendations for their implementation. Finally, Module 4 of the EASIT project’s online educational materials wholly focuses on the production of simplified ADs. This includes screen AD as well as art ADs that are easier to understand than standard ADs, and therefore target a wider audience, including people with learning, cognitive, and

46  AD for the arts intellectual difficulties, children or young users, immigrants with a low level of language competence, and other audiences who might benefit from simplified content (Maaß 2020). Formulating any type of AD entails excellent observational and writing skills and the ability to select the most salient source text information, which is then conveyed through a meticulous, accurate, concise, visually intense, and coherent AD text. In addition, it should comprise a mindful use of specialised vocabulary from a variety of fields, when necessary (cf. Fina 2018: 104); that is, the information should be simultaneously usable and simple to process in contexts where time, space, and text boundaries are determined by visitors’ attention span rather than by technical constraints (Giansante 2015; Neves 2015; Perego 2019; Salzhauer et al. 1996). Art AD texts, which are longer than screen AD texts, are normally selfcontained and display stronger internal cohesion. They should be highly concerned with how content is conveyed through language, avoiding informative gaps that could mislead or distract the listener (Neves 2015: 69). Art AD is the main tool for supporting accessible and enjoyable museum visits for blind and visually impaired people. Thus, to bring collections and venues to life in a powerful way, it is necessary that precise descriptions be conveyed through an evocative narrative interwoven with historic references and cultural information (Fineman and Cock 2022: 215). Further, these descriptions should encompass extensive research on the artist, the exhibit’s style or school of art, art critics’ stances, and public reactions to the work (Giansante 2015: 5). Finally, a balanced presence of visualrelated and visual-unrelated information contributes to typifying art AD as a specific AD genre. 2.4

Enriched AD

Multisensoriality, which is a current and distinct feature of the modern museum (par. 2.2), has also begun to be exploited in the art AD setting, contributing to the creation of what we call ‘enriched ADs’. A common and established way to enrich AD is adding a haptic component—an additional element that can be experienced using the sense of touch, such as a plaster reproduction of the original item or a tactile drawing of a painting. Haptic components are appreciated by blind visitors with sufficient manipulative skills, or those who are trained or receive physical and verbal guidance on reading objects with their hands (Secchi 2014, 2022). Tactile instructions can be more extensive or less extensive. Instructions should focus on elements such as the perception of the material, broad shapes, and proportions rather than fixating on fine details. For example, the AD of the funerary urn exhibited at the National Archeological Museum of Aquileia (Figures 2.1 and 2.2) (Pietracci 2017; Valle 2019) uses

AD for the arts  47

Figure 2.1 Maidservant close to an amphora preparing beverages, carved on a cinerary urn. Photograph by the author.

Figure 2.2 Men and women drinking and chatting, carved on a cinerary urn. Photograph by the author.

48  AD for the arts only a few tactile instructions that are condensed at the descriptive track’s beginning, and the instructions tend to skip details owing to the decorations’ complexity: Example 2.2  Enriched AD proposal for a funerary urn Place your hands over the urn and start exploring it with your fingers. Identifying the single elements that we describe is not easy, but if you wish, you can attempt to recognise a few. Alternatively, you can simply try appreciating the material that the urn is made of, or recognise the stone, geometric shapes, proportions, and arrangement of the numerous decorations. This approach differs from that of the jasmine flower (Example 2.3), which provides greater detail and the opportunity to handle a flower reproduction available for a simple guided haptic exploration (e.g. touching the leaves). Example 2.3 Enriched AD proposal for the jasmine plant: the haptic dimension Jasmine flowers comprise five small petals arranged in the shape of a star. What you are feeling is a jasmine flower reproduction because real jasmine flowers are extremely delicate. Take your time. The centre of the star is concave, slightly elongated, and attached to the stem. Can you recognise these features in the flower reproduction? The flowers of the plant in front of you are white. The leaves are green, narrow, and about 3 centimetres long. Sound effects can also be incorporated into ADs to complement the verbal narrative and recreate more convincing and exciting images and memories. The creative use of sound in a stand-alone AD or in an AD tour can in fact help listeners to ‘have a richer sensory experience’, understand what a work looks like, and experience a ‘visceral sense memory of the art’ (Giansante 2015: 11). Sound effects can be chosen based on artworks’ subject matter and the describer’s imagination. These effects can take several forms (ranging from natural sounds to music) and need not have an intrinsic meaning to the narrative; they can simply represent or recall specific contexts and functions. In this regard, sound effects function as ‘auditory wallpapers’ that support the narrative and create a more realistic and plausible representation of a given setting (as polylogues do in films: Kozloff 2000: 47). Sound effects can also be directly dictated by what is emphasised in the AD narrative and serve as an additive illustrative

AD for the arts  49 element that discloses specific details of the description. At the National Archeological Museum of Aquileia in Italy (Ventura 2013), the richness of the scenes carved on a limestone cinerary urn depicting a typical Roman funeral banquet (Figures 2.1 and 2.2) lends itself to vivid AD (Example 2.4, crucial words in bold; Pietracci 2017; Valle 2019) and is an example that would benefit from the addition of sound effects that reinforce what is described. For instance, real banquet-related voices and scenic sounds would elevate the actions that are being narrated. Examples could include drinking, chatting, preparing beverages, playing the double flute and other pedal instruments, and open-air sound effects highlighting that funeral banquets took place outside. Example 2.4 Excerpt from the cinerary urn AD exhibited at the National Archeological Museum of Aquileia Moving to the left, two women with their hair tied up and their arms in front of them are looking ahead with a serious expression. One of them raises a glass to her lips. This, and the half-open mouths of the men, tell us that the guests are drinking and chatting. […] Continuing counterclockwise, we see the other guests. A maidservant is preparing beverages and napkins. She is holding a piece of cloth, and beside her, on the ground, there is an amphora. On her left, there is a musician who is playing the double flute: he is standing with his foot on another pedal instrument. Alternating narration voices is another effective way of enriching ADs aurally (Fineman and Cock 2022). The monotony of a planned monologue or a one-voice narration can be broken, such as by enabling expert narrators to take over when specialised information is conveyed. In the Volcanoes and Earthquakes Gallery AD at the Natural History Museum in London, for instance, the geologist Iain Stewart’s narration introduces a short film on the tectonic plate section. In the AD tour of Apsley House, a Georgian building in London, the Ninth Duke of Wellington, who lives there to this day, delivers an introduction to create a welcoming atmosphere. At the Hendel and Hendrix in London, a museum in Mayfair dedicated to the lives and works of the two musicians, a display that allows visitors to listen to Jimi Hendrix tracks using headphones includes the announcement: There will be an opportunity to pause the guide and listen to some rare Hendrix recordings too via headphones as part of the display. Further, visitors can watch and listen to various videos, thus ensuring the introduction of diverse sound-related activities during the long AD tour (Example 2.5).

50  AD for the arts Example 2.5 Excerpt from the Hendel and Hendrix AD tour in London We will be moving next to Handel’s bedroom. Before you leave this room, retracing your steps past the larger portrait and the fireplace, you might like to know that a narrow double door between the right-hand side of the fireplace and the main door that leads back out onto the landing connects this room to a small backroom. If there is no school group using the room, it will be open to visitors to watch and listen to a video which gives some information on the harpsichords and guitars as instruments. You could also try on costumes. The idea of using sound creatively can encompass what Neves (2010) calls ‘expressive soundpainting’, a form of transcreation (Katan 2016) that goes against conventional neutral and objective museum description. It leaves room for particularly subjective, interpretative, but also poetic—and therefore risky (Neves 2012: 290)—art descriptions. Expressive soundpainting is achieved by carefully choosing words and the direction of the voice talent to guarantee adequate tone of voice, rhythm, and speech modulation […] that can all work together with specific sound effects and music to provide the “stori(es)” and emotions that a particular piece of art may offer. (Neves 2010: 290) The one-dimensionality of an audio narration can be broken by exploiting different levels of sound and having the content range from the use of paralanguage to external added meaning-making auditory elements. This will produce a more appealing service, facilitate information processing, and offer a particularly absorbing experience (Eardley et al. 2017; Neves 2010). Smell has recently acquired the status of a true artistic medium or an invisible art form, rather than merely being considered a consumer product. Smell can evoke surprisingly powerful and complex experiences and it is the sense most associated with memory (Black 2005; 2012; Eardley et al. 2017; Hutchinson and Eardley 2019, 2021; Moreno and Mayer 2000; Stenslund 2015). Experimental archaeologists have started recreating famous ancient perfumes using the ingredients mentioned in Classical sources to enrich museum experiences. This has proven successful in accessible tours for blind visitors as well. Smell reproductions require adequate verbal guidance that should consciously accompany the visitor for a lasting olfactory experience, especially in an inclusive tour. Currently, fine

AD for the arts  51 art museums are still reluctant to incorporate these types of exhibitions, but sensory-exhibition making is ideal for most ethnographic museums (Stenslund 2015) and botanical gardens, so they have great potential for multimodal use for people with sight loss (Salisbury 2000). The following excerpt (Example 2.6) is a result of research at the Civic Botanical Garden in Trieste, Italy7 (Colman 2020; Perego 2021). It shows how smell can be incorporated in an enriched AD, using an engaging pedagogic style that mixes specialised, semi-specialised, and common lexicon, together with explanations and direct questions, to ensure the listeners’ broad understanding and direct involvement and to awaken their curiosity. Example 2.6 Enriched AD proposal for the jasmine plant: the olfactory dimension You’re now standing in front of a jasmine hedge that is sprawled across the dry-stone wall in front of you. Jasmine produces fragrant white or yellow flowers that are often used in the perfume industry. Jasmine perfume has been described as slightly heady and warm, floral and musky, with oily leafy-green and fruity undertones. If you wish, you can smell the perfume emanating from a paper sample and gently touch its deep-green shiny leaves. Perhaps you recognise some of the described olfactory features or even identify others: if so, which ones strike you? And overall, do you like the smell of jasmine? Did you already know it? Remember that jasmine is known as the king of essential oils. Words belonging to the olfactory realm have been carefully selected (the adjective fragrant is preferred over the simpler yet longer formulation having a pleasant or sweet smell), and most abstract perfume terms defining the aroma of the flower in question—jasmine—were chosen irrespective of their specialised or semi-specialised nature (heady, warm, floral, musky, oily, leafy-green, fruity). Instead, they were chosen on the assumption that their meaning will be acquired by smelling the natural or reproduced jasmine scent. In Example 2.6, the visitor’s participation is encouraged by the polite direct offer to smell the flower (If you wish, you can smell its scent by bending it forward), or, if off-season, its reproduction (If you wish, you can smell the perfume emanating from a paper sample).8 In addition, the invitation to touch it relates this sensory experience to the visitor’s background knowledge and personal perception; visitors are invited to recognise the described olfactory features, or identify ones they are more familiar with, and to express their opinion using visitor-engaging strategies such as the use of direct questions and gentle invitations to take action.

52  AD for the arts As such, adding an extra sensory dimension to the AD narration of art items is not enough to make enriched AD effective. In the absence of sight, the way language is used to accompany the multisensory experience is essential to the integration of sensory input and perception, and words often replace visual input that cannot be experienced directly or fully (Fryer 2016: 5). Enriched ADs that are well conceived can contribute to developing initiatives centred around the conception of full experiences for all, increasing user frequency, user return, the probability of purchasing something (Craig s.d.), and their tendency to tell friends to do the same. Further, it encourages the didactic and pedagogic potential for both primary and secondary AD users. 2.5

Live and recorded AD

2.5.1  AD delivery

Both live and recorded ADs are crucial for diverse access services to museums, galleries, and cultural environments. They are used in different contexts depending on the scope and resources available to their institutions. Whether an AD is delivered live or recorded impacts how it is prepared, dispensed, and perceived by the user. Regarding delivery, live AD requires a trained experienced human guide familiar with visually impaired individuals’ needs. In addition, they need to be experts in the specific content and AD principles. If a multisensory experience is available, the tour guide must know the theoretical and practical aspects necessary to make it accessible and engaging using fit-for-purpose instructions. Museums and galleries can commission professional audio describers to lead tours (especially for once-off or short series of tours), or their staff can be trained for a longer-term inclusive approach (Fineman and Cock 2022: 218). Logistically, successfully implementing live AD depends on a range of factors including tour scheduling, booking, and duration, as well as attendees’ museum experience and group size. While live AD is more effective and appreciated than pre-recorded AD, both have advantages and drawbacks. Concerning the visiting experience, the former can enhance comprehension, enjoyment, sense of presence, engagement, and immersion. Further, expert live spoken accompaniment can help visitors navigate a painting reproduction physically by positioning their hands on it. This can also help better orient visitors in the museum space more effectively than pre-recorded instructions. The social and inclusive value of live audio-described tours can be transformative and grant exchanges between visitors thus bringing a ‘greater understanding of the subject and potentially greater fulfilment than other means of support can offer’ (Fineman and Cock 2022: 218; Figiel and Albin 2022). Live AD

AD for the arts  53 offers social opportunities offered by museums and galleries that can lead to connections beyond the event and ensure that blind visitors can also be profitably involved. As a drawback, however, live AD tours have a capacity limitation regarding the number of tours a museum or gallery can offer and the space per tour. In addition, not all museums or galleries can offer live ADs. Opting for recorded over live AD might therefore be because of a lack of funding or adequately trained human guides, the need to reduce costs, or wanting to offer an accessible service in several languages, at any time, despite quality, or usability. Pre-recorded ADs limit the social opportunity of the museum and gallery experience quite considerably. Generally, today pre-recorded ADs are good quality, lively and dynamic, grant positive experiences, provide their users autonomy, and are always available. However, they become dated rather quickly and can be inaccessible to those unfamiliar with their interface (Figiel and Albin 2022). Regarding delivery, recorded ADs are subject to the availability and quality of receptor tools, that is ‘devices, technological apparatus, software or any other form of delivery of AD’ (Figiel and Albin 2022: 353). On-site recorded ADs are usually provided via a mobile guide offering a linear (vs. ‘random-access’, Fineman and Cock 2022: 224) tour. This is a tour that includes a limited number of logically organised venue stops, rather than allowing users to select and access exhibits at their discretion. Recorded guides can also offer ‘layered’ content (Fineman and Cock 2022: 224) made of optional extra material that is available within a linear guide. This option enables users to manage the length of a tour based on their time, motivation, and the level of detail they desire. When pre-recorded ADs are made available online, they are meant to help prospective users better plan their tour in advance, or to enjoy off-site remote use independent of a physical visit. 2.5.2  The AD script

Live ADs delivered by human guides are normally presented on the spot and rely on the know-how of the guide, who usually relies on a few technical notes and key phrases rather than on a fully fledged prepared script. Consequently, live ADs tend to be informal, interactive, and readily adaptable to the audience’s requirements. Normally, audiences appreciate adequate pauses to absorb information, experience multisensory additions (if there are any), or ask questions. The transcription of a short video excerpt (Example 2.7) where blind museum-goer Joanna Wood is escorted by a VocalEyes trained guide at the Incurably Curious Museum in Edenborough (VocalEyes 2017) shows some interesting live AD features that vary from pre-recorded soundtracks.

54  AD for the arts

Figure 2.3 Snuffbox in the Form of a Ram’s Head, Edinburgh, Scotland, 1881–1882. Science Museum, London. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).

Example 2.7 Excerpt from an interactive live art AD Guide: It’s a piece of taxidermy of Scotland, 1881, and it’s a ram’s head. This ram’s head is on three wheels – one on the front, under its mouth, and two at the back, under its neck. There are two silver compartments. One is on the top [short pause] of the head, almost sits like a crown, and it’s like a big door knob. [pause] What they would be [short pause] using from that, would be snuff.

AD for the arts  55 Visitor: So would they use the horns to pass it around the table? Guide: Possibly. Quite possibly. Erm… It was quite handy, yeah [both laughing]. First, the masterful guide effortlessly moves between a formal writtenlike tone to an informal spoken-like one. She creates a dynamicity and connection with the interlocutor that would be missing in a pre-recorded text. Furthermore, her narration is carefully planned and structured. The information is delivered in a linear, logical, and cohesive way. She uses her voice to stress uncommon and specialised terms such as taxidermy, ram, and snuff, which are all clearly articulated and preceded by a short pause. Her delivery pace (in this case approx. 140 words per minute) compares to that of normal conversation in English.9 Despite the use of contracted forms and substantial deictic references, which characterise spontaneous and informal speech, the first turn of the exchange, an expository string of text, features a certain level of formality. This is disrupted when the visitor asks a question that triggers a short and natural answer incorporating a number of relevant elements that are typical of conversational grammar. These include an overall very low degree of grammatical elaboration, nonclausal units (Possibly), the repetition of a very limited repertoire of words (possibly and quite), overlap in turn-taking (emboldened in the transcription, and demonstrating an interest in the conversation), a filled pause (Erm), a discourse marker used in final position (yeah) with an interactive and cohesive meaning (Biber et al. 1999; Halliday 1989), and the closing simultaneous laughter of the guide and visitor, which is known to boost a sense of connection (Kurtz and Algoe 2017).10 The co-existence, alternation, and contrast between the linear syntax of planned language and the syntax of speech, including aspects of intricacy that a short excerpt cannot convey (Halliday 1989), make a live tour engaging and vital. A live tour favours a type of interaction that can facilitate participation and inclusion, enhance the idea of visitors’ choice and control over the communicated content, and can deliver positive user outcomes such as enhanced self-esteem, confidence, and creativity (Black 2005). Furthermore, live AD tours ‘offer the opportunity to be in the vicinity of extraordinary objects and places and experience them in a social way. Chances to share ideas with a companion, meet other visitors on the tour and ask questions of the audio describer, build a participatory experience that is open to the visitor’s influence’ (Fineman and Cock 2022: 218), and comply with the modern, complex, and hybrid nature of new museums. In contrast, recorded ADs are written to be read and processed aurally, mainly in a solitary fashion. They have a tighter logical structure to enable listeners to follow the content with ease and pleasure. To achieve this aim,

56  AD for the arts they tend to be linear and coherent, and they are prepared to facilitate the voice talent through short sentences to avoid slips and retakes when recording (Fryer 2016, 2019). That being said, they sometimes also favour a narrative approach, where facts and description functionally alternate and progress towards a story about what is being presented (Neves 2015: 69). The following AD excerpt of David Wilkie’s painting The Chelsea Pensioners Reading the Waterloo Dispatch (Figure 2.4), for instance, tells the story of the interrupted activities that were going on within a group of old soldiers gathered around a wooden table outside the Duke of York public house, until one of them (an old man in bicorne hat and red coat standing on the left of the table) starts reading the Waterloo Gazette (reads aloud from a newspaper clutched tightly in front of him). The Gazette published the Waterloo Dispatch sent by the Duke of Wellington immediately after the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815. The initial descriptive lines of the AD script (Example 2.8) provide a detailed, picturesque setting and inform the listener of the salient facts illustrated by the painting. Overall, the expository narrative style activates the listeners’ imagination, prompts visualisation, and helps the listener to remember the information and enjoy it more thoroughly. Example 2.8 Excerpt from the AD of The Chelsea Pensioners (D. Wilkie, 1822) The table is set up in the sun outside a tavern, whose sign hangs from a pole jutting over its front windows to the right. This side of the street continues into the distance with more taverns, shop-awnings, and people. The other side of the street, to the left, is defined by a high brick wall, beyond which are leafy trees. Through the trees, just left of centre, is a misty, colonnaded building with tall cupola. It’s the Chelsea Hospital off the King’s Road in London, a retirement home for army veterans. Here, around the table, suddenly, everyone’s stopped mid-activity. A man at the table facing us has an oyster suspended mid-air on his fork. With mouths open in excitement, others turn their heads and crane their necks towards an old man in bicorne hat and red coat standing on the left of the table. Steadying himself against it, he reads aloud from a newspaper clutched tightly in front of him, sunlight reflecting off it into his face. Although pre-recorded ADs do not cater to the individual needs of visitors, they are generally devised to anticipate those needs and facilitate the visit. Pre-set pauses can be inserted for the necessary amount of time needed to absorb content or move from one stop to the next one.

Figure 2.4 David Wilkie. The Chelsea Pensioners Reading the Waterloo Dispatch. 1822.  Oil on canvas. 158 × 97 cm. Apsley House, London. Wikimedia Commons.

AD for the arts  57

58  AD for the arts Not all guides (or stand-alone ADs) are designed in the same way. Some are factual, dry, and overly detailed, and only use one narrator. Others alternate diverse voices and types of information, thus resulting in more dynamic, listenable, and engaging texts. Stand-alone ADs and descriptive guides are written to be read aloud and listened to; accordingly, a wide array of factors will govern decisions regarding their nature. As explained by experienced AD writer and voice talent Louise Fryer (2019), when producing a script for a recorded audio guide, planning who will deliver the guide, how many voices will be used, and whether those voices are male, female, or even human (text-to-speech or synthetic voices are nowadays broadly used in several contexts; Walczak and Iturregui-Gallardo 2022) is essential. A stand-alone AD or an AD tour may incorporate different types of information, including background cultural or historical information, purely descriptive information, extra information, and instructions on how to use the guide and orient visitors. Allocating diverse voices to each (including the use of male and female voices within the same track), or at least clearly distinguishing between descriptive and other types of information can help to keep the guide lively and more comprehensible. For instance, aurally differentiated information will ensure that the one-way-lecture effect is avoided (Fineman and Cock 2022: 220, 227), and audio describers should distinguish between these in their scripts (Fryer 2019). They can choose to have their script recorded by one or more voice talents (audio describers are not necessarily voice talents) or to record their own script. Alternatively, sections on context and background can be delivered by the exhibit curator, a specialist, or even by the artist. This could allow elements such as interviews to be included in the recording. The factors governing such decisions typify those of any casting process. They are made collectively based on the museum or gallery’s budget and should consider the narrator’s age as well as their accent and the inherent qualities of their voice. A castable voice should be clear, pleasant to listen to, and appropriate for the material and the intended audience. For instance, a younger voice might be more appropriate for an audio guide for the Museum of Childhood but not necessarily for the British Museum. In addition, the choice of accent can be of great consequence, as explained by Louise Fryer (2019): Sarah McDonagh has raised the political aspects of voice when creating an audioguide for the Long Kesh Detention Centre known colloquially as the Maze. This is a prison in Northern Ireland used to house paramilitary prisoners during the conflict known as the Troubles in the last three decades of the 20th century. One of the root causes of the Troubles was disagreement between those who wanted Northern Ireland to remain part of the UK and those who wanted it to unite with the

AD for the arts  59 Republic of Ireland. For this reason, it would be politically inflammatory to have the audioguide voiced in an English accent or one that was obviously from either the Republic or from Northern Ireland. Overall, pre-recorded soundtracks should sound conversational, lively, and engaging. They should also be authoritative and trustworthy, providing confidence in the information (Fryer 2019). Further, foreign names of artists or places should be pronounced correctly and coherently. To this end, a phonetic transcription is often added to the AD script to benefit the voice talent (Fineman and Cock 2022; Fryer 2019). For example, the name ‘Ludwig Guttmann’ mentioned in the AD script of the US Olympic & Paralympic Museum in Los Angeles is followed by the transcription [‘LOOD-vigg GOOT-muhn’ (‘OO’ as in ‘GOOD’)], displaying a common form of accessible pronunciation tips for English speakers without resorting to the International Phonetic Alphabet—a standard system of phonetic notation used by linguists to accurately represent the wide variety of sounds in human speech. The transcription [HOMmo HI-del-bergEN-sis] is offered to ensure the correct pronunciation of the specialised term Homo heidelbergensis in the AD script of the Human Evolution Gallery in the London Natural History Museum. Sometimes, the correct pronunciation of figures is also included (i.e. 500,000 [five hundred thousand] years old). Furthermore, different voices must pronounce names the same way, even if that means in an English audio guide using an inaccurate but established Anglicisation such as Paris rather than Paree. Van Gogh is another example. Will you attempt a Dutch pronunciation: Fun Hoch; an English – Van Goff or the American Van Go? Your decision will be affected by the location of the museum you are describing for. Whether the exhibition is at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam or the Metropolitan Museum in New York. (Fryer 2019) Pace of delivery must also be considered. A measured pace, neither too fast nor too slow, is one that is easy to listen to. This is subjective, depending more on the characteristics of the speaker (and the listener) than on observing a certain number of words per minute. Following punctuation by introducing tiny pauses or breathing spaces makes the words easier to absorb. Finally, stress or emphasis also aids understanding. Important words such as names and novel information should be emphasised while little emphasis should be placed on words such as prepositions and conjunctions and repeated words.

60  AD for the arts Whether delivered live or pre-recorded, art AD is never free from constraints. These relate to the visitors’ attention span and the museum experience’s ultimate objectives—enjoyment and engagement (Fina 2018; Fineman and Cock 2022; Giansante 2015; Hutchinson and Eardley 2021). Thus, neither live nor recorded AD should be excessive in length. Considering visitors’ physical fatigue and possible boredom, self-contained ADs should not be longer than a couple of minutes (Giansante 2015), and AD tours for visually impaired people should adapt their length accordingly or enable users to select a number of stops based on their time and motivation. Overall, a person with sight loss does not want to have to spend a longer amount of time at an exhibit than their sighted companions. 2.5.3  Receptor tools

Since AD has been implemented in different settings (Braun and Starr 2021; Taylor and Perego 2022), the various types of AD delivery and receptor tools have changed dramatically. Receptor tools are not simply technical devices. They are necessary entry points to accessing any type of pre-recorded AD and using the service when it is available. These tools are crucial for safeguarding the rights of persons with disabilities to take equal part in cultural life (cf. United Nations 2006: Art. 30.1; Figiel and Albin 2022; Fineman and Cock 2022). As such, receptor tools should be simple and intuitive. They should not require any training prior to their use, and they should be usable regardless of users’ background knowledge or language skills. This is particularly important for AD receptor tools that are meant for users of diverse ages and abilities. As previously observed, resorting to pre-recorded Ads has its pros and cons. While it can offer more described content,11 granting a larger number of places and events accessibility, its portability, flexibility, and sometimes level of personalisation increase the potential for receptor technicalities and pitfalls (Figiel and Albin 2022 for an overview). Pre-recorded audio guides for museums and galleries, for instance, tend to assume that blind visitors can move independently, relying solely on the guide indications for how to move around an exhibition space, however, this does not seem to be some visitors’ preference. According to research, many blind visitors would rather rely on a human assistant to guide them through museum and gallery spaces, present them with additional multisensory stimuli, and help them overcome technical and organisational barriers posed by devices which are not always easy to handle (Perego and Taylor 2022). ADs streamed online, for instance, require considerable skills and technological competence, such as using screen readers and keyboard shortcuts, among others (Figiel and Albin 2022: 357). Thus, despite receptor tools’ obvious advantages, we cannot forget that technology is not familiar to all, and its efficacy is

AD for the arts  61 considerably user-dependent and governed by factors such as familiarity, frequency of museum visits, and motivation. Nevertheless, these challenges can be overcome by implementing certain considerations. For example, beacons can be used to locate customers and attract their attention to a specific location or item. A portable recorded audio guide for a standard museum visit also has its drawbacks due to the number and type of digital devices made available (e.g. interactive screen computers or tablets) (Black 2012) that are not accessible to the visually impaired individuals, thus reducing visitor participation (Figiel and Albin 2022: 358). As a result of these challenges, recorded AD tours often remain inaccessible to visually impaired people, predominantly serving sighted visitors (Figiel and Albin 2022: 358; Perego and Taylor 2022). Therefore, especially in contemporary multimodal spaces, live organised tours with human guides that deliver AD orally are the most appreciated, effective, and inclusive ways of reaching blind audiences (Figiel and Albin 2022: 358). Finally, since some audio guides require payment, it is sometimes a discriminatory practice that impedes access to content for visually impaired users. In fact, one could consider the receptor devices elements of power offered to the institution rather than visually impaired people. Similarly, when pre-recorded audio guides oblige the blind visitor to follow a pre-conceived concept of how to interact with museum spaces and models that have not been negotiated with the blind community—this is also an act of power (Charlton 2000; Figiel and Albin 2022: 360; Fineman and Cock 2022). 2.6 Listenability Art ADs are texts written to be read aloud; therefore, stylistically, they are situated halfway between the written mode and oral mode, sharing features from both. They are classified as broadcast language (Fina 2018: 20), and like any message that is delivered orally to be received aurally, they convey more than purely semantic information. Therefore, how AD is organised and delivered is crucial and can have a considerable effect on the comprehensibility of the visit and the aesthetic and emotional experience of the museum visitor, or, in general, of the AD end-user of any visual product. The listener-friendliness of a message delivered orally is determined by several factors, and it is called listenability. This term, which has become a buzzword in audio-visual circles, is still not yet used systematically in the AD context (i.e. we do not find it in any AD guidelines or in AD-related literature). However, some of its core ideas are known and shared by those who work in the field, as emerged in a recent interview with academics and professionals conducted by the EASIT project (EASIT 2019b).12 During the interview, the experts agreed that listenability can be reached when

62  AD for the arts you create an AD text that speaks to an individual as opposed to a group, when you manage to make the script spontaneous (which is something that text-to-speech is currently incapable of), and when you manage to comply with some spoken text features that exploit appropriate prosody that aids intelligibility and understanding. In fact, based on research from interrelated fields (e.g. media studies, spoken communication, and listener behaviour), prosody and message intelligibility are also key factors. Listenability is a decisive listenerdependent feature of all aural media. It can contribute to facilitating, or even accelerating, the active process of listening (as opposed to the passive process of hearing), which involves the recognition of a sound-meaning correspondence, which is a complex ability involving working memory, vocabulary knowledge, attention, and neural processing. Listenability is the ‘quality of discourse that eases the cognitive burden that aural processing imposes’ (Rubin 2012: 176). In addition, it guarantees both the clarity and instant intelligibility of a message that cannot be re-listened to, and the overall enjoyment of listening to something (Cartier 1952; De Vito 1965). In an AD context, a listenable text could also be conducive to sparking listeners’ imagination of what is being described, which is the primary aim of this intersemiotic translation method. It is difficult to achieve a one-forall listenability level. Thus, unless tailor-made versions of a planned oral text with specific communicative aims are produced based on the receptive needs of specific audiences, oral text professionals will aim at producing content that is listenable for a prototypical average end-user. This pertains to AD as well. Today, listenability cannot yet be systematically measured, and it lacks a construct analogous to readability13 that can help advance the quality and usability of planned spoken narration; therefore, it should not follow the same rules (Rubin 2012). Written and spoken communication differ in both their editing and processing aspects (Biber et al. 1999; Halliday 1989), as much as the listening process differs from that of reading. This is true of both the challenges and advantages. Accordingly, composing materials with low-grade level readability scores is not necessarily enough to obtain highly listenable texts—even though some criteria can certainly help. As such, the ‘single-minded quest for short sentences and simple vocabulary has been criticised on a number of grounds for texts in general’ (Rubin 2012: 177). Listenability primarily relates to the prioritisation of textual, linguistic, rhetorical (Rubin 2012: 176), and sound-related factors (Weaver 1972), and nowadays, the latter can significantly benefit from new technologies (Orero 2022). Accordingly, the role of the talker is crucial: whether the listener can pay attention to the message and feel engaged depends entirely on them (Weaver 1972). According to current research, what is really

AD for the arts  63 conducive to a listenable text is maintaining a simple oral-based language style (Rubin 2012), organising the oral text well, and using adequate listener-engaging strategies that will depend on the type of oral text and audience (O’Brien 2009; Rubin 2012; Rubin et al. 2000). This implies specific speaker-related and listener-centred choices operating at micro linguistic, macro textual, and paralinguistic levels. Regarding local strategies, literature shows listenability is encouraged by using ‘less dense syntax, greater frequency of personal pronouns, more verb-based rather than nominal constructions, and less lexical diversity than [the diversity we normally find in] literate-based style’ (Rubin et al. 2000: 130). Furthermore, exceptional clarity and great specificity should be achieved (Weaver 1972), for instance, by not favouring redundancy (especially in lexical choices), using memorable, catchy words (O’Brien 2009), and reducing the inferences that listeners must make to prevent their possible premature evaluation of the message (Weaver 1972). As such, resorting to lexical and syntactical Plain Language or easy-tounderstand recommendations can be helpful.14 Moving from microlevel local procedures to macro textual strategies, speakers should consider ‘writing considerate prose’ (Rubin 2012), that is, using signpost language to effectively guide listeners through the oral message to produce texts that help listeners predict the stream of discourse. This implies utilising prototypical narrative structures that rely on listener’s intuitions (or use classic and therefore easily recognisable narratological frameworks; Swales 1990) that do not deviate from the expected design. It also involves including clear transitions and delivering logical, cohesive, coherent, and consistent information that flows smoothly and is well structured. Further, it involves preparing the listener for the message, explicitly telling them what to expect, and rehearsing and polishing the text before its delivery (Weaver 1972; cf. Kozloff 2000 and Pavesi and Perego 2006 as far as film dialogues and their performability are concerned; see Randaccio 2022 on performability in drama translation). Engaging the listener is also essential to the listenability of oral content. It relies on the speakers’ ability to encourage listeners’ involvement and to re-attract their attention when it diminishes (Glenn et al. 1995; Weaver 1972; Wolvin et al. 1999). This can be done by using specific catchwords and strategies, such as in public speaking settings, by means of various supporting materials that reinforce the verbal message. Finally, adequately using specific sound-related factors and vocal dynamics, as with any texts meant to be heard and not read, is paramount. This ability correlates to whether the speaker can engage the listener’s attention (O’Brien 2009). The sound-related aspects of an oral text are also crucial for achieving high listenability. When delivering an oral text,

64  AD for the arts especially an art AD narrative, the following factors should always be considered and could even serve as indices of a tentative listenability measure: a listenable text should be read out expressively, clearly, and fluently. This encompasses the accurate reading of difficult or technical words; a tone of voice congruent to the content; a clear prosodic segmentation of difficult words and complex texts (using strong prosodic stress or over-articulation as useful strategies to emphasise new or difficult words and to favour ‘acoustic segmentation and lexical access’ (Bernabé and Orero, 2019: 66)), which can be achieved if the reader changes pitch and guides listeners to where different ideas begin and end. Further, changing pace (speeding up and slowing down), volume (saying some words louder than others), and intonation can help the reader emphasise parts of the text, thus facilitating information processing. Regarding pace and speech rate, it should not be too fast or too slow (Weaver 1972); a speech delivered much too fast can hinder audience’s understanding, while a speech delivered too slowly can tire and bore people. This is true irrespective of people’s listening abilities and language competence, especially when planned (vs. conversational), very informative, highly descriptive, and lexically dense texts are to be processed. Spoken language is ‘fast fading’, and ‘listeners are generally at the mercy of the speaker’s rate of production, unable to slow down to decode more complex syntax or to backtrack to earlier sections where they may have lost the thread of an argument’ (Rubin 2012: 178).15 As such, the adequate management of pauses is an essential element. For instance, adding pauses at relevant sentence boundaries, using longer pauses in strategic places, and breathing properly will enable listeners to follow audio descriptions, absorb the information better, and, ultimately, enjoy the experience. Nowadays, technical aspects of sound impact the listenability of a pre-recorded text and cater for a variety of different needs and preferences.16 For instance, by relying on new technologies, we can personalise delivery rate or speech clarity (Orero 2022). Further, listenability is impacted by sound mixing, although this factor is more relevant for screen rather than art AD. Nowadays, we can decide whether the description should be on the same sound level as the original soundtrack, or whether it is better to increase the volume of the AD or the dialogue, raise the volume of dialogue compared to music and sound effects, or other soundbalancing options. All of these choices impact the difference between a high- and a low-listenability AD. Notes 1 The International Council of Museums (ICOM) is a global organisation of museums and museum professionals committed to the promotion and protection of cultural heritage. Cf. https://icom.museum/en/

AD for the arts  65 2 The shift from the term visitor to the term user is not a simple lexical matter; instead, it reflects the recent focus on the fact that users can now engage with museums across three spheres—namely, physically, virtually, and in a mobile fashion. Their presence as actual visitors in the museum space is merely one alternative among many (Black 2012: 17). In the book, both terms will be used interchangeably. 3 Although encouraged by many educators, only a minority of visually impaired people can read Braille (EASIT 2019a), while large-letter documentation can be helpful for the slightly sight-impaired even if it is not practical for later stages of blindness, and it only gives access to written content. For these reasons, audio description would seem to be the best option for most blind patrons at whatever level of blindness, and to other secondary users such as language learners, people with learning difficulties, and even sighted users seeking a more detailed description (Starr 2022). 4 Or, with the production of AD for other forms of art such as dance (Snyder and Geiger 2022) or architecture, which has been explored with a focus on places of worship that show recurring features and a high enough level of predictability to allow the creation of modular guidelines (Pacinotti 2022). 5 The ADLAB guidelines are available in Dutch, English, German, and Italian, and represent a landmark and reference for audio describers requiring strategic and flexible recommendations for writing ADs predominantly for cinema and TV. These guidelines are the result of the three-year project ADLAB (Audio Description: Lifelong Access for the Blind, 2011–2014) (Taylor 2014), which was acknowledged for its best practices and awarded the status of ‘success story’, and financed by the European Union (Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency) under the Lifelong Learning Programme, Key Action ERASMUS Multilateral Projects, and Cooperation between HEI and Enterprises. The project was coordinated by C. Taylor of the University of Trieste, Italy. 6 In the UK, VocalEyes is the most established AD service provider that brings ‘art and culture to life for blind and visually impaired people’ (https://vocaleyes. co.uk/) through professional AD. 7 The Civic Botanical Garden in Trieste is one of the city’s science museums and it displays a permanent collection that can be visited all year round (Colman 2020; Perego 2021). The Garden is property of the Trieste’s Municipality and a part of its group of Civic Scientific Museums. Today, Botanical Gardens maintain their traditional role in the conservation, cultivation, and reproduction of several types of plants and are in line with modern museums’ new approaches. They are also centers for teaching, recreation, and environmental awareness and are considered important for the development of cultural activities accessible to an increasingly broader section of the public, including disabled visitors. In Trieste’s Civic Botanical Garden, accessibility is not yet fully implemented and is still not granted to all. Overall, the city does not yet feature a systematic, inclusive and accessible cultural offer, and a considerable work in the realm of art museum accessibility has been carried out by academic institution. 8 Absolute jasmine, a highly yet very expensive concentrated extract from the flower, could be an interesting alternative to paper samples or to synthetic smells. 9 The average American English conversation rate is about 150 wpm (Barnard 2018b) also due to the functional use of pauses (Barnard 2018a).

66  AD for the arts 10 It has been demonstrated that in shared laughter (compared to unshared laughter), participants experience more positive emotion and less negative emotion during an interaction, they see the person as more similar to them, and are more satisfied with the relationship (Kurtz and Algoe 2017). 11 Resorting to text-to-speech audio description (TTS AD) is a cost and timeeffective solution for producing very large amounts of content accessible to low-vision audiences, especially as far as screen AD is concerned. Although the potential of this method is considerable, the majority of the blind and partially sighted users that have experienced it declared they would accept TTS AD only as an interim rather than as a permanent solution as opposed to service providers, for whom the cost and time related advantages are unequalled (Szarkowska 2011). Results may be different for art AD. 12 The people interviewed include academic and AD expert Christopher Taylor of the University of Trieste and three professional audio describers: Bernd Benecke, head of AD at Bayerischer Rundfunk; Louise Fryer, one of the UK’s most experienced describers and now director of her British company Utopian Voices Ltd.; and Joel Snyder, President of Audio Description Associates, LLC, and Director of the Audio Description Project and the American Council of the Blind. 13 Readability indices, which are language specific, have been developed in several languages; the Gunning Fog has been developed specifically for English (Gunning 1952). 14 Several of the recommendations exposed by Rubin in his empirically based Listenability style guide (Rubin 2012: 187–190) are shared with both Plain Language recommendations (Cutts 2013; Maaβ 2020; Perego 2021) and some art AD recommendations (Giansante 2015; Salzhauer et al. 1996). 15 People can hear comfortably from 150 to 160 words per minute, and this is in fact the recommended rate for audiobooks or narration in videos (Barnard 2018a, 2018b; Bragg et al. 2018), even though when normal speech is increased to 210 words per minute, using compression, there is no loss in comprehension at least for standard audiences. Listeners who are blind or low-vision can reach faster listening rates (up to 500 wpm), and they excel at processing and remembering auditory stimuli due to early and prolonged exposure to the fast rates used by assistive technology and synthetic speech (Bragg et al. 2018). Young children, blind children who may have comorbidities such as learning difficulties, or people who have trouble recognising voices (e.g. due to some forms of dyslexia) will benefit from slower rates (Long et al. 2016). 16 Including people who are cognitively disadvantaged (e.g. audiences with cognitive or intellectual disabilities whose brains struggle to process speech and combine words from smaller units of sound, or audiences with a low competence in the AD language; Perego 2020) require augmented comprehensibility in the form of easier to understand and therefore more inclusive content (Maaß 2020; Perego 2021; cf. the EASIT project).

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AD for the arts  67 Barnard, D. (2018a, January 2). 10 effective ways to use pauses in your speech. VIRTUALSPEECH. https://virtualspeech.com/blog/effective-ways-use-pauses-in-speech Barnard, D. (2018b, January 20). Average speaking rate and words per minute. VIRTUALSPEECH. https://virtualspeech.com/blog/average-speaking-rate-words-perminute#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20National%20Center,podcasters% 2C%20the%20wpm%20is%20higher Bakke, H.A., Cavalcante, W.A., de Oliveira, I.S., Sarinho, S.W., & Cattuzzo, M.T. (2019). Assessment of motor skills in children with visual impairment: A systematic and integrative review. Clinical Medicine Insights: Pediatrics, 13, 1–10. Bernabé, R., & Orero, P. (2019). Easy to read as multimode accessibility service. Hermeneus, 21, 53–74. Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., & Finegan, E. (1999). Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Longman. Black, G. (2005). The engaging museum. Developing museums for visitor involvement. Routledge. Black, G. (2012). Transforming museums in the twenty-first century. Routledge. Bragg, D., Bennett, C., Reinecke, K., & Ladner, R. (2018). A large inclusive study of human listening rates. Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1–12). Association for Computing Machinery. Braun, S., & Starr, K. (Eds.). (2021) Innovation in audio description research. Routledge. Candlin, F. (2006). The dubious inheritance of touch: Art history and museum access. Journal of Visual Culture, 5(2), 137–154. Cartier, F.A. (1952). The social context of listenability research. Journal of Communication, 2, 44–47. Charlton, J. (2000). Nothing about us without us: Disability oppression and empowerment. University of California Press. Collavini, V. (2019). L’audio descrizione museale per i disabili visivi e il caso del Museo Archeologico di Aquileia [Unpublished BA thesis]. University of Trieste, Italy. Colman, M. (2020). L’accessibilità per ciechi e ipovedenti. Proposta di percorsi accessibili nel Giardino Botanico di Trieste [Unpublished BA thesis]. University of Trieste, Italy. COME-IN! (2017). COME-IN! Handbook for museum operators. https://www. interreg-central.eu/Content.Node/COME-IN/COME-IN-HANDBOOK-ENG.pdf Craig, W. (s.d.). Simple strategies for engaging your visitors [Blog]. https://www. webfx.com/blog/web-design/strategies-engage-visitors/ Cutts, M. (2013). The Oxford guide to plain English. OUP. De Coster, K., & Loots, G. (2004). Somewhere in between touch and vision: In search of a meaningful art education for blind individuals. The International Journal of Art & Design Education, 23(3), 326–334. De Landi, N. (1447–1550). Mirror frame showing a female head. [Painted Cartapesta]. Victoria and Albert Museum. De Vito, J.A. (1965). Levels of abstraction and listenability. Today’s Speech, 13, 12–14. Dewey, J. (1934). Art as experience. Balch.

68  AD for the arts Dobbin, C., Eardley, A.F., & Neves, J. (2016). Ektashif: Art through senses – Families shaping museum programmes in Qatar. Multaqa Professional Journal of the Gulf Museum Educators Network, 2, 11–19. Dodd, J., & Sandell, R. (1998). Building bridges: Guidance for museums and galleries on developing new audiences. Museum and Galleries Commission. Eardley, A.F., Fryer, L., Hutchinson, R., Cock, M., Ride, P., & Neves, J. (2017). Enriched audio description: Working towards an inclusive museum experience. In S. Halder & L.C. Assaf (Eds.), Inclusion, disability and culture. An ethnographic perspective traversing abilities and challenges (pp. 195–209). Springer International. Eardley, A.F., Mineiro, C., Neves, J., & Ride, P. (2016). Redefining access: Embracing multimodality, memorability and shared experiences in museums. The Museum Journal, 59(3), 263–286. EASIT (2019a). Braille [Video]. https://transmediacatalonia.uab.cat/easit/unit-1/ element-5/braille/ EASIT (2019b). Listenability [Video]. https://transmediacatalonia.uab.cat/easit/ unit-3b/element-1/interview-with-professionals-listenability/ Ellis, A., Park, E., Kim, S., & Yeoman, I. (2018). What is food tourism? Tourism Management, 68, 250–263. Everett, S. (2019). Theoretical turns through tourism taste-scapes: The evolution of food tourism research. Research in Hospitality Management, 9(1), 3–12. Falk, J.H., & Dierking, L.D. (2013). The museum experience revisited. Routledge. Figiel, W., & Albin, K. (2022). Receptor tools. In C. Taylor & E. Perego (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of audio description (pp. 353–364). Routledge. Fina, E. (2018). Investigating effective audio guiding. Carocci. Fineman, A., & Cock, M. (2022). Audio description in museums: A service provider perspective. In C. Taylor & E. Perego (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of audio description (pp. 215–231). Routledge. Finlay, J. (2020). Art history. Arcturus. Fryer, L. (2016). An introduction to audio description. Routledge. Fryer, L. (2019). AD Delivery [Video lecture]. ADLAB PRO course materials. https://www.adlabpro.eu/coursematerials/ Giansante, L. (2015). Writing verbal descriptions for audio guides. Art beyond sight. http://www.artbeyondsight.org/mei/verbal-description-training/writing-verbaldescription-for-audio-guides/ Glenn, E.C., Emmert, P., & Emmert, V. (1995). A scale for measuring listenability: The factors that determine listening ease and difficulty. International Journal of Listening, 9(1), 44–61. Gombrich, E.H. (1950/1995). The story of art. Phaidon. Greco, G.M. (2018). The nature of accessibility studies. JAT, 1(1), 205–232. Gunning, R. (1952). The technique of clear writing. McGraw-Hill. Halliday, M.A.K. (1989). Spoken and written language. OUP. Hooper-Greenhill, E. (2000). Museum and the interpretation of visual culture. Routledge. Hutchinson, R.S., & Eardley, A.F. (2019). Museum audio description: The problem of textual fidelity. Perspectives, 27(1), 42–57.

AD for the arts  69 Hutchinson R.S., & Eardley, A.F. (2021). Inclusive museum audio guides: ‘Guided looking’ through audio description enhances memorability of artworks for sighted audiences. Museum Management and Curatorship, 36(4), 427–446. Hutchinson, R.S., & Eardley, A.F. (2022). Visitor studies: Interdisciplinary methods for understanding the impact of inclusive museum audio description experiences. In C. Taylor & E. Perego (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of audio description (pp. 232–245). Routledge. ICOM (International Council of Museums) (2022). Museum definition. https:// icom.museum/en/resources/standards-guidelines/museum-definition/ Katan, D. (2016). Translation at the cross-roads: Time for the transcreational turn? Perspectives, (24)3, 365–381. Kim, S., Park, M., & Xu, M. (2020). Beyond the authentic taste: The tourist experience at a food museum restaurant. Tourism Management Perspectives, 36, 1–9. Kozloff, S. (2000). Overhearing film dialogue. University of California Press. Kress, G., & Van Leeuwen, T. (1996). Reading images: The grammar of visual design. Routledge. Kurin, R. (2004). Museums and intangible heritage: Culture dead or alive? ICOM News, 4, 7–9. Kurtz, L.E., & Algoe, S.B. (2017). When sharing a laugh means sharing more. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 41(1), 45–65. Lehmann, S., & Murray, M. (2005). The role of multisensory memories in unisensory object discrimination. Cognitive Brain Research, 24, 326–334. Levent N., & Pascual-Leone, Á. (2014). The multisensory museum: Crossdisciplinary perspectives on touch, sound, smell, memory, and space. Rowman & Littlefield. Long G.B., Fox R.A., & Jacewicz E. (2016) Dyslexia limits the ability to categorize talker dialect. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 59(5), 900–914. Maaß, C. (2020) Easy Language – Plain Language – Easy Language Plus. Frank & Timme. Majid, A., & Burenhult, N. (2014). Odors are expressible in language, as long as you speak the right language. Cognition, 130(2), 266–270. Mason, R., Robinson, A., & Coffield E. (2018). Museum and gallery studies. The basics. Routledge. Mittler, G.A. (2006). Art in focus. Glencoe. Moreno, R., & Mayer, R.E. (2000). A learner-centered approach to multimedia explanations: Deriving instructional design principles from cognitive theory. Interactive Multimedia Electronic Journal of Computer Enhanced Learning, 2(2), 12–20. Neves, J. (2010). Sound painting: Audiodescription in another light. Conference catalogue of the 8th international conference & exhibition on language transfer in the audiovisual media – Languages & the Media, 6–8 October 2008 (pp. 43–45). ICWE. Neves, J. (2012). Multi-sensory approaches to (audio) describing the visual arts. MonTI, 4, 277–293.

70  AD for the arts Neves, J. (2015). Descriptive guides: Access to museums, cultural venues and heritage sites. In A. Remael, N. Reviers & G. Vercauteren (Eds.), Pictures painted in words. ADLAB audio description guidelines (pp. 70–73). EUT. Neves, J. (2016). Enriched descriptive guides: A case for collaborative meaningmaking in museum. Cultus, 9(2), 137–153. O’Brien, L. (2009). Listener-centered public speaking. A speaker’s resource. McGraw-Hill. Orero, P. (2022). Audio description personalization. In C. Taylor & E. Perego (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of audio description (pp. 407–419). Routledge. Pacinotti, R. (2022). Audio describing churches: In search of a template. In C. Taylor & E. Perego (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of audio description (pp. 246–262). Routledge. Pavesi, M., & Perego, E. (2006). Profiling film translators in Italy: A preliminary analysis. JoSTrans, 6, 99–144. Perego, E. (2017). Audio description: A laboratory for the development of a new professional profile. International Journal of Translation, 19, 131–142. Perego, E. (2019). Audio description. Evolving recommendations for usable, effective, and enjoyable practices. In L. Pérez Gonzáles (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of audiovisual translation (pp. 114–129). Routledge. Perego, E. (2020). Accessible communication: A cross-country journey. Frank & Timme. Perego, E. (2021). Extending the uses of museum audio description: Implications for translation training and English language acquisition. Textus, 1, 229–253. Perego, E., & Taylor, C. (2022). A profile of audio description end-users: Linguistic needs and inclusivity. In C. Taylor & E. Perego (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of audio description (pp. 38–53). Routledge. Pietracci, C. (2017). “If your eyes could speak, what would they say”. Proposta di audiodescrizione per il Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Aquileia [Unpublished BA thesis]. University of Trieste, Italy. Randaccio, M. (2018). Museum audio description: Multimodal and ‘multisensory’ translation: A case study from the British Museum. Linguistics and Literature Studies, 6(6), 285–297. Randaccio, M. (2022). Drama translation: Theory and practice. EUT. Recupero A., Talamo, A., Triberti, S., & Modesti, C. (2019). Bridging museum mission to visitors’ experience: Activity, meanings, interactions, technology. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1–10. Remael, A., Reviers, N., & Vercauteren, G. (2015). Pictures painted in words: ADLAB audio description guidelines. EUT. Rubin, D.L. (2012). Listenability as a tool for advancing health literacy. Journal of Health Communication, 17(3), 176–190. Rubin, D.L., Hafter, T., & Arata, K. (2000). Reading and listening to oral-based versus literate-based discourse. Communication Education, 49(2), 121–134. Salzhauer, A.E., Hooper, E., Kardoulias, V., Stephenson, T., Keyes, S., & Rosenberg, F. (1996). AEB’s guidelines for verbal description adapted from making visual art accessible to people who are blind and visually impaired. Art Beyond Sight. http://www.artbeyondsight.org/handbook/acs-guidelines.shtml

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72  AD for the arts VocalEyes (2017, June 12). How VocalEyes supports museums and their blind and partially sighted visitors [Video]. https://vocaleyes.co.uk/services/ museums-galleries-and-heritage/ Walczak, A., & Iturregui-Gallardo, G. (2022). Artificial voices. In C. Taylor & E. Perego (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of audio description (pp. 365–376). Routledge. Weaver, C.H. (1972). Human listening processes and behavior. Bobbs-Merrill. Wilkie, D. (1822). Chelsea pensioners reading the waterloo dispatch. [Oil on canvas]. Apsley House, The Wellington Museum. Wolvin, A.D., Berko, R.M., & Wolvin, D.R. (1999). The public speaker/the public listener. Roxbury.

3 Stand-alone AD Paintings

3.1 Paintings In the visual arts, paintings are meaningful two-dimensional artworks on a surface created using colour that represent a variety of animated or unanimated subjects (e.g. still life and landscape painting) and abstract or concrete ideas (Finlay 2020; Mittler 2006). Paintings can be done on surfaces such as walls, paper, canvas, wood, glass, lacquer, pottery, leaf, copper, and concrete, among others. They may incorporate multiple other materials, including sand, clay, paper, plaster, gold leaf, and even whole objects. Paintings depict distinctive visual elements, techniques, and methods that typify an individual artist’s work. This is referred to as style, or the painting may be said to belong to a specific movement or have a particular classification. It can be quite challenging to provide AD for paintings, as they require an audio describer who is well versed in a wide array of art jargon and is educated and considered when thinking about art and its visual analysis (Finlay 2020: 11). 3.2

Corpus overview

We used a collection of 55 audio descriptions of paintings exhibited in different museums and galleries for our analysis of the language of standalone painting ADs. They were described professionally in British and American English by different audio describers and service providers. The corpus includes painting ADs ranging from the 15th to the mid-20th century to include a wide variety of styles and art movements (Table 3.1). Using AD texts by both British and American AD authors and service providers ensured the inclusion of different approaches to description, the former traditionally accepting hints to subjectivity and appraisal language, and the latter being more objective (Fryer 2016; Snyder 2014). The total size of the corpus is 26,659 tokens and 4,655 types. The quantitative data, summarised in Table 3.2, show an average Standardised Type DOI: 10.4324/9781003134237-4

Date

~1460 1885 1843 1913 1814 1942 1937 1822 1929 1952 ~1420 1909 1910 1930 ~1500 1886 1910 1933 1909 ~1727 1889 1907 1831 1859 1870 1812–14 1950 1806

Name of the Painting

Adoration of the Magi Bather (The) Battle of Waterloo Black Lines Boat Building Broadway Boogie-Woogie Capricious Form Chelsea Pensioners Composition Convergence Coronation of the Virgin (The) Dance Dream (The) Early Sunday Morning Entombment (The) Evening Honfleur Girl with a Mandolin Gloomy Situation Group in Crinolines Hans Sloane Portrait Irises Les Damoiselles d’Avignon Manby Apparatus (The) Marina Piccola, Capri (The) Mill (The) Napoleon One: Number 31 Pauline Bonaparte

Andrea Mantegna Paul Cézanne William Allan Wassily Kandinsky John Constable Piet Mondrian Wassily Kandinsky David Wilkie Piet Mondrian Jackson Pollock Gentile da Fabriano Henri Matisse Henri Rousseau Edward Hopper Michelangelo Georges-Pierre Seurat Pablo Picasso Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Kandinsky John Vanderbank Vincent Van Gogh Pablo Picasso William Turner Albert Bierstadt Edward C. Burne-Jones Robert Lefèvre Jackson Pollock Robert Lefèvre

Painter

Table 3.1  Stand-alone painting ADs: Corpus details

J. Paul Getty Museum MoMa—The Museum of Modern Art Apsley House Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Victoria and Albert Museum MoMa—The Museum of Modern Art Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Apsley House Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY J. Paul Getty Museum MoMa—The Museum of Modern Art MoMa—The Museum of Modern Art Whitney Museum of American Art National Gallery MoMa—The Museum of Modern Art MoMa—The Museum of Modern Art Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum British Museum J. Paul Getty Museum MoMa—The Museum of Modern Art Victoria and Albert Museum Albright Knox Art Gallery Victoria and Albert Museum Apsley House MoMa—The Museum of Modern Art Apsley House

Museum

Antenna Audio, Inc. & Joel Snyder Acoustiguide Inc. VocalEyes ANON VocalEyes MoMa ANON VocalEyes Art Education for the Blind Audio Description Associates Antenna Audio, Inc. & Joel Snyder MoMa MoMa Art Education for the Blind n/a MoMa Art Education for the Blind ANON ANON Kim Sloane Antenna Audio, Inc. & Joel Snyder MoMa VocalEyes Audio Description Associates VocalEyes VocalEyes MoMa VocalEyes

Audio Describer or AD Provider

Philip IV, King of Spain Portrait of John Purling Portrait of S. and V. Courtauld Portrait of Wellington Red Studio (The) Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows Small Pleasures St. Cecilia Still Life with Parrots Street Dresden Striped Study of the Trunk of an Elm Tree Summer Days Sunflowers Three Musicians Venus and Adonis View of Cadaques View of the Grand Canal Vir Heroicus Sublimis Virgin and Child in Egypt Water Lilies Waterloo Banquet Wellington Woman I

1625–35 18th Cent. 1934 1860 1911 1831 1913 17th Cent. 17th Cent. 1908 1934 1821 1936 1888 1921 1555–60 1921 ~1740 ~1950 1810 1914–26 1830–40 1812–14 1950–52

Diego Velazquez Thomas Gainsborough Leonard Campbell Taylor Spiridione Gambardella Henri Matisse John Constable Wassily Kandinsky Paul Delaroche Jan Davidzon de Heem Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Wassily Kandinsky John Constable Georgia O’Keeffe Vincent Van Gogh Pablo Picasso Titian Salvador Dalí Bernando Bellotto Bernett Newman William Blake Claude Monet William Salter Thomas Lawrence Willem de Kooning

John and Mable Ringing Museum of Art Victoria and Albert Museum Eltham Palace Apsley House MoMa—The Museum of Modern Art Tate Britain Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Victoria and Albert Museum John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art MoMa—The Museum of Modern Art Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Victoria and Albert Museum Whitney Museum of American Art National Gallery MoMa—The Museum of Modern Art J. Paul Getty Museum Salvador Dalí Museum J. Paul Getty Museum MoMa—The Museum of Modern Art Victoria and Albert Museum MoMa—The Museum of Modern Art Apsley House Apsley House MoMa—The Museum of Modern Art

Art Education for the Blind VocalEyes VocalEyes VocalEyes Acoustiguide Inc. VocalEyes ANON VocalEyes Art Education for the Blind MoMa ANON VocalEyes Art Education for the Blind n/a MoMa Antenna Audio, Inc. & Joel Snyder Audio Description Associates Antenna Audio, Inc. & Joel Snyder MoMa VocalEyes MoMa VocalEyes VocalEyes MoMa

76  Stand-alone AD: paintings Table 3.2  Stand-alone painting AD corpus: Quantitative data Characters Syllables Complex words Tokens Types Lemmas TTR/STTR % (decimals) Mean word length (SD) Sentences Mean in words (SD) Lexical density Gunning fog index Passive voice Parts of speech Nouns Adjectives Verbs Adverbs Prepositions Pronouns Auxiliary verbs

152,481/125,139 37,704 2,281 26,659 4,655 4,156 16.20% / 43.56% (0.14/0.70) 4.56 (2.41) 1514 17.77 (9.16) 54.31% 10.47 21.27% 28.78% 11.04% 10.95% 3.55% 15.39% 2.63% 4.3%

Token Ratio (STTR) (43.56%) that points to a high lexical diversity, possibly relating to the need to convey precise and detailed descriptions, and a mean value of lexical density (54.31%). This is approximately the same as written fiction (typically scoring between 49% and 51%) and general prose (typically scoring between 48% and 50%) (Biber et al. 1999; Johansson 2008), which are very informative text types. Both measures relate to the planned nature of pre-recorded art AD (which could be conducive to listenability, especially if delivered with the appropriate prosody; par. 2.6) and its core communicative aim: making the most relevant visual elements of artworks verbally available to blind and visually impaired patrons through vivid, varied, and engaging language (Giansante 2015; Perego 2018, 2019; Snyder 2007, 2014). Still, these texts might entail considerable complexity. The figures suggest a tendency to use, on average, short words and sentences to ensure the length is not too taxing for the receiver, generally speaking (Vincent 2014). The average mean word length in characters (4.56, SD = 2.41) suggests a preference for native words, which are normally shorter than borrowed and technical words, and are easier to grasp (Cutts 2013); however, longer art-related terms are still likely to be found (as in Perego 2018). The mean sentence length in words (17.77, SD = 9.16), however, shows a high variation, indicating that sentences can reach a considerable length and syntactic complexity which will increase the overall text (or passage) difficulty. For example, the opening

Stand-alone AD: paintings  77 lines of the AD of Piet Mondrian’s highly influential Neo-Plasticist painting is a long, single sentence: Broadway Boogie-Woogie: The title of the painting, Broadway Boogie-Woogie, is a nice collision of two delighted references to things that made Mondrian so enthusiastic about his new life in New York City: Broadway, a very busy, broad, thoroughfare full of interesting stores, but also full of theatres representing the novelty and the liveliness of the American musical tradition, and boogie-woogie, the jazz music that Mondrian discovered here and loved so much. The overall readability of the corpus calculated using the Gunning fog index (10.47) indicates a quite difficult text—namely, it requires over ten years of formal education to be understood on first reading. It also typifies an example that is likely to increase in complexity rather than becoming simpler. Readability, and in turn comprehensibility and listenability, can decrease considerably when portions of text in the corpus reach high percentages of lexical density. For example, the following text has a lexical density of 70.37%: In the lower right corner are two tall looming figures one white and lemon yellow and the other deep pink touched with green orange yellow and white (Kandinsky’s Small Pleasures’ AD). Another example with a lexical density of 92.31%: two small nude sculptures one black one white standing on outlined pedestals (Matisse’s The Red Studio’s AD). Lexical density increases when long abstract words are used (e.g. abstraction; exaggerated), when complex phrases embed compound adjectives (in its non-naturalistic use of jewel-like colours), or when the passive voice is used rather than the active voice (The left side of the painting is filled with bright colours), especially in complex constructions including aspectual (Only its face has been colored in white) or modal sematic components (This private devotional image may have been painted for the Gonzaga family; This would have been opened to flood the pit). In the corpus, the distribution of parts of speech shows that the highest percentage of words are nouns, then prepositions, followed by adjectives, and then verbs. The large number of nouns, adjectives, and verbs confirms the need for lexical words in highly informative text types (Biber et al. 1999), including museum ADs (Perego 2018), and complies with AD guideline recommendations to achieve rich and visually powerful texts (Fryer 2016; Giansante 2015; Perego 2019; Snyder 2014). The frequency of prepositions, however, seems to relate to the role of prepositional phrases as noun-qualifying morpho-syntactic structures frequently embedded within complex noun phrases (Biber et al. 1999: 103). Prepositional phrases ‘are by far the most common type of post-modifier in all registers’, especially when written in non-fiction registers (Biber et al. 1999: 634, 635). The preposition of, for instance, tends to be overrepresented in the corpus with a post-modifying function (the coastal fishing town of Cadaques; A stack of gilded picture frames; illustrations of microscopic organisms). A similar trend typifies the other corpora under analysis.

78  Stand-alone AD: paintings Overall, the figures suggest that stand-alone painting ADs alternate short, core vocabulary words and longer, descriptive, precise, and informationbearing lexical units and a varied lexical repertoire to convey explicit and clear meanings to substituting images. The investigation of word frequency in the corpus reveals, expectedly, that the most frequent words are the verb be (909/340.97) followed by third-person pronominal forms, both genderneutral (it: 206/77.27; this: 151/56.64) and gendered (his: 224/84.02; her: 191/71.65), the topic-specific noun painting(s) (217/81.40), and the locative adverbs left and right (featuring exactly the same frequency values: 181 raw occurrences and a frequency normalised to 10k of 67.89). Further observation will reveal other notable register-specific features. 3.3

Typifying verbs

In markedly descriptive texts that portray observed objects (cf. Cacchiani 2013: 47), (e.g. stand-alone painting ADs), copular verbs play an essential role. After all, their syntactic function is to link a subject (or object) with an element that completes it by specifically and objectively representing and revealing a particular abstract or concrete feature of what is represented (Biber et al. 1999). This fully complies with the general purpose of descriptive texts to capture details, express emotions, and evoke senses through a type of narrative that is closely linked to visual experiences and is generally not agent-oriented (Kane 2000: 352). Copular verbs have already been detected as characterising items in screen AD (Salway 2007; par. 1.7). However, in stand-alone painting ADs, the use of a much larger variety of both copular and pseudo-copular items has been detected, ranging from current copular verbs (be, seem, and appear) to their sub-category of sensory copular verbs (look and feel) to the resulting copular verb become, which identifies an attribute resulting from some process of change (Biber et al. 1999: 436). Art ADs, which have looser space and time constraints, can benefit considerably from the higher descriptive precision achieved through using a variety of terms. The clusters be + adjective and be + noun phrase in the present tense remain overwhelmingly the most common cluster in the corpus (similar to other descriptive registers, like academic prose and fiction; Biber et al. 1999: 437). Is (538/201.81) and are (201/75.40) typically join the grammatical subject of a sentence with sentence components that factually qualify or identify it (his body is flat; the last two figures on the right are the most unexpected). This explains why the copular be is often used to express the dimension of a painting, or specific items on the canvas (The dimensions of the painting are 82 and 3/8 inches high by 47 and 5/8 inches wide; His body is over 6 feet tall). Elliptical constructions are strongly preferred to convey this essential type of information because they are more

Stand-alone AD: paintings  79 compressed, direct, and catchy, and they work well as AD openers (Oil on canvas, 6 feet 8 inches high by 9½ feet wide; Oil on canvas, 31 inches high by 27 inches wide. 79 x 94 cm, including the frame). Copular verbs, which are generally associated with the semantic domain of likelihood, are used to provide the listener with a degree of interpretative freedom (Biber et al. 1999: 439). This explains the tendency to use seem (25/9.38) and appear (33/12.38). The former typically combines adjectival complements that mark personal attitudes and sometimes indicate some degree of surprise, or an intentional tentativeness (the painting’s composition seems highly balanced, stable, and symmetrical). The latter mainly marks interpretative probability and respect for the painter’s unknown intentions (They appear to be disembarking from a red trolley; making them appear punched out and pasted elsewhere). When a degree of evaluation is involved in the description, making it necessary to emphasise perception, sensory copular verbs (which identify attributes that are in a continuing state of existence) are an effective choice: look (13/4.88) is privileged when reporting the evaluation of physical appearance (She looks shy), and feel (6/2.25) is privileged when assessing a mental state (One can almost feel the variety of texture; The painting now feels a bit disturbing). Both verbs enable the AD writer to avoid a patronising authoritative attitude (e.g. The painting is utterly disturbing). Typically, this is banned in both guidelines and literature, which also consider it inappropriate and offensive not to leave room for visitors’ personal perception of what is being described. Finally, when the focus is on a process of change involved in reaching a visible resulting state on the painting, the resulting copular verb become can contribute to highlighting the resultative meaning of a description (his work had become increasingly abstract) and convey a continuity in the making of some artwork details (She wears a golden-yellow cloth headdress that drapes around her neck to become a scarf). Alternatively, it can be used effectively in a more common manner to report resultative historical facts that offer an interesting background (Wellington became the hero of all Europe). Moving away from the large variety of copular verbs used in painting ADs, the general tendency to use communication verbs that are not linked to speech (show and suggest) has been observed as a successful way to prepare the listener for what is on display and will be described (The picture shows a tranquil seascape bathed in the fading light of dusk). In addition, it is used to facilitate and guide the imaginative process through a visual referent that is known and evocative, thus conceding an open interpretative space further emphasised by the use of adequate stance adverbials such as possibly (The ground is pinkish and flat, and suggests a sandy beach; swirls of beige and brown that suggest stone; a small dark rectangle

80  Stand-alone AD: paintings rises. It suggests possibly a skyscraper in the background). A similar effect is achieved using verbs of vision. At first, verbs of vision, and in general sight-specific expressions, were not generally appreciated as they were considered unnecessary, redundant, and indelicate (e.g. Rai et al. 2010). However, according to a more recent stance, whenever AD is employed ‘it is evident that we see something, otherwise the describer would not be bothered to mention it’ (Fryer 2016: 68), and therefore verbs such as see and appear should not be avoided out of sensitivity towards people who are visually impaired. In the corpus, see (52/19.51) is used to point to a deductive activity rather than to refer to visual perception, and it entails a clear inclusive function, which is foregrounded by its association with second-person pronouns to foreground the senser and engage the visitor directly, to confer an in-group feeling and stress the participative dimension of content sharing, and to draw attention to the same salient visual details that have been detected and deemed meaningful by the specialised describer (You can see this clearly in the clothes Philip wears; Through the leaves we can see a hint of pale blue sky). Illustrating the style of a painting is essential in art AD. This is achieved in the corpus by stressing how a given painting effect has been accomplished. The general transitive verb use, both in the present and past tense, is often associated with the painter’s specific tool (Mondrian used a ruler to paint these lines) or technique (Cézanne uses clearly visible brushstrokes). This practice is also found in art history books (cf. Gombrich (1950/1995): Rembrandt used less bright colour than either of them; Like Masaccio, he uses the new art of perspective with eagerness). The same function applies through the nominalisation of the verb use which confers abstraction to a process which is typical of written, specialised language (It shows in his compositions and in the careful use of light in his paintings) and by the more topic-specific verb paint. Paint is used in all combinations of tense and aspect (A white plate on which Matisse has painted a blue nude woman; He painted it in 1929; Velazquez paints this tranquil and composed moment). Generally, as illustrated by the examples, the painter is stressed as an active and important agent in the sentence. That being said, there are cases when the audio describer is not concerned with the person performing an action, thus choosing to overlook the painter emphasising the visual aspects of the painting instead. For instance, the perspective of the painting (The action of the painting is displayed horizontally like a sculptural frieze) or the techniques (The paint has been applied and scraped away several times; The figures shapes have been outlined and then painted in thickly; Her face is painted bright white; The black paint has been scribbled, brushed and spotted). The passive voice has a weight-managing

Stand-alone AD: paintings  81 function and is an effective means of moving longer and heavier expressions to the end of a clause while giving them relevance and the status of new information (Swan 2016: 67.1). It alternates, rather than substitutes, with active structures within the same AD text based on whether the focus is on the agent or on the action, depending on the overall text organisation. Example 3.1 includes a passage from the AD of Pollack’s 1952 work Convergence. The painting is a collage of colours splattered on a canvas that creates masterful shapes and lines which evoke emotions and attack the eye. In the opening lines of its AD, the artist is mentioned immediately and is foregrounded as an active and essential agent in the text (and the painting process) through the use of active voice constructions (he drizzled and poured paint directly onto the canvas). However, agency sometimes shifts from Pollack to the materials he uses (The black paint has been scribbled, brushed and spotted; Loops, spots and drips of paint extend over the entire surface of the tan canvas). Furthermore, only after his role has been established does the AD shift to the passive voice foregrounding the technicalities of the work (The black paint has been scribbled, brushed and spotted so that two-thirds of the canvas has been randomly painted over in a tangled web of lines). This ensures the coherence, smoothness, sequentiality, and dynamicity of the AD text. Example 3.1 Excerpt from the AD of Convergence (J. Pollack, 1952) At nearly 8 feet high and 13 feet wide, Convergence is one of Pollack’s celebrated ‘drip’ paintings in which he drizzled and poured paint directly onto the canvas without using a paintbrush. The canvas rested on the floor as Pollock worked; the result is a document of his activity tracing the curves of his arms as he distributed paint in dribs and drabs. Loops, spots, and drips of paint extend over the entire surface of the tan canvas. Pollack started with black to establish a ‘background’ of sorts before continuing with primary colour highlights of red, yellow, blue, and white. The black paint has been scribbled, brushed, and spotted so that two-thirds of the canvas has been randomly painted over in a tangled web of lines. One can imagine Pollack sweeping his arms and body across the painting and letting his unconscious mind guide his hands along. At the same time, thin, spiderwebbed veins of black indicate that there’s a certain delicacy at work, which the eye experiences almost musically. The red highlight begins with a loop in the lower right corner and travels left into another loop, drizzling to the left corner before sweeping up into a pretzel in the upper left corner.

82  Stand-alone AD: paintings The use of passive forms should not be overlooked when considering what the describer aims to communicate or stress, unless an AD requires simplification for specific communicative or accessibility reasons, i.e. for special audiences and highly functional uses. In the painting corpus, a recurrent passive construction is the cluster to be composed of (The lower section of the rectangle is composed of vertical wavy grey lines), used regularly to hint at art composition rules. Conversely, the impersonal passive voice is normally found with the second person plural are as operator. Accordingly, the clause acquires an inclusive purpose, and the focus deliberately shifts to the visitor’s perception to stimulate their imagination and engage them directly engage them in the imaginative experience (It is as if we are plunged into an eye-level crowd of purple; Wherever we look, we are dazzled by a profusion of colour). The combination of the passive voice with modal auxiliaries (four pairs [of snakes] can be spotted in this representation) in perfect aspect constructions (had been brought together), or in the simple past (the base of the statue was probably reattached to the rest of the body), is rare, and it offers semantic traits considered necessary by the writer, e.g. when the agent is unimportant. A range of specialised art-related verbs used sparingly, and normally in the bare third form, can be observed. For example, outlined refers to the real or apparent lines by which a figure or shape is defined or bound by the plane of vision (The figure, roughly outlined in black; topped by a lime-green hat outlined in bright orange); patterned refers to a design in which lines, shapes, forms, or colours are repeated to generate a regular or irregular motif (The sleeves are made of iridescent silk patterned with horizontal stripes); speckled refers to something that is covered or marked with a large number of small spots or patches of colour (green foliage, speckled with red, yellow and blue dots); tinged and tinted refer to slightly coloured objects (It is tinged in some areas with green; the black oval of her hair is tinted with brown). Finally, single occurrences of highly descriptive terms that contribute to the literary-like style of some ADs (They zigzag in places and cross each other; Her head is wrapped in a scarf secured by gold bands) alternate with another highly represented category of verbs, that is, verbs that are closely linked to the subjects of paintings. For instance, the frequent use of wear, revealing what one has on their body, e.g. clothing, decoration, or protection (On his torso he wears a tunic, which is a long vest), obviously denotes the abundance of human subjects portrayed in the corpus, and clearly are a reflection of the corpus used. Sit and stand, except when used to guide the visitor through the physical museum or gallery space, are common yet clear verbs that describe the exact position of the figures on the canvas (She seems to be sitting perched on a green step or footstool; He stands, hands on hips, looking down).

Stand-alone AD: paintings  83 3.4

Tense, aspect, and modality

Knowing how to correctly use verb tense, aspect, and modality in writing art ADs is crucial for conveying meaning nuances and facilitating a deeper comprehension and clearer perception of an AD message, communicative purpose, and scope. Overall, most verb construction choices are functional and used to convey, stress, or justify information. This information could include the painters’ stylistic choices and aim to facilitate the visualisation of abstract concepts and ideas unfamiliar to most blind and sighted visitors. Regarding tense, most (screen) AD guidelines and literature dictate the almost exclusive use of simple or (although infrequent) continuous present tenses in declarative sentences as one of the main linguistic features of AD. This is because audio describers provide an essentially immediate and objective picture of the events (Piety 2004: 26; Rai et al. 2010; Taylor 2015). While this is overwhelmingly true of screen AD (cf. some excerpts from The Hours’s AD: They grin at each other; She slips past him), it generally applies to art AD as well. The present tense is widely used in descriptive writing (Cacchiani 2013) and is very common and evenly distributed when speakers’ focus is on the immediate context. Biber and colleagues (1999: 456– 457) demonstrate that it is strongly preferred in conversation and academic prose, however, painting ADs incorporate it as well to offer a vivid representation of what cannot be seen by people with sensory disabilities (One woman wears a coral bonnet; a light pink sun emanates hazy red beams; And that is the Cathedral, which dominates the centre of this landscape). In these cases, stative and copular verbs are preferred to dynamic verbs, which present propositional information that is generally valid whenever the states or events actually occur. A painters’ temporary behaviour, one which is linked to a given artwork but not necessarily a typical feature of theirs, is expressed through the present tense. For instance, in the AD for Matisse’s The Red Studio. Here, the use and the role of red is striking and emphasised with an unmarked present tense and lexical repetition without being a defining feature of the artist (Matisse floods the canvas with red, a deep, rich red, like tomato soup. The walls are red, the floor is red. Even the furniture appears just as outlines against the red background). It should be noted, however, that the French painter, leader of the Fauves, was indeed gifted in his use of colours. We know that ‘he studied the colour-schemes of Oriental carpets and of North African scenery, and developed a style which has exerted a great influence on modern design’ (Gombrich 1950/1995: 431), and his colours normally produced a lyrical (Mittler 2006: 82), decorative, and sophisticated effect (Gombrich 1950/1995: 432–433). Finally, the present tense contributes to stressing the general timeless impacts of a given technique on a given painting or emphasises regularly repeated art-related actions or states. In addition, it can serve to guide the listener’s

84  Stand-alone AD: paintings imagination and interpretation (Biber et al. 1999: 458; Swan 2016) (Texture brushstrokes give a sense of direction and movement). The past tense, used frequently in fiction and fictional narratives, shifts the listener’s attention towards states or events that are not physically or psychologically close or immediate (Lewis 1986), but that contribute to offering an important interpretative background that can help AD listeners to understand and better contextualise the description of some visual details. The past tense is normally used to refer to a persistent (vs. temporary) state and to artists’ habits. In addition, it enables the describer to reveal details of the artist that can fascinate the visitor or help them understand their choices or style (Van Gogh was fascinated by the sunflower’s rapid lifecycle; Constable was scrupulous in his recording of natural phenomena). It is used to report past actions referring to the artist’s life and artistic choices (When Kandinsky began painting again after moving to Paris, he introduced lighter hues in his palette). It reports a painter’s specific technique adopted on a given occasion to accomplish a specific result (Kandinsky applied a thick underlayer of oil paint into which he pressed the sand. After drying, he painted over the sand again). Alternatively, it may reveal hidden details or anecdotes about the characters portrayed in a painting to enrich purely descriptive stretches of text, as in Example 3.2. Example 3.2 Excerpt from the AD of Pauline Bonaparte (R. Lefèvre, 1806) Wellington had a reputation as a ladies’ man. He had apparently married his wife Kitty out of a sense of duty on returning from India, honouring their engagement of some ten years earlier. They lived mostly apart, she at their country estate. All over Europe, society ladies were in the grip of Wellington-mania, in Paris dubbed ‘la nouvelle religion’. There he escorted two of Napoleon’s former lovers, one reputedly remarking ‘The Duke was by far the more vigorous’. The narration of important historical events that are often interwoven with the AD is also reported in the simple past, as revealed in another excerpt about the famous Anglo-Irish military commander (Example 3.3). Example 3.3 Excerpt from the AD of The Battle of Waterloo (W. Allan, 1843) Wellington knew his only chance of defeating Napoleon’s bigger army was to combine forces with the Prussians, who were on their way. He had pulled back to positions he’d already prepared, hoping to hold out.

Stand-alone AD: paintings  85 Napoleon was delayed by the rain and mud and did not attack until the afternoon. Casualties then mounted fast on both sides, but Wellington paced his troops. Here in the nick of time, the Prussians have arrived— from the right in a pincer movement. Marked aspectual information is infrequent in painting ADs. The grammatical category of aspect, used to convey psychological (vs. real) time information and the speaker’s temporal interpretation or perception of the temporal quality of an event (Biber et al. 1999: 460, 470; Lewis 1986: 75, 85), conflicts with ADs traditional need to be objective and factual and to limit any form of interpretation on the part of the audio describer—a position that has recently been invalidated, based on the valid assumption that language inevitably comes with connotations and associations that differ from speaker (therefore audio describer) to speaker (Fineman and Cock 2022; Kleege 2016). Because of this, verb phrases unmarked for aspect are overwhelmingly the most common in art AD. However, instances of progressive and, to a lesser extent, perfect constructions have been detected. The former is used to report activities that are in progress on the painting and whose ongoing semantic trait is emphasised. Accordingly, the describer resorts to full progressive constructions, as in Constable’s Salisbury Cathedral (but whatever it is that’s catching the attention of these men), in Picasso’s Les Damoiselles d’Avignon (It might be her hand, or a piece of melon she is eating), or in Rousseau’s The Dream (he is looking left, possibly at the woman). However, the full structure including the operator (always in the present tense) followed by the -ing form is overall rare. Despite having flexible time constraints, art ADs tend to prefer compressed constructions omitting relativiser and operator, resulting in reduced relatives that still maintain the idea of co-occurring actions, states or situations, and simultaneously create strong textual cohesion (The petals are ridged, catching the light in here; At the top of the trunk is a bunch of dates, and leafy palm fronds—some extending out of the top of the frame, others gently curving above the Virgin’s head, echoing the halo of light that surrounds her). Following typical screen AD characteristics, naked -ing participles with an adverbial function can sometimes be detected at the beginning of sentences, in theme position (Taylor 2015). This is also true of art ADs (Wearing a white shirt, mustard waistcoat, and black hat, he’s turned away, one elbow leaning on the front of the cart; Beginning with the landscape, it seems to be a desolate coastal region). We rarely see the have + third form construction. In other words, the perfect or retrospective aspect is strongly associated with time orientation and the notion of ‘beforeness’ (Lewis 1986: 75–76). This is used to talk about past time from the ‘point Now’ perspective. There are only a few

86  Stand-alone AD: paintings instances found in the corpus to emphasise a situation grounded at the moment of speaking (i.e. describing) relative to a moment that precedes the narration and continues to exist. For example, Waterloo Banquet by William Salter poses a considerable challenge as it represents over 80 people. The artist chose to paint the moment when Wellington rose for a toast, as dessert was put on the table. At that point the rules of etiquette meant that diners could arrange themselves in small clusters and move away from the initial place settings, thus allowing Salter to paint all the sitters from recognizable angles. (Mould s.s.: par. 4) To convey such a complex situation, the AD author uses the perfect aspect in the present tense to reveal what happened before all the men’s faces became visible on the painting (The men on our side, by complete contrast, have pushed back and angled their chairs to converse in twos and threes, so that rather than having their backs to us their faces are visible), a compositional difficulty overcome by the artist at the banquet. The painting Summer Days by Georgia O’Keeffe features a deer’s skull adorned with various wildflowers against a desert background. The audio describer chooses to specify that the clouds were presumably dense and thick before the moment when the scene on the painting was captured (The sky above symbolically splits in two—a serene blue on the left where ink-black storm clouds on the right have parted). The ‘before Now quality’ (Lewis 1986: 76) of the retrospective present is why these instances are rare in the corpus. It is rare for an AD writer to look back from the immediacy of the descriptive narration, or to express their present view of the past, unless to more effectively explain what is being described and what is on the painting. Slightly more frequent, however, is the use of the past perfect used to express a retrospective stance relative to a particular point in Past Time (Fisher had invited Constable to stay with him there; some of the men had died before he could sketch them). In addition, AD is normally related to the narration of events that complete the background information the describer has selected and offered. Finally, in the corpus, modal auxiliaries are not prominent, with only 84 overall occurrences (31.51). The ability or opportunity modal can, leftcollocating with the personal pronouns you or we, or with the impersonal pronoun one, is used to involve the visitor directly (Through the leaves we can see a hint of pale blue sky; You can see this clearly in the clothes Philip wears) or indirectly (One can imagine Pollack sweeping his arms and body across the painting) in a scenario with the possibility or ability to do something. Through the modal can (or could, to refer to a remote

Stand-alone AD: paintings  87 yet not unreasonable possibility), the audio describer encourages the visitor to do something and engages them in a stimulating and participatory imaginative process. Conversely, by choosing the word may, the describer personally involves the visitor in the interpretative process (These buoyant, biomorphic forms and pastel hues may be read as Kandinsky’s optimistic vision; This may explain why the sun is shining). The audio describer is therefore not imposing their view but allows interpretation, as most guidelines suggest (but see e.g. Kleege 2016 and Fineman and Cock 2022: 218, claiming that ‘true objectivity is not possible’ and emphasising the importance of allowing space for the visitors’ own interpretations). This interpretive liberty is emphasised further by the past might, which locates the active possibility as even more remote psychologically and hints at how to interpret the painting while allowing the viewer to reject the suggestion (Their ambiguous expressions might convey joy, or peace, or bliss). 3.5

Lexical specificities

Quite expectedly, a few topic-specific words referring to the items described in the corpus stand out for frequency. Direct nominal reference to the semi-technical noun painting(s) (217/81.40) is often found in AD initial position to clarify the type of artwork the visitor is about to access (Group in Crinolines is a vibrant oil painting; This is a painting of an artist’s studio, without the artist; This painting shows). This is especially true in a context where stand-alone ADs of paintings might alternate with those of other artworks. The denotative function of the word painting coexists with its use as a deictic centre to spatially orient the visitor in the interpretation of what is represented (near the bottom of the painting is; in the centre of the painting are; in the lower right corner of the painting; on the right side of the painting; the background of the painting shows). Further, it is typically left collocating with descriptors denoting size and shape (big, large, small, rectangular), with colour adjectives (dark, flat-toned), with adjectival expressions indicating material (oil on canvas painting, oil painting), or with classifiers determining art movements (Analytic Cubist painting, Abstract Expressionist painting) or the author of the painting (a Velazquez painting). Moreover, its pre-modification is never syntactically complex—and interestingly, the same pattern can be observed searching for the node picture in established art books (e.g. Gombrich 1950/1995). A similar behaviour is observed for the noun canvas (89/33.38), a typical surface for oil painting, which is often used as a deictic element (Displayed across the canvas is) and normally used in post-modifying prepositional phrases (oil on canvas; painting on canvas; an oil painting on canvas), with no direct pre-modification.

88  Stand-alone AD: paintings We browsed the corpus with a top-down approach to search for other technical or semi-technical art terms belonging to the semantic painting field. As a result, we found terms such as brushstroke(s) far less frequently than expected (14/5.25). Normally, this noun was pre-modified by at least an adjective (delicate or thick brushstrokes) and often by two in a row (directional cream brushstrokes; sinuous golden brushstrokes). The general term colour (17/6.38) tends to be embedded in prepositional phrases (The overall application of colour); and the word paint (45/16.88) is used as a verb and as a noun. In the latter case, it is either pre-modified (black paint) or used in embedded expressions (dabs of unmixed oil paint) and is treated as shared information for the listener and accomplishing an economising function in the text. Overall, aside from a few unexplained technicisms (asymmetrical, transparency, non-textured, embroidered, translucent, etc.), the corpus shows that semi-technical terms are more frequently used than technical terms. Thus, art jargon, which has diverse explanations and consequences, is underrepresented in the corpus. The lack of an inaccessible art-related vocabulary makes the AD more usable despite its dense script-based narration as the complexity of the narrative is limited. This enhances comprehensibility and heightens inclusivity as it limits alienation and confusion for non-specialist audiences; overall, this promotes the understanding of niche arguments (Dodge 2022; Ross 2014). Scripts delivered orally do not allow visitors the time to look up unknown terms without needing to stop the recording (Fina 2018: 104). This could potentially impact visitors’ confidence in the supporting role of the AD narrator but limit the chances of the audience to develop extensive visual art literacy. High levels of communication precision and efficiency are required when an AD deals with specific themes or has to describe finely differentiated details. Although painting ADs seem to avoid excess jargon, literary and highly descriptive language choices are preferred by AD writers. This makes the text more poignant and evocative by amplifying its informativity and semantic load. However, it can also increase the texts’ difficulty. An overview of lexical units based on length, for instance, shows that very long words or multiword units (≥ 15 characters, 32 overall in the painting corpus; Table 3.3) include, almost exclusively, suggestive yet complex adjectival expressions that denote a range of the described item’s specific features (He wears the orange and gold-diamond-patterned costume of Harlequin, another stock pantomime character). In addition, there are also compound adjectives and a few long-derived adverbs that qualify the action expressed by the verb (They are not at all naturalistically painted) or adverbs of stance (A few, disconcertingly, stare at us). The same semantic functions are covered by slightly shorter words, ranging between

Stand-alone AD: paintings  89 Table 3.3  One-off lexical items longer than 15 characters in the painting corpus No. of Characters

Lexical Items in Alphabetical Order

15 characters

Extraordinarily*, cool-headedness, ornately carved, two-dimensional, distinguishable, not-too-distant, middle-distance, experimentation, straightforward, shoulder-blades, chocolate-brown, impressionistic, crimson-coloured, straight-backed, bare-shouldered, disconcertingly Near-translucent*, non-naturalistic, disproportionate, downwards-curved, meteorologically, wellington-mania, representational, naturalistically Tightly clustered, three-dimensional, tangerine-coloured, triangular-shaped Head-and-shoulders, 17-year-old More-than-life-size Gold-diamond-patterned

16 characters 17 characters 18 characters 19 characters 22 characters

Starred (*) items occur twice

10 and 14 characters, where complex colour names are over-represented with powerful abstract (yet again not technical) words (e.g. admiration, profundity, insatiable, decorative, etc.). As such, it will be interesting to discover whether the same trend is replicated in the other art AD sub-corpora. 3.6

Colour names

In pictorial art, colour is one essential element, or one of art’s basic building blocks (Mittler 2006: 17, 27). It plays a central role that is typically more relevant than in other art forms, such as sculpture or architecture, where materials and textures are dominating features. Its significance correlates to the active choice artists make regarding colour, thus it can be deeply factual or symbolic in a given painting (Finlay 2020; Gobbo 2020; Mittler 2006; Widmann 2014). AD guidelines for people who are blind and visually impaired, and specifically art AD guidelines, do not discourage the use of colour names and state the advantages of using them. Salzhauer et al. (1996: 2) promote the inclusion of colour tones and mood or atmosphere because many people who have lost their sight still maintain a visual memory of colours, and congenitally blind individuals have a knowledge of what colours represent culturally. Generally speaking, both blind and sighted people share a common understanding of colours, even if that understanding is derived from different means of experiencing and learning them (this holds true for other visual phenomena) (Romeo et al. 2018; Striem-Amit et al. 2018). In art ADs, the use of colour names can provide a more precise impression of a described work, and it can stress important aspects of the painter’s style. Further, describing colour

90  Stand-alone AD: paintings hues or blends helps convey crucial nuances that typify a given painting or the mood of the work (Giansante 2015; Perego 2018; cf. Mittler 2006). In our painting corpus, direct reference to colours is extremely frequent, and the variety of simple and complex colour adjectives used is unexpectedly large. Almost all the 11 Berlin and Kay (1969) basic colour categories (white, black, red, green, yellow, blue, brown, purple, pink, orange, and grey)1 are used with a very high frequency, with white, blue, red and black governing the overall colour nomenclatures (Table 3.4). Frequency patterns found in other contexts show that black, white, and red occur over 200 times per million words in English fiction (0.02%) while black and white occur over 80 times per million words in conversation and news (0.008%) (Biber et al. 1999: 512).2 A similar pattern of frequency emerges in the Bank of English (BoE) (Steinvall 2002: 67)3 where black, with 74,895 raw occurrences, and white, with 68,037 raw occurrences, represent approximately 0.02% of the corpus; and red, with 38,912 raw occurrences, 0.01%. Notably, white, red, and black together represent approximately 0.4% in the painting corpus. The cluster black and white, normally used to indicate the style of an image rather than to report on its hues, occurs only twice in the corpus, and not in this sense. We find the cluster in the AD of Kandinky’s Constructivist Striped (Tiny geometric shapes in pastels, black and white, including circles, rectangles, triangles, crescents, and teardrops appear frozen around the other forms dispersed across the surface of the canvas), wherein the base of black and white shows a debt to Mondrian’s use of black intersecting lines on a white background. Moreover, it appears in the AD of Mondrian’s famous Composition (Besides black and white, he used only the primary colours—red, blue, and yellow), wherein thick black lines divide the canvas into rectangles, some of which are painted in primary shades of red, blue, and yellow. Table 3.4 Basic colour names and their frequency Basic Colour Name

White Blue Red Black Green Brown Yellow Purple Pink Orange Grey/Gray

Frequency Raw

Normalised

103 97 91 88 69 59 53 19 29 24 20

38.64 36.39 34.13 33.01 23.63 22.13 18.76 6.00 10.88 9.00 7.51

Stand-alone AD: paintings  91 Given their frequency of use in everyday spoken and written contexts (Biber et al. 1999: 512), and their established and recurrent identification with specific culture-dependent ideas, symbols, and meanings (Gobbo 2020; Striem-Amit et al. 2018; Widman 2014), basic colour terms could be a more immediate lexical choice for painting audio describers as an easy-to-understand element for blind people. The ADs analysed, however, unpredictably contain an exceptionally wide array of non-basic colour terms that deserve attention. According to the colour terms frequency list that we manually extracted from LancsBox data (Table 3.5), we can observe, in decreasing order, a considerable variety of nomenclatures used to describe infrequent and very specific colour gradations or hues, used to qualify exact details on the paintings (This top coat is edged with gold braid; his robe is scarlet with fur lapels the colour of his beard; She clutches a ruby-red purse with the lime green claw-like fingers of her right hand). Despite their frequency, it is unclear whether all colour nuances and hues have a symbolic function. In the painting AD corpus, single occurrences (with a normalised frequency of 0.38) of non-basic colour names were manually counted and listed in alphabetical order: beige, blue-flecked, blue-green, blueish-green, blue-purple, bluish, bluish-black, buttery, chalky-white, chocolate-brown, Table 3.5  Non-basic colour names and their frequency Non-Basic Colour Name

Gold Golden Silver Lavender Cream Rose Pinkish Mustard Scarlet Tan Turquoise Creamy Lime-Green Reddish Yellows Greyish Pastels Rosy Grey-Blue

Frequency Raw

Normalised

24 17 9 6 5 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2

9.00 6.38 3.38 2.25 1.88 1.50 1.50 1.50 1.50 1.50 1.13 1.13 1.13 1.13 1.13 1.13 1.13 0.75 0.75

92  Stand-alone AD: paintings coral, crimson, crimson-coloured, dark-green, dark-navy, foam-green, forest-green, gingerish, golden-mustard, grayish, green-tinged, greying, greyish-white, indigo, ink-black, jade, kelly-green, milky, olive, orange-reds, orangey-brown, pastel-coloured, pinkish-peach, red-andpurple, red-brown, rose-colored, ruby-red, salmon, sand-colored, sulphurlemon, tangerine-coloured, teal, ultramarine, vermillion, violets, and yellowish. These nomenclatures mainly include abstract colour names created out of concrete objects, a common phenomenon of English (McNeill 1972: 26). For instance, rose, pink, violet, and lavender derive from flowers, lemon, olive, and plum from fruit, crimson, and scarlet from the name of a blood-red worm, cream and mustard from food, and gold and silver from metal. In the corpus, colour names also occur in the plural as well as in derivative and compound forms. The decision to pluralise colours occurs when they appear various and vibrant on the canvas yet are not fully distinct. This is a typical feature of certain art movements. For instance, the impressionist tendency to capture changing colour shades, resulting in the audio describer using plurals to portray scenes that are ‘indistinct’ and produce a ‘dappled effect’ (as specified in the AD of Cézanne’s The Bather; cf. The figure’s naked body is painted in pale pinkish flesh tones, but shadowed with the same greens, blues and violets as the sky and the watery ground). Another example is Kandinsky’s vibrant Group in Crinolines (While it is representational, it’s also fantastical in its non-naturalistic use of jewel-like colours. The foreground is composed of patches of pink, orange, yellow and white, blending together purples, blues, greens, coral and cadmium red build a landscape and sky behind the figures). The AD of Group in Crinolines is particularly creative (Example 3.4) given the need to render the artist’s transition towards a highly abstract and stylised painting technique, his concepts of leisurely life, and his brilliant, radical colour scheme, clearly Fauvist in inspiration (Kenneth and Vergo 1982: 151; Mittler 2006: 522). Example 3.4 Excerpt from the AD of Group in Crinolines (W. Kandinsky, 1909) Her face is painted bright white with pink dots on her cheeks. She wears a white bonnet with a green interior and pink brim painted with wavy lines like lays. Her golden-mustard yellow dress is touched with lime and jade green, and her crinoline forms a white shade, ballooning from her waist to her feet. Beside these figures, two women sit, gesturing at a small white table displaying a fruit bowl stacked with multi-coloured fruit and a bulbous vase filled with goldfish. One woman wears a coral bonnet, lavender

Stand-alone AD: paintings  93 top, a coat and dress covered in loose patches of wine red, forest green, turquoise and mustard yellow. A woman to the right faces the seated women. Her profile hidden by a yellow bonnet. She wears a white dress and crinoline with vivid pink fabric draped over her shoulders. Another man stands in profile to her right, wearing a short black coat and crinoline with a very tall white hat. The final two men stand behind the seated women at a distance. Both the face and hair of one of these men are painted in bright yellow, and the poofy shape of his hair mimics a white cloud just above his head. Painted in Munich in 1909, two years after Kandinsky lived and worked in Paris, this canvas attests to the appreciation of modern French art and radical Fauvist colour schemes. This quirky and exuberant work indicates a shift from his early fairy tale pictures to highly abstracted images. Kandinsky would soon write that: variation of colour, like those of music, awaken in the soul. Much finer vibrations than words could. In what ways does this work express emotion through Kandinsky’s use of colour line and form? Using plural colour names is an economic linguistic strategy. It allows describers to avoid the possibly taxing overuse of too many nomenclatures of slightly different hues of the same colour. Moreover, describing too many nuances through a disproportionate number of uncommon nomenclatures might make ADs less accessible and enjoyable. In other words, this should be avoided to ensure their function as effective art literacy tools for listeners. Though not overrepresented in the corpus, and normally almost exclusively restricted to conversation and fiction (Biber at al. 1999: 111–112), derivative adjectival forms (using -y and the -ish suffixes, i.e. creamy, pinkish) reflect the need to convey exactness and precise meaning in an area that is, by definition, difficult to explain; English includes at least 3,000 colour terms and perceived nuances (McNeill 1972). Some examples from the corpus include the loosely scooped neckline of her milky white gown; sky is reduced to a sliver of yellowish brown along the very top of the canvas. Using these forms of words conveys dynamicity, making them catchy and memorable. Furthermore, adjectives derived from common nouns (e.g. milky) draw on familiar concepts and might aid interpretation. Compound colour terms (red-brown; pinkish-peach; sand-coloured), typically used in single occurrences, are powerful lexical means to verbally depict non-basic colours and peculiar colour specificities. Used mainly as pre-modifiers, they signal an overwhelming quantity of information that is normally selected and compressed in art ADs. In the corpus, a frequent pattern encompasses a simple or derived colour term followed by a simple colour term that denotes an adjacent colour in the colour domain, thus

94  Stand-alone AD: paintings conveying a construction that ‘most often refers to a nuance somewhere between the two colours mentioned in the phrase’ (Steinvall 2002: 79). For instance, blue-green, blueish-green, blue-purple, bluish-black, chalkywhite, chocolate-brown, golden-mustard, greyish-white, orange-reds, orangey-brown, pinkish-peach, red-brown, and ruby-red. Another effective formula is the crimson-coloured (BrE) or rose-colored (AmE) type. Here, the element colo(u)red is used as a part of the compound expression with adjectives and nouns to make adjectives function as describing what colour something is (Around her shoulders is a cream-coloured cloak, lined with green silk). Finally, we can observe that most basic colour terms are often pre-modified, thus generating either non-idiomatic pre-modifier + head clusters or more or less idiomatic compounds. This gives life to virtually endless colour combinations and patterns that express a virtually endless number of colour nuances. For example, the node green provides an interesting list: bright green, cool green, dark green, emerald green, forest green, jade green, Kelly green,4 light green, lime green, mossy green, olive green, pale green, and seafoam green. Focusing on Kelly green, in the AD of Kirchner’s Street, Dresden,5 which is a discomforting attempt to render the jarring experience of modern urban bustle, it is used to describe one of the two women facing the viewer who dominates the right half of the canvas (Her mask-like face is Kelly-green with a red blocky mouth). Bold, varied, vivid, ‘unsettlingly intense’, powerfully expressive, and clashing colours are effective means used to compensate with the expressionless, almost anonymous, and masklike faces of the women on the right of the canvas. In addition, they are used to convey tension and capture the psychological effects of experiencing life on the streets in Dresden, Germany, known as ‘the Florence of the Elbe’ which, before WW2, was regarded as one the world’s most beautiful cities for its architecture and museums (MoMA s.d; see Mittler 2006: 273). In the art ADs, long strings of adjectives that pre-modify a noun emphasise the importance that audio describers give to colours and their organisation as vital elements of expressing the mood of a work and conveying the descriptive accuracy that is expected of them (made up of pink, blue, yellow, and green-layered dots of paint; figures are outlined in red, blue and green; colour, including red, orange, yellow, blue, green, and pink; creatures with geometric, colourful internal structures in deep pastels, including pink, red, purple, mustard, and teal). The same rationale applies to the frequent use of words to describe colours as adjectives and adjective modifiers. Modifiers describing the quality or the dimension6 intrinsic to colours, such as bright, light, dark, deep, flat, luminous, pale, and rich, freely collocate with most colour names. In addition, they are sometimes used as adjectives (e.g. indistinct dark). Terms that qualify colour and define the style of a painting proliferate and comprise adjectives typically including traits of positivity

Stand-alone AD: paintings  95 and dynamicity. For instance, energetic (e.g. energetic brushstrokes), expressive, exquisite, exuberant, floating, loose, rough, and sinuous. Significantly, delicate collocates with both colour names and artistic techniques (cf. delicate brushstrokes or delicate lines, but also delicate colours) and, in art ADs, lines are often described as thick or thin. Words that describe a lack of colour are also significant. They contribute to fine-tuning a description, making it richer and more poetic, adding to its lexical variety. These include terms such as faded, or less bright (a faded red peasant’s blouse bordered with black); flecked, or having a spot or small patch of colour (The dog’s brown body is flecked with black brushstrokes indicating hairs); monochromatic or having only one colour (this is a field of monochromatic red); muted referring to subdued or softened colours (Metallic additions to the oil paint across the surface produce a muted, shimmering effect). In the corpus, in alphabetical order, we also found: neutral (having very little colour); opaque (incapable of allowing light to pass through); pale (light in colour or washed out, this was particularly frequent: 19/7.13); primary (referring to basic colour); tinged (referring to a small amount of colour: It is tinged in some areas with green); tinted or slightly coloured (their skin is pale flesh, tinted with pink); translucent (allowing light to pass through); and finally transparent (clear or see-through). 3.7

In-text orientation

Orientation is an essential mental function that processes the relations between the self to space, time and events, people and objects (Peer et al. 2015). The need to effectively direct the visitor while navigating a painting, which is a visual meaning-making text, determines the extensive use of a restricted number of deictic elements that can help users understand where specific items are located on the canvas. In the corpus, the adverbs right and left functioning as endophoric references in the text perform a great deal of the work (Turning to the right, the eye travels along the back wall; The dancer at the left, and the one along the bottom of the painting, face away and show only the backs of their heads and bodies): not only do the most frequent 3-grams in the corpus relate to spatial orientation on the painting (Table 3.6), but they also tend to include the right and left adverbs, which significantly exceed other deictic expressions, including the common locative adverbs here and there (Biber et al. 1999: 561, 795, 799), and spacerelated adjectives embedded in locative or directional expressions, such as centre, middle, top, bottom, upper, lower, which are used only sparingly. The concept of right and left is an important foundational skill of orientation and mobility for blind people. It is often taught to children early and acquired with ease, especially if they can understand the concept in reference to their own body. We cannot assess whether the frequent use of these listener-related adverbs in the corpus is the describer’s conscious and

96  Stand-alone AD: paintings Table 3.6  LancsBox list of 3 grams calculated at a minimum ­frequency set at > 10 3-grams

of the painting to the right to the left on the left of the picture of the canvas edge of the side of the oil on canvas inches high by the painting is on the right top of the the left of left of the the right of the top of right of the it is a on the far in the foreground in the lower corner of the and a half there is a centre of the in front of bottom of the in the upper out of the she wears a

Frequency Raw

Normalised

72 58 47 24 22 22 21 20 19 17 17 16 16 16 15 14 13 12 12 12 11 11 11 11 11 10 10 10 10 10 10

27.01 21.76 17.63 9.00 8.25 8.25 7.88 7.50 7.13 6.38 6.38 6.00 6.00 6.00 5.63 5.25 4.88 4.50 4.50 4.50 4.13 4.13 4.13 4.13 4.13 3.75 3.75 3.75 3.75 3.75 3.75

informed choice, but providing straightforward orientation information that can easily be related to the visitor’s body, position, and self is certainly an effective practice (ADLAB PRO 2019; Bakke et al. 2019; Wyver and Livesey 2003). However, expressions that are totally independent of the visitor’s position but instead refer to the position of other people or objects should be used with caution, and only when they do not lead to ambiguous or difficult interpretations (par. 1.6). If we focus on the AD of Matisse’s painting The Red Studio, we can observe an effective and direct use of an explicit visitor-centred reference (We’ll take a tour of the studio, starting at the viewer’s left). This sets the

Stand-alone AD: paintings  97 scene for the user and puts them in the position to understand further references that are internal to the painting, provided they refer to items that have been described or mentioned in proximity to the referent (A stack of gilded picture frames leans up against the wall. To their right, in the middle of the composition, stands a grandfather clock), or the referent is easy to retrieve (in the middle of the composition). Example 3.5 Excerpt from the AD of The Red Studio (H. Matisse, 1911) We’ll take a tour of the studio, starting at the viewer’s left. In the left-hand lower corner, the painting is taken up with an outlined rectangular table. […] A large painting of a reclining nude leans against the left-hand wall. Its right edge is in the corner where this wall meets the back wall. The nude is very roughly painted in pale flesh tones—against a bright pink background with purple and yellow flowers. […] Turning to the right, the eye travels along the back wall of the room. A stack of gilded picture frames leans up against the wall. To their right, in the middle of the composition, stands a grandfather clock, outlined in yellow under-paint against the red wall. 3.8

Writing in the third person

Third-person pronominal forms, both gender-neutral (it: 206/77.27; this: 151/56.64) and gendered (his: 224/84.02; her: 191/71.65), are significant concerning frequency in the corpus. In descriptive, narrative texts, as ADs are, writing from the third-person perspective is typical. It enables AD writers to narrate and to zoom in and out of a story while describing a painting, and to foreground a painter’s role and decisions when necessary or functional to understand the artist’s stylistic choices. For instance, as seen in the AD of Kandinsky’s Constructivist painting Striped (During his first years in France, he also incorporated sand in his painting, a technical innovation practiced in the 1930s by many Parisian artists, including George Braque). In AD, third-person writing normally takes the thirdperson objective form. This encompasses a neutral speaker that presents the story with an observational tone, and a reliable authoritative (yet not condescending) narration voice situated above the action, offering a bird’seye-view of the story. This sort of omniscient narrator delivers a rich and complex narrative. It also allows flexibility based on what the end-user finds relevant, e.g. switching from one story or painting element to another. On occasion, it allows one to be inside a character’s thoughts, feelings, and sensations. This is especially pertinent to a blind visitor, yet very

98  Stand-alone AD: paintings enriching for any interested visitor, deepening their experience of character and scene or explicating a scene or technique’s intended effect. For instance, in Example 3.6, where an expository rather than simply descriptive angle can be detected (Cacchiani 2013). Example 3.6 Excerpt from the AD of Trunk of an Elm Tree (J. Constable, 1821) [...] the swirling brushstrokes of the work merge the various elements of this story together, creating a heightened sense of energy and activity—a feel of urgency and almost confusion as the tense drama unfolds. Despite this feeling of movement, though, the composition is quite formal and symmetrical. The third-person perspective can sometimes result in subjective and evaluative expressions that convey the AD writer’s considered attitude to a particular detail, or their critical position (cf. the adjective effective in the AD of The Coronation of the Virgin: Gentile makes effective use of the complex patterning and wealth of surface ornamentation). Although evaluative language expressing appraisal is not encouraged in most standard or traditional AD guidelines, which favour impartiality (Ofcom 2000; Rai et al. 2010; Snyder 2007), ADs that use unneutral, connotated, interpretative, and emotive language can be more involving (Fineman and Cock 2022; Kleege 2016). This is demonstrated through blind and partially sighted users’ positive reactions to cinematic screen ADs that incorporate specific film terminology (e.g. Now in slow motion) (Fryer and Freeman 2013) or creative ADs that incorporate emotional vocabulary (e.g. The room is a pigsty vs. There is a mess in the room) (Walczak and Fryer 2017). The use of the third person singular pronoun it, normally referring anaphorically to the preceding word or group of words, can create cohesive texts that limit nominal repetitions, especially when the referent is close to the pro-form (On the left, a solitary white iris, its blossom larger than the rest). However, the describer should be aware that too many anaphoric pronouns referring to diverse referents could be too complex for some audiences. The AD excerpt of Picasso’s early Analytic Cubist oil on canvas Girl with a Mandolin (Example 3.7) shows how the listenability and overall comprehensibility of texts could be compromised if adequate prosodic strategies are not followed.7 It is difficult to imagine a seemingly simple scene (Picasso painted a model who was sitting in front of him, directly facing him, thus placing the viewer in the position of the painter) represented in an abstract way.

Stand-alone AD: paintings  99 Example 3.7 Excerpt from the AD of Girl with a Mandolin (P. Picasso, 1910) Picasso looked at his model and analysed her nude figure, breaking it down into many squares, cubes, rectangles, and other unnamable geometric shapes. He arranged these shapes to show different parts of her body that in fact it would be impossible to see from one point in space or in a single moment of time. This characteristic is what makes it an Analytic Cubist painting, that is, showing multiple points of view simultaneously in one painting. Overall, in the sentence-initial position in a stand-alone AD, the third person singular pro-form it often refers back to the introduced painting through a series of opening technical details (Group in Crinolines is a vibrant oil painting about 3 feet tall by 5 feet wide. It depicts an outdoor gathering of eight people; see also This painting, as tall as an average person and as wide as a seven-foot couch, fills an entire wall in its massive one-foot-wide frame. It is a dynamic woodland scene of a hunter). This, similarly, tends to be used as a determiner in the same sentence position and in similar contexts with a first-mention introductory role, common in conversational English (Street Dresden. Painted in 1908 by the German artist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 1880–1938. Oil on canvas, 4 feet 11 inches high by 6 feet 7 inches wide. 150 x 200 cm. This painting shows a crowded scene in pre-World War I Dresden, Germany), even if we can find it in subject position as an anaphoric pro-form (The Persistence of Memory by the Spanish artist, Salvador Dalì, 1904–1989. Painted in 1931. Oil on canvas, 9 inches high by 13 inches wide. 24 x 33 cm. This is a small, framed painting, only about the size and shape of a computer screen. But it’s a hauntingly strange and memorable image). Compared to third-person pronouns and possessives, key features in painting (and screen) ADs, second-person pronouns and possessives (e.g. you: 44/16.50; your: 25/9.38) are used sparingly. They occur mostly when the visitor is addressed directly as a reference point in the narrative. For instance, when the audio describer specifies the point of view they should undertake to understand the painting’s perspective techniques (You, as the viewer, are in the position of the artist; His hazel eyes are of the kind that appear to be looking directly at you, from whatever angle you view the picture; The source of the light is on your right). The cases exemplify a specific writing style rather than a regular trend or general feature of art AD (However, as you look more closely, you notice that the painting is filled with asymmetrical elements). Second-person pronouns and possessives, typical of non-narrative text types, normally contribute to an oral, affective, interactional, and generalised context (Forchini 2012: 27, 72). Although pre-recorded stand-alone ADs are designed to be both

100  Stand-alone AD: paintings informative and appealing to visitors, their dialogue-like, inclusive, and interactive aspects are not particularly salient or frequent. Stand-alone ADs prefer an expository and narrative dimension and a straight descriptive style that is rich in details rather than a colloquial and informal style that includes listener-engaging and plot-propelling linguistic elements. This is because they have limited time constraints, focusing on economical and packaged meaning in distilled structures to limit interpersonal linguistic function in favour of textual function. Similarly, in the painting corpus, we found very few instances of typically collaborative language features, such as interactive words and hedges, questions and if-clauses, which we expect to populate live art ADs in particular. In the corpus, the word just, which normally fulfils a restrictive semantic function in face-to-face interactions (Biber et al. 1999: 800–801), is found mainly in directional expressions as a modifier of place adverbials with the hedging function of projecting caution (cf. the same use of right in AmE, Biber at al. 1999: 563) (his hair mimics a white cloud just above his head; Just below the flute player; just right of centre). In AD tours, we expect to find more space for these linguistic elements. This is because they require longer texts, including direct instructions for moving around physical space, thus requiring more listener-engaging strategies to maintain blind and visually impaired patrons’ attention for longer spans of time. Notes 1 In the book, we use the seminal and very influential basic colour category theory defined in 1969 by Berlin and Kay even though it has been significantly modified and conceptually refined since then (McNeill 1972). 2 Biber et al. (1999) extract their data from a 40-million-word corpus of texts representing different registers called the Longman Spoken and Written English corpus (or LSWE), which also forms the basis of their revolutionary, corpusbased reference grammar. 3 The Bank of English corpus is owned by Collins COBUILD and is presently kept at the University of Birmingham, England. The corpus analysed by Steinvall contained approximately 323 million words (organised in sub-corpora) at the time of his sampling, February to June 1998 (Steinvall 2002: 10). 4 Kelly green, also in the hyphenated version Kelly-green, is an intense middle green found in-between blue and yellow on the colour wheel. Its pre-modifier is the common Irish family name Kelly, which identifies the colour as being commonly associated with the famous Irish holiday St. Patrick’s Day. 5 The AD can be listened to here: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/78426 6 I.e. hue, lightness, and saturation, if we consider the traditional three-way distinction (Steinvall 2002: 11). 7 ADs are written to be spoken texts and can be delivered more or less adequately both by natural voices (depending on the ability and the vocal skills of the narrator) or by synthetic ones. Overall, listening to and comprehending the latter is associated with greater workload demands and is more difficult for those who have not been exposed to synthetic voices regularly (Delogu et al. 1998).

Stand-alone AD: paintings  101 References ADLAB PRO (2019). Audio description directions [Video]. https://videosdigitals. uab.cat/almacen/downloads/461/10511.mp4 Allan, W. (1843). The Battle of Waterloo. [Oil on canvas]. Apsley House, The Wellington Museum. Bakke, H.A., Cavalcante, W.A., de Oliveira, I.S., Sarinho, S.W., & Cattuzzo, M.T. (2019). Assessment of motor skills in children with visual impairment: A systematic and integrative review. Clinical Medicine Insights: Pediatrics, 13, 1–10. Berlin, B., & Kay, P. (1969). Basic color terms. University of California Press. Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., & Finegan, E. (1999). Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Longman. Cacchiani, S. (2013). Understanding written practical instructions. Aracne. Constable, J. (1821). Trunk of an Elm Tree. [Oil on canvas]. Victoria and Albert Museum. Cutts, M. (2013). The Oxford guide to Plain English. OUP. Delogu, C., Conte, S., & Sementina, C. (1998). Cognitive factors in the evaluation of synthetic speech. Speech Communication, 24(2), 153–168. Dodge, A. (2022). The pros and cons of using jargon. Copypress. https://www. copypress.com/kb/copy/the-pros-and-cons-of-using-jargon/ Fina, E. (2018). Investigating effective audio guiding. Carocci. Fineman, A., & Cock, M. (2022). Audio description in museums: A service provider perspective. In C. Taylor & E. Perego (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of audio description (pp. 215–231). Routledge. Finlay, J. (2020). Art history. Arcturus. Forchini, P. (2012). Movie language revisited. Peter Lang. Fryer, L. (2016). An introduction to audio description. Routledge. Fryer, L., & Freeman, J. (2013). Cinematic language and the description of film: Keeping AD users in the frame. Perspectives, 21(3), 412–426. Giansante, L. (2015). Writing verbal descriptions for audio guides. Art Beyond Sight. http://www.artbeyondsight.org/mei/verbal-description-training/writing-verbaldescription-for-audio-guides/ Gobbo, C. (2020). Il ruolo e l’uso dei colori nell’audio descrizione museale. Ricerca sul tema e analisi di testi in italiano e in inglese [Unpublished BA thesis]. University of Trieste, Italy. Gombrich, E.H (1950/1995). The story of art. Phaidon. Johansson, V. (2008). Lexical diversity and lexical density in speech and writing. Working Papers, 53, 61–79. Kandinsky, W. (1909). Group in Crinolines. [Oil on canvas]. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Kane, T.S. (2000). The Oxford essential guide to writing. OUP. Kenneth L.C., & Vergo, P. (Eds.). (1982) Kandinsky: Complete writings on art. Hall. Kleege, G. (2016). Audio description described: Current standards, future innovations, larger implications. Representations, 135(1), 89–101. Lefèvre, R. (1806). Pauline Bonaparte. [Oil on canvas]. Apsley House, The Wellington Museum.

102  Stand-alone AD: paintings Lewis, M. (1986). The English verb. Heinle. Matisse, H. (1911). The Red Studio. [Oil on canvas]. The Museum of Modern Art. McNeill, N.B. (1972). Colour and colour terminology. Journal of Linguistics, 8(1), 21–33. Mittler, G.A. (2006). Art in focus. Glencoe. MoMA (s.d.) Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: Street, Dresden. https://www.moma.org/ collection/works/78426 Mould, P. (s.d.) The Waterloo Banquet 1836, William Salter. Historical Portraits Picture Library. http://www.historicalportraits.com/InternalMain.asp Ofcom (2000). ITC guidance on standards for audio description. Ofcom. Peer, M., Salomon, R., Goldberg, I., Blanke, O., & Arzy, S. (2015). Brain system for mental orientation in space, time, and person. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 1(35), 11072–11077. Perego, E. (2018). Into the language of museum audio descriptions: A corpus-based study. Perspectives, 27(3), 333–349. Perego, E. (2019). Audio description. Evolving recommendations for usable, effective, and enjoyable practices. In L. Pérez Gonzáles (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of audiovisual translation (pp. 114–129). Routledge. Picasso, P. (1910). Girl with a Mandolin. [Oil on canvas]. The Museum of Modern Art. Piety, P. (2004). The language system of audio description. JVIB, 98(8), 453–469. Pollack, J. (1952). Convergence. [Oil on canvas]. Buffalo AKG Art Museum. Rai, S., Greening, J., & Petré, L. (2010). A comparative study of audio description guidelines prevalent in different countries. RNIB. Romeo, K., Chottin, M., Ancet, P., Lecomte, C., & Pissaloux, E.E. (2018). Simplification of painting images for tactile perception by visually impaired persons. In K. Miesenberger & G. Kouroupetroglou (Eds.), Computers helping people with special needs (pp. 250–257). Springer. Ross, S. (2014). Jargon and the crisis of readability: Methodology, language, and the future of film history. Cinema Journal, 44(1), 130–133. Salway, A. (2007). A corpus-based analysis of audio description. In J. Díaz Cintas, P. Orero & A. Remael (Eds.), Media for all: Subtitling for the deaf, audio description and sign language (pp. 151–174). Rodopi. Salzhauer, A.E., Hooper, E., Kardoulias, V., Stephenson, T., Keyes, S., & Rosenberg, F. (1996). AEB’s guidelines for verbal description adapted from making visual art accessible to people who are blind and visually impaired. Art Beyond Sight. http://www.artbeyondsight.org/handbook/acs-guidelines.shtml Snyder, J. (2007). Audio description: The visual made verbal. International Journal of the Arts in Society, 2, 99–104. Snyder, J. (2014). The visual made verbal. A comprehensive training manual and guide to the history and applications of audio description. Dog Ear. Steinvall, A. (2002). English colout terms in context. [Unpublished PhD thesis]. Umeå universitet, Sweden Striem-Amit, E., Wang, X., Bi, Y., et al. (2018). Neural representation of visual concepts in people born blind. Nature Communications, 9,¸1–12. Swan, M. (2016). Practical English usage. OUP.

Stand-alone AD: paintings  103 Taylor, C. (2015). The language of AD. In A. Remael, N. Reviers & G. Vercauteren (Eds.), Pictures painted in words. ADLAB audio description guidelines (pp. 48–51), EUT. Vincent, S. (2014). Sentence length: Why 25 words is our limit [Blog]. https://www. gov.uk/ Walczak, A., & Fryer, L. (2017). Creative description: The impact of audio description style on presence in visually impaired audiences. BJVI, 35(1), 6–17. Widmann, C. (2014). Il simbolismo dei colori. Magi. Wyver, S.R., & Livesey, D.J. (2003). Kinaesthetic sensitivity and motor skills of school-aged children with a congenital visual impairment. BJVI, 21, 25–31.

4 Stand-alone ADs Sculptures

4.1 Sculptures Although they are both categorised as fine arts, paintings and sculptures are very different types of artworks. Still, both provide valuable information about important people, places, and events and reveal what people looked like and how they dressed by recording their behaviour and accomplishments (Finlay 2020; Mittler 2006). Sculptures come in various sizes and shapes, are made with various materials and processes, and satisfy many different purposes; therefore, we expect these features to be reflected linguistically in our corpus. Technically, they are three-dimensional artistic objects worked from hard materials, and may be embodied in ‘freestanding objects, in reliefs on surfaces, or in environments ranging from tableaux to contexts that envelop the spectator’ (Rogers 2020: par. 1). Sculpture is not a fixed term that applies to a permanently circumscribed category of objects, but instead comprises a continually extending and evolving range of new objects. The scope of the term was much wider in the second half of the 20th century than it had been only two or three decades before, and in the fluid state of the visual arts in the 21st century nobody can predict what its future extensions are likely to be. (Rogers 2020: par. 2) Our corpus includes sculptures in their most traditional sense, conceived before the 20th century and excluding modern kinetic sculptures, multimodal installations, or abstract sculptures which, if audio described, might feature language specificities that could be distinct from what we expect to be used for more traditional and mainly anthropomorphic sculptures. 4.2

Corpus overview

For our analysis, we used a collection of approximately 30 ADs of statues, statuettes, and sculptures collected in different museums and described professionally in British and American English by different audio describers DOI: 10.4324/9781003134237-5

Type of Item Statuette Statuette Sculpture Statue Statuette (votive object) Statue Palace Sculpture Sculpture Sculpture Statue Sculpture Sculpture Statue Statue Sculpture Sculpture Statuette (votive object) Sculpture Statue Statue Sculpture Sculpture Sculpture Sculpture Statuette (votive object) Statue Statue Statuette (votive object) Statue Statuette (votive object) Statuette (votive object)

Name of the Item

Ancient Greece Running Girl Animal Mummy Aphrodite Apis Bull Female Face Fathers of the Church Garitours Group of Three Sculptures Guitar (Picasso) Hapy Hohao Iris Isis - The Dark Queen John Donne’s Statue Kozo Laocoon Limestone Horse-Rider Osiris-Apis Prince’s Walk Statues Ptolemaic King and Queen Ramesses Scarab Beetle Sekhmet Selene Horse Standing Boy Statue of Napoleon (Canova) Surviving Statue from Great Fire of London Terracotta Horse Two Bronzes Woman Holding a Child Youth with a Lion

Table 4.1  Stand-alone sculpture ADs: Corpus details

500 BC 332 or 331 BC 4th century BC 117–138 AD n/a n/a 12th century 80 BC-100 AD 1914 380–250 BC 19th or 20th century 438–432 BC 4th century BC 17th century 19th–20th century 17th century (late) n/a 1800–1650 BC 12th century 3rd century BC Around 1213 AC from 305–30 BC (?) around 1350 BC 438 BC–432 BC n/a 1806 1579 n/a 664–332 BC n/a n/a

Period British Museum British Museum British Museum British Museum British Museum St Paul’s Cathedral Stirling Castle British Museum MoMa British Museum British Museum British Museum British Museum St Paul’s Cathedral British Museum British Museum British Museum British Museum Stirling Castle British Museum British Museum British Museum British Museum British Museum British Museum Apsley House St Paul’s Cathedral British Museum British Museum British Museum British Museum

Museum

Judith Swaddling n/a Aurélia Masson-Berghoff n/a n/a VocalEyes n/a n/a MoMa Hartwig Fischer VocalEyes VocalEyes Aurélia Masson-Berghoff VocalEyes VocalEyes VocalEyes n/a Aurélia Masson-Berghoff n/a Aurélia Masson-Berghoff VocalEyes VocalEyes VocalEyes VocalEyes n/a VocalEyes VocalEyes n/a n/a n/a n/a

Audio Describer or Service Provider

106  Stand-alone ADs: sculptures and service providers (Table 4.1). The approximate number of items correlates to the labels in the table, encompassing diverse items that are not counted singularly; examples include the Group of Three Sculptures at the British Museum, which is jointly described in one AD script, or Fathers of the Church at St Paul’s Cathedral, which, in one AD script, collectively describes the statues of eight fathers of the Church: Saint Augustine, Saint Ambrose, Saint Jerome, Saint Basil, Saint Gregory the Great, Saint Athanasius, Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, and Saint John Chrysostum. The corpus has a total size of 8,198 tokens and 2,037 types. The quantitative data in Table 4.2 show an average STTR (44.40%), indicating a lexical diversity similar to that of written prose, and a mean value of lexical density (52.39%), which is typical of written-like, informative text types and similar to that of stand-alone painting ADs (54.31%). Likewise, in the sculpture corpus, information is conveyed mainly through short words (the average mean word length in characters is 4.48, SD = 2.37) and sentences with a mean length of 17.59 (SD = 7.67); the resulting readability index (Gunning fog) is 10.14. The distribution of the parts of speech shows nouns as the predominant word class, followed by prepositions (e.g. of = 342/417.17: A large section of this crown), verbs, and then adjectives, a distributional pattern that contributes to the descriptive efficacy of the AD texts in question.

Table 4.2 Stand-alone sculpture AD corpus: Quantitative data Characters Syllables Complex words Tokens Types Lemmas TTR/STTR % (decimals) Mean word length (SD) Sentences Mean in words (SD) Lexical density Gunning fog index Passive voice Parts of speech Nouns Adjectives Verbs Adverbs Prepositions Pronouns Auxiliary Verbs

46,472/37,989 11,429 636 8,198 2,037 2,190 23.12%/44.40% (0.25/0.71) 4.48 (2.37) 468 17.59 (7.67) 52.39% 10.14 33.55% 29.74% 8.43% 10.57% 3.65% 15.2% 2.27% 5.88%

Stand-alone ADs: sculptures  107 4.3

Typifying verbs

Not surprisingly, we identified an important number of copular verbs in stand-alone sculpture ADs as well, relating to their highly descriptive nature (par. 3.3). Besides the widespread use of be in its conjugated forms (His legs are short; Most of the statue is the mushroomy-brown colour of the sycamore) and the transitive verb have followed by the quality possessed by the described item (He has smooth, toned muscles, a broad chest, slim hips, and a strategically placed fig leaf), we found almost the same types of copular verbs as used in the painting corpus, on par with the texts’ descriptive scopes. However, if the same types seem to be used with a similar distribution and frequency, the current copular appear, normally marking probability, has a lower normalised frequency than in the AD corpus (3.66 vs. 12.38). This trend suggests the tendency of sculpture AD to generally report facts in an unquestionable fashion (The young man’s head is square, with short, thick tousled hair vs. Her arms appear to be bare; The head appears shaven). This could be because sculptures can sometimes be less ambiguous than paintings because of a lack of artistic elements (such as colour, light, and shade). These elements require greater interpretative skills and a greater art knowledge, especially for paintings that do not belong to realism (e.g. Impressionist or Fauvist paintings). Copular verbs alternate with some recurring verbs related to sculpting activity (e.g. carve and cut), confirming vocabulary choices dictated by the specificities of the topic represented in the artwork, and that are closely linked to the described items and to their production. Using verbs that detail the sculptor’s production activity could enhance the listener’s imagination, attract their attention, and eventually enlarge their specialised art vocabulary. Carving (35/42.69), for instance, is a sculptural technique that involves using tools (usually carvers) to shape a form by cutting or scraping away from a solid material such as stone, wood, ivory, or bone. This technique is commonly used in the corpus to describe the production of items described in the corpus (realistically carved in sycamore wood; the scarab is carved naturalistically). Carving was in fact used especially in the art of the origins (Mittler 2006) and typifies most archaeological items that populate the corpus. The verb carve is mainly used in the participial form in clusters such as carved from + material and carved into + material, in both active and passive voice constructions depending on the focus of the sentence (The men who carved it have cleverly selected the stone; it has been carved with almost as much care as the front), and as a participial adjective in economic, reduced constructions (The meticulously carved drapery flows from right to left). The common language and semantically more general verb cut, typically found in passive constructions, occurs only a few times in the corpus (It is cut from a block of two coloured granite dark grey and rose pink; It is made from layers of thin sheet metal that have been cut or bent into various shapes) and,

108  Stand-alone ADs: sculptures surprisingly, no other technical sculpture-related verbs have been detected in spite of a top-down search (including verbs like cast, chisel, engrave, etc.). The limited use of specialised verbs can be interpreted as a deliberate choice to limit the amount of unnecessary, forbidding, obscure jargon and enhance the usability of the AD texts in question. Users should not have to partake in decoding strategies and should not feel excluded from the subject. Thus, the AD style encourages a sense of users’ gratification by selecting known content and avoiding ambiguity. This trend is exemplified by the absence of defining verbs (e.g. call, mean, signify, etc.). However, participial verb forms, such as the informal yet vivid chipped (The nostrils have been chipped; The right ear is badly chipped), and -ing forms, such as missing (cf. the common cluster X is/are missing: Her lower legs are missing, broken off just below the knees; Both arms are missing and the left thigh ends abruptly), often occur as verbs or adjectives in recurring patterns to describe sculptures that—as often happens when they are ancient—have been spoiled by time, a common situation in most museums. Finally, the third form of make (30/36.59), especially in the passive clusters is/are made from and is/are made of, is used to introduce the sculpture materials (This giant sculpture of a scarab is made from a block of green stone called diorite; The sculpture is made of pink granite, peppered with darker speckles), while made in and made between are typical collocations introducing the creation period of the item. 4.4

Tense, aspect, and modality

Tense, aspect, and modality are not used in a particularly genre-specific way. Overall, we can observe them used similarly as in the painting AD corpus, with only slight differences in the specific communicative function they cover. For instance, both the painting and sculpture ADs focus on the immediate context using simple unmarked tenses to express factuality (Biber et al. 1999: 456–457), due to their descriptive scope. The present tense is therefore used any time a sculpted item is verbally portrayed, often juxtaposing several short descriptive clauses, as in the AD of the Scarab beetle, one of the most enduring symbols of ancient Egypt, representing rebirth and associated with the rising sun (Example 4.1).1 Example 4.1  Excerpt from the AD of the Scarab Beetle The front legs of the scarab curve forwards in front of the head, following the rounded edge of the plinth. The tips of these legs are feathered by notches carved out of the stone. The middle set of legs emerges from the shell immediately behind the front legs but curves the opposite way, towards the back of the beetle. The rear legs curve around the back, but a large section of the sculpture is missing, that includes the rear right leg and a portion of the plinth.

Stand-alone ADs: sculptures  109 In addition, it is used when the describer has to illustrate the temporary state of affairs immortalised by the sculpture (The serpent’s coil that circles Laocoons’ leg has also trapped him), or to clarify a habit, a logical state, or a general truth necessary for the understanding of the meaning or the symbolic aspects of the whole piece (the disc on top of the bull’s head signifies this is no ordinary animal). The past tense sparingly marks lexical verbs, and it tends to be associated with things rather than agents such as sculptors. Overall, we observed few or no references to the artists or sculptors are in this corpus, contrary to

Figure 4.1 Bronze figure of a Spartan running girl. 520–500 BC. British Museum. Wikimedia Commons.

110  Stand-alone ADs: sculptures the painting corpus where several famous artists are mentioned and foregrounded. This is especially true of historical sculptures’ ADs which delve into human history, where sculptors are unknown or are groups of unspecified agents (Mittler 2006). Simple past constructions tend to be used to contextualise when the sculpture was created, refer to sculptors’ distant yet persistent state or habitual behaviour, or refer to techniques. The past tense is also an effective means to stress a distant situation that differs from today, thus stimulating the listener’s imagination (The bronze was once gold-coloured metal but over the centuries it’s become a dark, lustrous brown; This mammoth fragment is all that remains of what was once a colossal free-standing statue; The figures that represented Athene and Zeus are now lost, but some of those who witnessed the birth are preserved). This is used to report and inform on historical truths (The Apis bull was a real bull) or to notify listeners of ancient human activities and past events that complement an item’s description. This is well exemplified in the AD of a small Spartan bronze statuette from around 500 BC (Figure 4.1), which is described as graceful yet muscular, bare feet, poised mid-stride as she pushes off the toes of her right foot, and most importantly, representing something rarely shown in ancient Greek art: a girl who seems to be in a running race. To justify such peculiarity, the describer can rely on a successful historical hint reported in the past tense (Olympic athletes were strictly male only. But girls could compete in their own festival every four years in honour of the goddess Hera. There was one event: running). As already observed, the factuality that typifies AD tends to conflict with the heavy use of the grammatical category ‘aspect’, which conveys the speaker’s perception of time rather than focusing on real time. In the corpus, bare -ing forms mainly function as attributive derivative adjectives (an offering table; a gaping mouth) and are more numerous than full progressive verb constructions that unfold an activity in progress (he’s supporting it on both forearms; Hapy is holding a tray-like object). This suggests the describer’s stylistic choice and would need further systematic research with larger corpora to be explored in detail. Finally, and in line with screen AD (Taylor 2015), most bare -ing forms are found in reduced relative clauses marking succinctly co-occurring actions, states, or situations, and contributing to textual cohesion (It is dated around 1350 BC, making it over 3,000 years old; with a circular sun disc nestling in to the curve at the bottom; The polished stone gleams, suggesting a sleek, healthy coat with strong muscles). In sculpture AD, the perfect aspect plays a more functional role, even if only a reasonable number of present retrospective constructions (have/had + third form; Lewis 1986) have been detected. From a semantic perspective, the presence of a perfect construction occurs in AD excerpts where the current state of decay of a given item is compared to its supposed original conservation state. Therefore, it simultaneously offers the possibility

Stand-alone ADs: sculptures  111

Figure 4.2 Iris Goddess of the Rainbow. Sculpture from the west pediment of the Parthenon, British Museum. © Marie-Lan Nguyen. Wikimedia Commons.

to imagine the original intact artwork vs. the damaged current artwork (The nostrils have been chipped; the bird does seem to have had long legs). This is often emphasised by the use the modal would to express a psychologically remote event (Lewis 1986: 121) and trigger the speaker’s imagination of a habitual past. This is exemplified by excerpts taken from the AD of the marble statue of the Egyptian goddess Iris exhibited at the British Museum (Iris would originally have been winged, but these wings have been lost […] Originally her waist would have been circled by a bronze

112  Stand-alone ADs: sculptures girdle, but this, too, has disappeared). Using the time adverb originally, the AD vividly and powerfully alternates and contrasts two situations: the present factual situation, where a statue with no wings and girdle is exhibited (Figure 4.2), and a remote situation described conceptualised by the AD as hypothetical, even though presumably true. Following Lewis’ approach (1986: 122), we can assume that the audio describer is describing a situation which they perceive at the moment of speaking (i.e. the statue of Iris is clearly damaged in the wing area), and that the state being described (i.e. the statue with no wings) is inevitably true. Example 4.2 offers a longer passage of the AD of Iris. It illustrates the importance of the notion of beforeness in the sculpture descriptions that are damaged by a multitude of factors, including decay and conservation problems of time, environment, pest infestation in the case of wooden items, and poor transportation, installation, maintenance, and repair. The example also illustrates how reference to ‘before a factual now’ alternates with factual information, which is instead unmarked by aspect. Example 4.2  Excerpt from the AD of Iris Goddess of the Rainbow When the sculpture was originally set in place on the pediment, the back would never have been seen. Despite this, it has been carved with almost as much care as the front. The meticulously carved drapery flows from right to left, and the bodice of the tunic is caught by a binding between her shoulder blades. A wedge-shaped hole in her left shoulder, some 12 centimetres long, is the socket where her left wing, made of bronze, would have been set. Below her buttocks, the painstaking carving disappears and a rough chunk of marble perhaps shows where the statue would have been attached to the pediment. The perfect aspect with its retrospective semantics is used to highlight the choices made before sculpting a given item to obtain the wanted result (The men who carved it have cleverly selected the stone), thus emphasising a situation (or the result of an action) that continues to exist and is grounded at the moment of speaking, but that is also relative to another point in time preceding the AD narration. 4.5

Lexical specificities

Regarding lexical specificities, we identified three areas of interest in the corpus: body parts are referred to nominally quite often, material names are used more extensively than colour names (unlike painting ADs), and adverbs are used with a mitigating function, especially when providing measures. The length of the words in this sub-corpus shows that longer ones are derived adverbs (e.g. naturalistically, 16 characters). Generally,

Stand-alone ADs: sculptures  113 Table 4.3 Words longer than ten characters in the sculpture corpus. Raw occurrences higher than 1 are in brackets No. of Characters Lexical Items in Alphabetical Order 11 characters

12 characters

13 characters 14 characters 15 characters 16 characters

Centimetres (15), rectangular (5), represented (3), transparent (2), plasterwork (2), personality (2), magnificent (2), hieroglyphs (2), dimensional (2), battlements (2), androgynous (2), traditional, symbolising, quizzically, painstaking, mercilessly, intricately, inscription, indentation, immortality, immediately, fantastical, encountered, embarrassed, discoveries, disappeared, destructive, destruction, desperation, desperately, decorations, cylindrical, curvilinear, crenellated, comfortably, astonishing, alternating, allegorical, accompanied Representing (5), Egyptologist (2), unsuccessful, strengthened, relationship, predominates, particularly, outstretched, meticulously, inscriptions, impressively, helplessness, granodiorite, domesticated, counterparts, constricting, commissioned, accompanying Realistically (2), extraordinary (2), circumference (2), approximately (2), traditionally, strategically, outstandingly, crenellations Constantinople (2), representation Representations Naturalistically

words are shorter than in the painting corpus, wherein we detected 22-character words (Table 4.3). Overall, the longest words in this corpus range from 11 to 16 characters and include mainly derived adjectives (e.g. dimensional, astonishing), derived adverbs (e.g. meticulously), only a few technical terms (e.g. plasterwork, inscription, embarrassed, curvilinear, and crenellations), and a few words referring to abstract entities (e.g. circumference, immortality)—which supports the idea of a scarcely jargonised yet visually powerful language. 4.5.1  Body parts

Language choices in a given register are commonly determined by what we talk about. In sculpture ADs, the semi-technical nouns statue (28/34.15) and sculpture (11/13.42) (cf. painting(s) (217/81.40) in the painting AD corpus) are systematic referents, often referred to anaphorically with pro-forms (The statue comes from Thebes in Egypt. It is dated around 1350 BC, making it over 3,000 years old). However, the sculpture ADs of our corpus, which often emulate an anthropomorphic art style (giving inanimate objects human characteristics) seem to reflect this trend in their vocabulary. Body and face parts are the most frequent words in the sculpture corpus, including common nouns such as body (17/20.74) and face

114  Stand-alone ADs: sculptures (13/15.86) that sometimes function as a cohesive mechanism. In Example 4.3, for instance, the role of the general noun face as a cataphoric encapsulator can be observed. Face presumptively paraphrases specific face elements and prepares the listener to the details to come (see also Example 6.3 where an anticipatory noun group performs the same function). Example 4.3  Excerpt from the AD of Hapy Hapy’s face is serene. There’s a slight smile on his closed lips. The eyes are large and almond shaped, with clearly defined curved brows and eyelids that extend at the outer edges, like winged eyeliner. The nose is broken off—the nostril area looks punched in. But the bridge of the nose is still strong and straight. The front of the chin has a round padding, like that of a healthy child. And reaching down from the tip of the chin is what’s sometimes called ‘the false beard of the Pharaohs’. It’s a smooth cuboid block, narrower at the front than the sides, cut off at a sharp right angle at the bottom. Its stylised formality makes Hapy beyond human—a deity. The overall vocabulary variety in the corpus is partly determined by the multiplicity of body parts that are used to accurately describe the mainly human-shaped sculptures, as per Table 4.4, where body parts and their raw and normalised frequency in the sculpture corpus are listed. Table 4.4  Body part names in the sculpture corpus Type

Head Back Legs Body Eyes Arms Face Hand Hair Feet Nose Ears Beard Shoulders Arm Heads Hands

Frequency Raw

Normalised

46 22 17 17 15 14 13 12 12 11 11 10 10 10 10 8 8

56.11 26.84 20.74 20.74 18.30 17.08 15.86 14.64 14.64 13.42 13.42 12.20 12.20 12.20 12.20 9.76 9.76

Stand-alone ADs: sculptures  115 Shoulder Heads Foot Chin Ear Neck Leg Stomach Skin Breasts Mouth Waist Knees Lips Faces Torso Thighs Breast Knee Joints Elbow Chest Thigh Ankle Calf Calves Penis

8 8 8 7 7 7 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 5 5 5 5 5 5 3 4 3 3 2 1 1 1

9.76 9.76 9.76 8.54 8.54 8.54 7.32 7.32 7.32 7.32 7.32 7.32 7.32 6.10 6.10 6.10 6.10 6.10 6.10 3.66 4.88 3.66 3.66 2.44 1.22 1.22 1.22

Body parts that come in pairs (e.g. legs or ears) tend to be referred to in the plural. The singular form usually denotes marked situations, e.g. when only one of the pair still exists (on the carved cloth covering his remaining leg). Generally, the descriptive focus is on one item of the pair, which can be preceded by a restrictive pre-modifier that correctly identifies the head noun (in Example 4.4 his right ear), or two parts of the pair that are being compared (His legs are short and carved as if viewed from the side rather than the front- the right leg slightly longer than the left). Singular occurrences of body parts that come in pairs are also used as predicative adjectives in noun sequences (Like the elbow joints, the knee joints are knobbly; One eye socket is deeper than the other). The same syntactic function is used for other body parts (Sekhmets gown is calf length and she wears ankle bracelets). Example 4.4  Excerpt from the AD of Ramesses A large section of this crown has broken off from the top, directly above Ramesses left eye, running in a jagged diagonal line, down towards his right ear. His left arm, too, is missing from the shoulder, and in his bare

116  Stand-alone ADs: sculptures torso, there’s a hole approximately 5 centimetres in diameter—bored out of the granite, just above his right breast. Most adjectives in the corpus are descriptive adjectives that collocate with body parts in varying degrees, and they include, in alphabetical order: alert and almond-shaped (eyes), aquiline (nose), bare (foot or torso), broad (chest, stomach, shoulders), curly (hair, beard), floppy (ears), full (cheeks, beard), long (legs, braids), rounded (belly), serene (smile), short (hair, but also e.g. tunic), slight (smile), smooth (skin), strong (muscles, legs, shoulders), straight (nose), thick (hair), and wavy (hair). Other significant body-qualifying adjectives with a descriptive though evocative function collocate with general nodes such as body, character, and statue. These include, in alphabetical order, adjectives such as adult, androgynous, animal, athletic, chubby, colossal (statue), erect, fat, human, little (statuette, dog), magnificent, naked, powerful, rounded (statuette), stocky (body), tubby, and young. Finally, it is common to find affiliative adjectives that designate the national or religious group that a specific archaeological item belongs to (cf. Egyptian; Greek). It is more common to find this type of information rather than adjectives conveying information on the sculptor, who, as anticipated, is often unknown. 4.5.2  Material names

Another relevant category of lexical items in the corpus is material names. As stated by Rogers (2020: par. 1), to make sculptures, ‘[a]n enormous variety of media may be used, including clay, wax, stone, metal, fabric, glass, wood, plaster, rubber, and random found objects. Materials may be carved, modeled, molded, cast, wrought, welded, sewn, assembled, or otherwise shaped and combined’. By adopting a top-down approach and searching for the materials listed by Rogers (2020) (Table 4.5), we can observe that the most frequently described material is stone (16/19.52). Table 4.5  Material names by decreasing frequency Material Name

Stone Fabric Metal Wood Wax Clay Plaster Glass

Frequency Raw

Normalised

16 8 7 7 3 2 2 1

19.52 9.76 8.54 8.54 3.66 2.44 2.44 1.22

Stand-alone ADs: sculptures  117 Other materials, not listed by Rogers, are marble, which is the second most frequent material mentioned in the ADs (12/14.64), and granite (7/8.54), suggesting the nature of the sculptures described, and possibly pointing to deliberate choices made by the sculptor. The choice of materials is important for both the sculptor and the viewer. Sculptors choose a particular material because of what they can do with it and what it can contribute to the finished work. Marble, wood, and bronze, for example, all have unique textural qualities that sculptors consider when choosing them for a particular work, especially for three-dimensional forms that invite and often encourage touch (Mittler 2006: 36). Concerning marble, it is often selected because it is most likely to survive over time, it has a variety of colours and interesting vein patterns, and it can be polished to a glasslike surface or left rough and heavily textured (Mittler 2006: 69), accounting for its abundant use in the corpus. Stone is challenging to carve into. However, it was used wherever it was available because it is a durable, permanent, and fireproof material, suited to the construction of impressive structures (Mittler 2006: 73). There were not many instances of frequent collocates for the stone and marble nodes. The former often left-collocates with green and polished, and the latter with creamy-white and off-white2 (see also the predicative position of the qualifying adjective compound in The surface of the marble is a creamy-yellow), thus specifying the general shade of a light-coloured rock, especially if not containing impurities. While the sculpture AD corpus includes a fair verity of materials names, it lacks the extensive variety and richness of colour nomenclatures characterising the painting corpus. This is a reflection of the corpus under Table 4.6  Basic colour name frequencies in the painting and in the sculpture corpora Basic Colour Name

White Blue Red Black Green Brown Yellow Purple Pink Orange Grey/Gray

Raw Frequency

Normalised Frequency

Painting Corpus

Sculpture Corpus

Painting Corpus

Sculpture Corpus

103 97 91 88 63 59 50 16 29 24 20

10 2 11 4 1 8 1 0 3 0 3

38.64 36.39 34.13 33.01 23.63 22.13 18.76 6.00 10.88 9.00 7.51

12.20 2.44 13.42 4.88 1.22 9.76 1.22 0 3.66 0 3.66

118  Stand-alone ADs: sculptures analysis. A comparative frequency analysis of Berlin and Kay’s 11 basic colour terms in the two corpora shows that their frequency in the sculpture corpus is not comparable to the frequency in the painting corpus (Table  4.6). In fact, even the most recurrent chromonyms in the sculpture corpus equal one-third of the occurrences found in the painting corpus. Colours are less important in the description of Western sculptures because the variety of colours that characterise the sculpture materials is small. Based on a qualitative analysis, white is used to characterise diverse materials, while the colour adjectives black, grey, pink, pinkish, and green are mainly associated with granite, red with clay or terracotta, and brown with wood, thus reflecting the natural colour of the materials used. Finally, blue, quite surprisingly, is a colour associated with the materials frequently used in sculpture. It is used when remnants of paint are visible on an incomplete statue, for instance, Osiris-Apis, a syncretic deity combining the attributes of the gods Osiris and Apis (Example 4.5): Example 4.5  Excerpt from the AD of Osiris-Apis Most of the statue is the mushroomy-brown colour of the sycamore, but there are some remnants of paint. Vibrant red is caught in the drape of a garment over the right shoulder. Faded blue patches [dots] the broad flat stomach, and traces of brighter blue and red linger on the carved cloth covering his remaining leg. 4.5.3 Adverbs

Verbs, nouns, and adjectives appear in both the painting and sculpture sub-corpora given the information load they carry; adverbs require observation as well. Adverbs are an informative lexical word class, frequently used in conversation and fiction as opposed to written registers (Biber et al. 1999: 504). Normally, adverbs serve as modifiers if integrated into an element of the clause, or as adverbials if they are elements of a clause. The LancsBox KWIC research per part of speech shows that most adverbs in the sculpture corpus are modal adverbs with a mitigating or restricting function (hedges) (cf. around, about, almost, approximately, just, hardly, partially, probably, roughly). This limits the audio describer’s commitment and is strongly associated with information about time and size (see It’s so dark it’s almost black). This confirms that mitigating language devices in art AD are used strategically to attenuate the impact of what is being said to sound less imposing, non-threatening, and more engaging (cf. Brown and Levinson 1987). Softening the illocutionary force of a speech act, even in a narrative with a specific descriptive purpose, is an effective way

Stand-alone ADs: sculptures  119 of both involving the listener more in the interpretative experience, and avoiding sounding patronising, such as imposing unquestionable views (cf. Apsley House is a beautiful Georgian building vs. Apsley House is a Georgian building). On a morphological level, adverbs derived by -ly suffixation of an adjective, a very productive process in English, occur in more variety than in absolute frequency, which is one possible reason for the STTR (44.40%) of the corpus. The list is ordered alphabetically, and the number of tokens that occur more than once is labelled in brackets: abruptly (3), approximately (2), carefully, casually, certainly, clearly, cleverly, comfortably, completely (2), desperately, diagonally, directly (2), dizzyingly, enormously, entirely, especially (2), eventually, gently (3), gracefully, hardly, highly (2), immediately (2), intricately, lightly, mercilessly, meticulously, naturalistically, normally, originally (4), outstandingly, partially, particularly, perfectly, probably (4), quizzically, realistically (2), really (2), remarkably, roughly, slightly (10), stiffly, strictly, tightly, traditionally, vertically (2). Most convey a modal nuance to the text; rather than just being descriptive, they tell the listener how an action is performed (His eyebrows arch gently over wide, almond-shaped eyes; the hands have survived, grasping the skirt tightly at the sides; They are perfectly placed to mediate between the worlds of the living and the dead). Finally, the abundant use of the deictic adverbs right and left is also noteworthy in this corpus. These adverbs allow describers to deliver mental and physical orientation instructions in a straightforward and accessible way. Further, besides being used in deictic expressions of place (as in painting ADs; see par. 3.7) to orient the listener to the disposition of an art items in the room (Moving right, the next is a naked, chubby boy; The Sphinx on the left is the best-preserved of the two), the adverbs right and left are often used in the sculpture corpus as attributive adjectives referring to body parts of the statues or statuettes being described (He’s holding a small object in his right fist; The right ear is badly chipped; directly above Ramesses left eye; the fingers of his left hand are splayed over his fat belly; Both arms are missing and the left thigh ends abruptly; the right leg slightly longer than the left). Notes 1 Visual details of the Scarab Beetle can be accessed on the British Museum webpage: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/Y_EA74 2 White varies greatly in tint and tone. Off-white is an umbrella term for a variety of shades that differ only slightly from pure white, including, for instance, cream, eggshell, ivory and vanilla (cf https://www.canva.com/colors/color-meanings/ off-white/).

120  Stand-alone ADs: sculptures References Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., & Finegan, E. (1999). Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Longman. Brown, P., & Levinson, S.C. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. CUP. Finlay, J. (2020). Art history. Arcturus. Lewis, M. (1986). The English verb. Heinle. Mittler, G.A. (2006). Art in focus. Glencoe. Rogers, L.R. (2020). Sculpture. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica. com/art/sculpture Taylor, C. (2015). The language of AD. In A. Remael, N. Reviers & G. Vercauteren (Eds.), Pictures painted in words. ADLAB audio description guidelines (pp. 48–51), EUT.

5 AD tours

Audio guides and audio description tours (or AD tours) are substantially different tools meant for substantially different audiences. Audio guides or self-guided tours were first introduced in museums and galleries in the 1950s. They were (and still are) a system of providing visitors with recorded information when touring a museum, gallery, or any other place of interest, to facilitate full appreciation of the site, even in the absence of a firm knowledge of its history, facts, and heritage (Fina 2018; Neves 2012: 285). Audio guides are generally not meant for sight-impaired visitors, and they are mainly considered an ‘informative, script-based form of public speaking’ (Fina 2018: 21). However, AD tours (also known as descriptive guides, descriptive audio guides, descriptive tours or verbal description audio tours for blind and visually impaired patrons, and inclusive museum audio guides; e.g. Giansante 2015; Hutchinson and Eardley 2019; Neves 2015) were originally designed specifically for people with sight loss, and today, they have expanded their target audiences to encompass wider accessibility and inclusivity (par. 1.5 and 1.6). Compared to stand-alone ADs, pre-recorded AD tours group together logically related ADs of diverse art items and guide people with sight loss through a coherent itinerary. Both stand-alone ADs and AD tours deliver a description of the artefact on display, emphasising both its visible details (size, shape, colour, texture, etc.) and unseen characteristics (history or background information) (Fineman and Cock 2022; Giansante 2015; Hutchinson and Eardley 2019; Perego 2018, 2021; Salzhauer et al. 1996; Taylor and Perego 2021). Rather than only providing the AD proper of a number of items, AD tours also describe interconnected objects while assisting people with sight loss to move between exhibits, thus helping them to orient throughout a physical space via way-finding, circulation, and navigation instructions. Planning an effective descriptive tour involves verbally observing the items that will be made available, interacting with art specialists, and (eventually) choosing the right words to communicate successfully with end-users.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003134237-6

122  AD tours 5.1

Working stages

The process of developing an AD tour can be broken down into a number of necessary subsequent and interrelated functional working stages, each characterised by small tasks, that precede and follow the AD script-writing phase. These stages are summarised as follows (Figure 5.1). When visiting a museum or gallery, describing the exhibit, the heritage site, or the venue is the first stage in the process of building a coherent AD tour. For the describer, a one-off visit will not be sufficient, and they might need to return to the venue several times to talk to internal staff, external experts, and blind patrons for crucial feedback on their requirements (Charlton 2000). Still, the first visit is crucial. It will enable the describer to take pictures and denote their first impressions, using first-hand, poignant, and instinctive words that will make a major contribution to the final script. Only after visiting the location will the describer be able to initiate the complex decision-making process of choosing the source text. In an art context, and specifically from a descriptive tour perspective, a source text is not a single, self-dependent item, but the whole selection of interconnected objects relating to one another in a given and relevant space. As Hutchinson and Eardley (2019) argue, the notion of source texts for museums and galleries should be expanded beyond the visual elements of their collections, encompassing the wider museum visiting experience. Consequently, when choosing objects, it will be important to select (in collaboration with the curator) attractive, unusual, and meaningful items that best represent the exhibition’s narrative and scope, and that best serve clear and vivid descriptions or, if applicable, tactile reproductions and handling sessions. As such, the audio describer (and the curator) will plan a coherent journey including objects sequenced to convey a story and hold the visitor’s attention. The tour should be entertaining, but not too long, because visitors’ attention spans are limited. Overall, AD tours should not exceed an hour, a time frame that allows visitors to enjoy the museum experience without getting too tired, unless they provide ‘layered’ content (Fineman and Cock 2022: 224) made of optional extra material available within a linear guide. When preparing an AD tour, a decision should be made regarding whether to offer a plain or an enriched experience by adding, for instance, a haptic dimension through Braille or relief writing, tactile drawing boards or maps, replicas or bas-reliefs of original items, and other sensory dimensions that can complement the experience (par. 2.2). Tactile experiences are becoming increasingly common in museums and galleries (Chapter 6). It should be noted, however, that the museums and galleries must be able to reproduce their works (even partially) or make original works available to make the tours accessible. Furthermore, tactile

AD tours  123 Multiple

Take notes

Focused

Take pictures

On-site visits Source text selection

Note down feelings

Itinerary arrangement

Pre-writing stage

Research

End-users

Interviews

Museum experts External specialists Sight

Sound

Smell

AD tour creation

Enriched AD

multimodality

AD planning

Orientation instructions

Touch

Taste AD proper writing stage

AD drafting(s) Other, or combination AD editing End-user feedback

Post-writing stage

Peer or expert feedback AD fine-tuning and finalisation

Live

AD delivery Pre-recorded

Figure 5.1 Decision making in AD tour creation: Higher- and lower-level functional moves.

124  AD tours experiences are more usable if accompanied by a specialised human guide capable of properly guiding visitors both verbally and physically to move their hands (Candlin 2006; De Coster and Loots 2004; Secchi 2014, 2022). Unfortunately, not all museums can afford this costly resource. Thus, a targeted descriptive text offered in a pre-recorded form is important for providing the visitor sufficient autonomy when exploring, even if they are alone. Before moving to the AD writing process, the describer will need to do considerable research. This can be based on internal museum libraries, specialised literature, specific exhibition material (such as catalogues, captions, brochures, etc.), and interviews with experts. In fact, talking to people and interviewing art experts and museum and gallery curators is essential for gathering focused information on selected items and their relations. Teamwork is essential for art describers. Only with feedback can an AD script be planned, drafted, and edited as many times as necessary to become a listenable recorded narration. Accordingly, editing can be quite laborious and entail the same type of work and attention needed, for instance, in film screenwriting. This includes careful text judgement and rehearsals, deleting unnecessary details, and discerning which information is crucial, among other things (Kozloff 2000). Producing an AD tour (vs. stand-alone ADs) also requires the consideration, selection, and inclusion of information based on the adequate physical orientation of prospective blind visitors. The narrator should give precise, factual, and succinct orientation instructions, while simultaneously assisting and encouraging the visitors verbally, to make them feel comfortable and supported, but also independent. When the final AD script is ready, feedback from people with sight loss should be obtained and incorporated (Charlton 2000; Perego 2017; Perego and Taylor 2022; Taylor 2014).1 To do so, describers can plan a piloting session with a group of blind visitors followed by a structured questionnaire or focus group session.2 The final version of the AD script for a descriptive tour, which will eventually be audio recorded, will be the result of a negotiation with a considerable number of diverse stakeholders with different needs and perspectives, including museum or gallery curators and staff. If the AD is delivered live, an annotated outline including keywords will be enough for a museum guide to successfully and effortlessly deliver their tour with their visitors. While some guidelines and training materials for developing an audio AD tour exist (e.g. COME-IN! 2017; Fineman and Cock 2022; Giansante 2015; Neves 2015; Salisbury 2000; Salzhauer et al. 1996; as for online training materials see Module 4 of the online ADLAB PRO Course Materials (Perego 2017), and Unit 3B of the EASIT Educational Materials

AD tours  125 for the creation of easy-to-understand ADs), there are no univocal rules for its constitution. Each will be the unique result of the sensitivity, training, and collaboration of those involved as well as the content type and source text being described. It is important that each itinerary, regardless of its dimension, include a selection of elements that are closely interconnected either by theme, story, or logic, to be experienced with ease and gratification. Today, a positive museum or gallery experience is central to the research sector known as ‘visitor studies’, and it must be at the core of an audio describer and museum curator’s decision-making process (Black 2005, 2012; Hutchinson and Eardley 2019, 2022). Examples of collaborative practices to create consistent AD tours are offered both by large-scale and small-scale museums and galleries. As part of the refurbishment of the Waddesdon Bequest Gallery, the British Museum offered to provide tactile guides for some of the important objects in this collection. This entailed a collaboration with The Royal National Institute of Blind (RNIB) People3 to ensure that the collection’s chosen objects would translate into meaningful and understandable tactile images. As a result, nine objects were selected to feature in a booklet with tactile images, accompanied by Braille. The British Museum supplied RNIB with historical information on each object, and RNIB added detailed descriptions that would be read in conjunction with the tactile images. RNIB gave clear instructions of what they needed from the museum and advised about which objects would work best. The final output was a 59-page booklet containing 21 tactile image pages and 38 Braille text pages for blind and partially sighted people to enjoy. Currently, the booklets can be found in a specially designed holder next to a bench, available for blind and partially sighted people to engage with. Tactile guides are currently much appreciated and in use. Similarly, but on a smaller scale, the Italian National Archaeological Museum of Aquileia has collaborated with AD scholars and students from the Department of Legal, Language, Interpreting and Translation Studies of the University of Trieste to introduce an accessible guided itinerary for the blind within its access services. The first pilot version of the descriptive guide consisted of four items and was later expanded to eight. The descriptive guide was officially made available in May 2019. In this case, items were selected based on their easily accessible physical location (the ground floor) and on the principle of diversity (vs. uniformity) concerning form, material, representativeness, and the function of each selected item. The idea was to provide visitors with a small yet meaningful range of varied, unrelated, but representative exhibits that could accurately convey the museum’s atmosphere. A joint effort between the museum director, curator, AD students, and AD experts resulted in the selection of a limestone slab with relief representations from the

126  AD tours 1st century AD (the relief of the sulcus primigenius depicting the foundation rite of Aquileia), a monumental non-Aquileian marble sculpture from the mid-1st century AD (the statue of the emperor Augustus), a bronze applique from the Augustan age (the head of Boreas), and a masterpiece of the Aquileian funerary art from the late 1st century BC/early 1st century AD (a cylindrical cinerary urn representing a funeral banquet scene and intended to store the ashes of the deceased; cf. Figures 2.1. and 2.2) (Ventura 2013; see Collavini 2019; Pietracci 2017; Valle 2019). A haptic experience was included that allowed visitors to touch the real objects, and the descriptive tour was prepared and recorded in English and in Italian to extend its inclusivity. 5.2

Tour structure

Nowadays, descriptive tours are growing in number. There are several service providers offering them for a multitude of museum and gallery types, heritage sites, and buildings. Although each tour is unique, a manual, qualitative analysis of a corpus of 12 AD tours (details in the next paragraph) enabled us to identify a linear rhetorical pattern including specific communicative moves (Swales 1990) are represented in Table 5.1. Table 5.1 shows a template of three broad sections that represent the three-move macro structure of AD tours, each including diversified subsections organised in steps, namely lower-level parts of moves. If the three macro moves are fixed and necessary, and they follow this order, the steps can be arranged in a different order where applicable and do not always have to be included in every AD tour. The introductory section of an AD tour normally comprises initial greetings, a more or less thorough presentation of the descriptive audio guide, information on the museum, gallery, or heritage site, and reference to special features, if any. Initial greetings are conventionalised expressions serving an interactional purpose rather than conveying information in a transactional manner. In everyday conversation, they are used as a ritual form of politeness and serve the important function of building and maintaining social relationships and group solidarity (or ‘positive face’ in politeness theory; Brown and Levinson 1987) with conversation partners (Li 2010). Greetings cover a similar role in AD tours where they represent the opening part of the descriptive narration. In AD tours, greetings are used to verbally acknowledge the presence of museum visitors, and, through a structured monologue, they open the listening experience (rather than beginning a conversational exchange). Since they are closed to exchanges, in museum’s pre-recorded guides, greeting statements are not reciprocated and cannot be part of a turn-taking routine (Biber et al. 1999: 1085).

AD tours  127 Table 5.1  The main communicative moves and steps of AD tours Initial greetings Introduction

Guide presentation

Length Items described Technical info Other

Museum presentation

Layout Scope History

Special features

Toilettes Shop Café Other

Orientation instructions AD of selected items

Core section

Special (‘enriched’) experiences

Tactile Olfactory Auditory Visual Gustative Proprioceptive Other

Listener-engaging strategies

Conclusion

Recap Final greetings Leave-taking Expressions of gratitude Thanks Exit directions

However, they are affirming and friendly greetings used to welcome visitors, and short, simple, and informal expressions are often chosen (Biber at al. 1999: 1086) (Welcome to this audio descriptive guide to Volcanoes and Earthquakes at the Natural History Museum). Patterns such as Welcome to + Noun Phrase are commonly used to specify the type of environment the visitor is entering. The guide’s introduction informs users of what to expect concerning content, length of visit, and practical information. Guides can be very different in how they present their content to the listener, and they can vary substantially in length and in how detailed they are. The opening excerpt of the vision impairment audio tour of the Images of Nature Gallery in

128  AD tours the Natural History Museum in London (Example 5.1) is very concise; it alternates factual and prescriptive information and is organised logically. Example 5.1 Excerpt from the AD tour of Images of the Nature Gallery in the Natural History Museum This guide offers an overview of the gallery, detailed descriptions of some of the key images on display, and directions to help you find your way around. The tour lasts about 50 minutes. You’ll need to pause the guide at various points, to make your way from one part of the museum to the next, and between displays in the Gallery itself. Conversely, the AD tour for the Volcanoes and Earthquakes Gallery in the same museum (Example 5.2) is more detailed and technical, and it provides specific information to prepare the user for the visit. Example 5.2 Excerpt from the AD tour of the Volcanoes and Earthquakes Gallery in the Natural History Museum This guide combines descriptions of key objects and explanatory text from the wall panels. It’s intended to be downloaded before you arrive and listened to in the gallery on a smartphone or mp3 player. It begins with directions from the Exhibition Road entrance to the gallery. Played straight through, this guide will last about 40 minutes. You can pause at any time. There are 17 tracks in total, with titles at the start of each track. Select the next track to move on to the next display. In this corpus, the node guide (23/3.31) left-collocates with modifiers such as audio, audiodescriptive, but also audio descriptive, descriptive, and multimedia, indicating a lack of established and consistent orthography and terminology consistency when using this important assistive tool. Typically, these words can be found at the start of the pre-recorded tour script (This guide combines the descriptions of; The guide will take you from stop to stop; The guide is 45 minutes of audio in total), when the visitors’ various options are listed (You may wish to pause the guide here and start it again when), or at the end of the tour script with returning instructions (Please return the guide to). The guide presentation section can also include other practical information and the invitation to interact with staff, if necessary (There are toilets on 2 floors, we will describe them as we pass them on the tour but if you would like to use them now, please ask a member of staff to direct you). As such, the cluster member of staff is also quite frequent. Within the pre-recording’s scope is an invitation to contact

AD tours  129 the personnel, at any time and for anything, to ensure the visitor feels comfortable, free, and safe to interact with them. This invitation generally encompasses the common politeness marker please to emphasise ease (cf. the clusters please ask the member of staff to or do not hesitate to ask the member of staff to but also please let the member of staff know and they will be happy to help; a member of staff would be glad to show it to you), thus making the listener feel included and comfortable. The core section of the guide normally comprises spatial orientation instructions, and the AD proper (that is, the description of each selected item) delivers specific instructions for the visitor to enjoy special or enriched experiences involving the use of diverse senses (par. 2.2 and 2.4), and listener-engaging strategies. Depending on the tour, spatial orientation instructions can be complex and long, especially at the beginning of the itinerary. Thereafter, they might grow shorter and more focused, especially when instructing visitors to move from one exhibit to another (a more detailed corpus-driven overview will be offered later in the chapter). The AD proper normally includes most of the details condensed in Figure 5.2, in a logical yet indefinite order, made coherent by appropriate linking elements.

Internal orientation instructions

Name of artwork

Production period / Art movement

Author bionote and brief history of artwork

Colour(s) and/or material(s)

Dimension and shape Style and/or technique(s)

Figure 5.2  AD proper information structure.

130  AD tours Although this information structure is typical of descriptive tours for museums and galleries, different patterns should be considered when external environments such as city tours, heritage sites, architecture, or buildings are described. In these cases, a fixed narrative deriving from the source text does not exist, so one should be created specifically based on the source text (Neves 2015: 69), which can be challenging. However, there are inherently modular buildings and environments that could benefit from at least rough descriptive templates tackling their most relevant and recurrent features. In his recent research, for instance, Pacinotti (2022) focuses on places of worship, and he suggests a template for their AD process which greatly differs, in its core section, from the templates already discussed in this chapter; it includes typical elements not normally relevant in museums and galleries or other cultural environments. These include, for instance, the exact location of the building and, starting from the exterior, a focus on its façade, which is paramount for providing the visitor with a first impression. A description of the materials normally used to create varied visual patterns, and a focus on the church entrance should conclude the description of the outside. Moving to the inside, according to the template, the describer should detail the church plan (which has implications for visitors’ perception of space), the ceiling, and the aisles and columns, which are used to characterise the inside of the church and the way it communicates with the visitor. Using architecture and design-related jargon, the floor, the walls and decorations, the internal materials, and lights and colours should also be described. In addition, when relevant, the describer should provide information about the function of specific places and structures in the church (Pacinotti 2022; see La Colla 2020 for an application of the template). Such a template can effectively aid describers in content selection when facing AD work for distinctive features of inherently modular buildings. Moreover, this can be easily exported and adapted to any building that fits into the category regardless of its specificities. The conclusion stage normally comprises a short outline of the content, followed by leave-taking expressions, salutations or final greetings, expressions of gratitude, and exit directions—not necessarily in this order. The conclusion signals the end of the visit event, which can be sharp (That’s the end of this audio descriptive guide) or be announced gradually (You’re now coming to the end of the tour). Ending-moves are normally followed by detailed exit information (Turn from this panel to your left to leave the gallery; To find the exit, …), and they can include elaborate final salutations (or leave-taking) and thanks, that vary more than the opening greetings. Not all guides include explicit expressions of gratitude or thanks; in fact, we detected very few in the corpus (Thank you for taking the tactile audio tour; Thank you very much for listening; Good bye and thanks for listening). However, they can feature phrases that perform similar functions or that express affection towards the visitor (It was a pleasure having

AD tours  131 you here with us today), emphasise the depth of the gratitude and compliment the visitor (Thank you very much for listening; It has been a privilege for us to have you here and we value your support), or even express a desire to continue a relationship with them (Do keep in touch through our website and Facebook pages, and we look forward to welcoming you back soon; We would love your feedback on how to improve the experience) (Eisenstein and Bodman 1986). In the final salutation and thanks section, we can observe listenerengagement strategies that are implemented to attract visitors’ attention, create an emotional connection with them, and maintain a future link to the museum with them. We detected recommendations or direct and indirect hints relating to a coming event followed by a call to action (If you wish to continue your visit towards the second floor, reserved for private life, you can find the stairs on your left; There is something new to discover each time you visit; We get no support from the state for the running of the cathedral, and your visit here will help to safeguard the building for future generations), or the expression of an explicit desire to host visitors again articulated with phrases that give people the impression they are being spoken to directly (The museum looks forward to your next visit; Do keep in touch through our website and Facebook pages, and we look forward to welcoming you back soon) (par. 5.7). 5.3

Corpus overview

To analyse the structure and language of AD tours, we used a collection of 12 AD tours from diverse environments ranging from museums and galleries to temporary exhibitions, churches, and private heritage houses described professionally in British and American English by different audio describers. The ADs were developed with the contribution of the Londonbased service provider VocalEyes and the US Audio Description Associates, LLC (and the ADs written by Joel Snyder; in the Table: ADA). They are listed alphabetically in Table 5.2.4 The corpus has a total size of 75,514 tokens and 8,884 types (Table 5.3). The quantitative data show an average STTR (43.19%) which indicates a lexical diversity similar to the lexical density of written prose, and a mean value of lexical density (53.33%) that points to a written-like, informative text type, where information is conveyed mainly through short words (the average mean word length in characters is 4.58, SD = 2.43) and sentences whose mean length is 17.96 (SD = 8.58), with a resulting readability index (Gunning fog) of 10.7. The distribution of the parts of speech is the same as that identified in the stand-alone ADs of paintings and sculptures, with nouns being the predominant word class, followed by prepositions, verbs, and adjectives, a distributional pattern that can be attributed to the same communicative purpose of the texts analysed so far.

132  AD tours Table 5.2  AD tour audio descriptions: Corpus details Tour Name

Museum or Location

AD Provider

Apsley House Buddhism across Asia Charles Dickens’ museum Eltham Palace Handel and Hendrix in London Human Evolution Gallery St Paul’s Cathedral Tattoos in Japanese Prints The Bold Brush of Au Ho-nien Galleries 1–3 Volcanoes and Earthquakes Walmer Castle

London Asian Art Museum of San Francisco London London London Natural History Museum, London London Asian Art Museum of San Francisco Asian Art Museum of San Francisco US Olympic & Paraolimpic Museum, Colorado Springs Natural History Museum, London Walmer, Kent (UK)

VocalEyes ADA VocalEyes VocalEyes VocalEyes VocalEyes VocalEyes ADA ADA ADA VocalEyes VocalEyes

Table 5.3  AD tour corpus: Quantitative data Characters Syllables Complex words Tokens Types Lemmas TTR/STTR % (decimals) Mean word length (SD) Sentences Mean in words (SD) Lexical density Gunning fog index Passive voice Parts of speech Nouns Adjectives Verbs Adverbs Prepositions Pronouns Auxiliary Verbs

5.4

431,995/353,925 107,181 6,831 75,514 8,884 7,903 10.64%/43.19% (0.12/0.71) 4.58 (2.43) 4264 17.96 (8.58) 53.33% 10.7 22% 30.92% 8.02% 10.87% 3.52% 14.94% 2.64% 4.95%

Typifying verbs

AD tours can be considered stand-alone ADs of objects placed in their situational context joined by orientation directions. They include details of how exhibits are displayed and provide architectural details of the museum and gallery or exhibition space. Consequently, they share most of

AD tours  133 the features already identified in stand-alone ADs. Concerning their verb types, they (expectedly) range from copular verbs (The interiors are still almost exactly as they were in the First Duke’s day in the eighteen hundreds; Although many are grey-haired, others are dark) to topic-specific verbs that are appropriate for describing what can be found in the rooms of various buildings. We identified verbs that describe the decay or states of monuments and statues left in poor condition (The back of this base is broken, but fortunately, much of the inscription remains; The monument is severely damaged, the legs broken off at the thighs, arms at the wrists and nose missing; Except for the partially damaged face of the patron, this piece is very well preserved). Further, we observed the alternation of verbs describing sculpting (e.g. carve) or painting techniques (e.g. paint) which were both included in the AD tours analysed. Moreover, we observed art-related descriptive verbs emphasising the way some items or details look (The doors are decorated by carved rows, alternating squares and rectangles). Although, as expected, the present tense is overrepresented in the corpus, instances of past tense were found, especially containing verbs used to narrate the stories, lives, and events of the artwork (e.g. characters portrayed in paintings or people who lived in the buildings that are now museums), thus enabling the AD to fulfil its primary function as entertainment (George Friedrich Handel was born in Halle, Germany in 1685; Two years after Waterloo he bought Apsley House; Stephen bought Jonggy from the pet shop in Harrods; Dickens worked tirelessly to bring social injustice to the public eye; My kind student Ho-nien brought me this pair of paintings; He even asked to be buried alongside her; Hendrix first came here in July 1968; The couple raised the eldest 3 of their 10 children). AD tours have fewer time restrictions than stand-alone ADs to provide background information, thus they tend to utilise it by being as evocative as possible to both educate and entertain their audiences. Since AD tours are developed for large spaces, such as large historical buildings, they tend to use verbs to describe and discuss their history. The verb built conveys information on the buildings hosting the AD tour (The Dining Room was built as an extension to this east side of the house by Wellington’s architect Benjamin Dean Wyatt; A cooking range is built into the middle of the right-hand wall; Built on a hill over the former Roman town of Londinium, it was a centre from which the Christian faith spread in this city). The derived verb carpet is a unique term for describing buildings’ interiors (The steps are carpeted and have stair rods; The front of the 10-meter-long entrance hall is carpeted with an olive-green runner along the middle of the dark wooden floorboards). The verb cover is another common choice to

134  AD tours signal the presence of carpets in the rooms (The floor is covered with the same green carpet as the Wellington room), and it has the tendency to collocate with the noun wall (The walls are covered with a pale blue wallpaper; The walls are covered in a striking fabric of cream and red vertical stripes; the wall is covered by a leather map). Verbs belonging to architectural and interior design realms were also identified, especially in the third form (As you might expect of an attic space designed for servants to sleep in, there is not much natural light in this room; It was designed by Marion Dorn; The windows are draped with brown velvet curtains). However, most of the verbs were movement verbs to navigate the visitors (par. 5.8). 5.5

Lexical specificities

In line with previous findings, this corpus is typified by topic-specific words that reflect the type of art items in the AD itineraries. Since most regard buildings (e.g. famous homes, castles, churches, specific thematic galleries, etc.), the noun room is among the top ranking on the corpus frequency word list (339/44.08). It is followed by wall (278/36.81),5 and thereafter by a number of nouns belonging to the lexical set of semantically related items regarding buildings meant for human habitation: door(s) and doorway (255/33.77), window(s) (155/20.53), floor (132/17.48), and, with a reduced frequency, gate, roof, shelf, arch. Compared to the previously analysed corpora, we observed a considerable variety of low-ranking grammatical words primarily linked to directionality; at first glance, one might assume that they relate to orientation instructions. Regarding word length in this sub-corpus, we did not find words exceeding 16 characters, which include specialised Latin borrowings belonging to the paleontological domain (e.g. Australopithecus, Neanderthalensis, Heidelbergensis, Sahelanthropus), or to the geological domain (e.g. volcanologist; stratovolcanoes, namely composite conical volcanos built up by many layers— strata—of hardened lava and tephra; mountaineering; knickerbockers, namely a form of baggy-kneed breeches, particularly popular in the early 20th-century United States, etc.) linked to the descriptive texts drafted for the Natural History Museum (but see also instrumentalists, audiodescriptive, civilisations, circumference, architectural, archaeologists), and a majority of morphologically complex and semantically loaded derived adjectives and adverbs ranging from 16 to 13 characters (e.g. autobiographical, inappropriately, disconcertingly, significantly, groundbreaking, controversial). The frequency of the referent noun room, and of those belonging to the same semantic field, occurs because all the AD tours analysed include

AD tours  135 rooms delimited by walls and ceilings as the typical spaces that can be visited, as well as doors that enable museum-goers to move from one space in the building to another. For example, there are rooms, walls, and, normally, doors in heritage houses (e.g. Apsley House, Eltham Palace, the Dickens’ house, Hendrix and Handel that have all been transformed into museums), castles (Walmer Castle), but also in museum and gallery spaces (the Volcanoes and Earthquakes and the Human Evolution Gallery at the Natural History Museum in London, the Buddhism across Asia tour and the tour of Tattoos in Japanese Prints and The Bold Brush of Au Ho-nien at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, the USOPM Galleries). Only two occurrences of room, however, are found in the AD tour of St Paul’s Cathedral, and they refer to places reserved for the visitors rather than the clergy, e.g. a room containing leather cushions to lean against when visitors are tired (Beyond the wall is a room some 10 metres square, with a vaulted ceiling and thick rectangular pillars in the middle). The audiovisual room is another example (There is a break about halfway along for an entrance to an audiovisual room called ‘Oculus’); in this space, short films of the panoramic view from the Dome’s external galleries, an architectural model of St Paul’s made by Sir Christopher Wren, and a short film about life at St Paul’s are on show. Conversely, specific church areas are referred to with specialised terms such as nave (the main part of the church where the people worship) and aisle (the sides of the church which may run along the side of the nave), and alcove, altar, choir, dome, etc. (The step leads to a wooden dais and an Altar, and a sign asks us not to step onto it. Standing by this step, you are directly under the centre of the Dome). Further, we observed the use of specific words for describing specific locations such as corner, which stresses the secluded nature of a place (This dimly lit corner contains tombs and monuments at floor level; also the Artists’ Corner, an angle located in the Crypt which is a final resting place for some of the world’s greatest artists). Referring back to the common noun room, a GraphColl analysis performed with LancsBox (which identifies collocations and displays them in a graph network) to find its left-collocates shows 12 mainly comprising classifying (rather than descriptive) adjectives used to delimit the referent (Figure 5.3). If we perform the same analysis on the next most frequent word in the corpus, wall (278/36.81), we detect the opposite trend: the noun does not comprise pre-modifying classifying adjectives but rather descriptors (e.g. adjoining, weather board, back, high brick, stone castle, circular, curved, curved defensive, long, waist-high, wooden). Furthermore, the node wall is repeatedly used in orientation expressions, where the communicative

136  AD tours composition

drawing rectangular

museum

next

morning

the

room

music

bow this

dressing

dining

Figure 5.3  Collocation network showing the left-collocates of the node room.

aim is to successfully navigate visitors within a room rather than focusing on the nature and features of the wall itself (In the right-hand wall is a black marble fireplace; At the bottom of the wall, is the small, cracked stony-brown skull of an early hominin; Against the wall on your left, is a marble bust). Overall, the frequency and repetition of some items (single words or larger units) in all of the corpora play an important, cohesive role. The qualitative observation of a short excerpt of the AD of Eltham Palace, for instance (Example 5.3)—an AD emphasising the decorations and furniture to better capture the sense of style of their inhabitants Virginia (Ginie) and Stephen—shows how cohesion is achieved thanks to the lexical reiteration of the word room and words related to it (cf. table, chair, window, fireplace, door) as well as the presence of colour and material names (e.g. leather, wood, marble, and aluminium). On a syntactic level, the marked parallel construction is based on the inversion of the subject and the verb (In the right-hand wall is a black marble fireplace, decorated

AD tours  137 with a geometric pattern in aluminium. Leading off in all directions are black ebonised doors) and the presence of an adverbial elliptical construction binds the text together. Example 5.3  Excerpt from the AD tour of Eltham Palace Set lengthways down the room is a blonde-wood table, over two metres long, with ten chairs around it, upholstered in pink leather. Ginie chose the colour to set off fashionable ladies’ dresses. There are tall narrow windows at the far end of the room. In the right-hand wall is a black marble fireplace, decorated with a geometric pattern in aluminium. Leading off in all directions are black ebonised doors, decorated with ivory-coloured reliefs of animals and birds. The artist, Narini, drew them from life at London Zoo.

5.6

Colour names

The spaces described in AD tours are normally rich and have a long history; therefore, vivid descriptions are required. Colour adjectives are used to describe specific objects, such as fabrics or paintings found within the rooms rather than describing the rooms and the spaces themselves. This is reflected in the raw frequency of the primary colour terms (white = 155; blue = 48; red = 8; black =111; green = 41; brown = 38: yellow = 28; purple = 10; pink = 29; orange = 15; grey/gray = 49), but also in the number of non-primary colour names conferring lexical cohesion, variety, and visual intensity to the texts (cf. amber, black-and-red (3), blonde, blue-and-red (3), bright/dark, bronze, bronze-coloured, colo(u)rful, coloured, copper-coloured, cream, crimson, dark-navy, dim, gold, golden, ivory-coloured, multi-coloured, olive-green, peach-coloured, pink-brown, purple, red-brown, reddish-tan, richly coloured, ruby, russet, scarlet, silver). However, these differ, expectedly, from the chromonyms found in the painting corpus. The two most frequent basic colour terms in the AD tour corpus, white and black, are normally associated with spaces and materials. Many ADs describe white walls, high white ceilings, white doors, white marbles (e.g. for fireplaces: Opposite the bed is a white marble fireplace, with a glowing imitation fire in the middle), and occasionally white garments, curtains, hair, horses, and flowers. Black and grey tend to qualify leather and fabric garments such as black boots, shoes, coats, jackets, but also natural materials such as marble, stone, and iron, with occasional reference to hair (wearing a black wig; man with black, wavy hair). Black is likely to occur in bundles of the type black and gold (a circular black and gold marble plinth; The steps lead to

138  AD tours a set of black and gold, wrought iron gates) and the most common black and white (the alternating black and white tiles; a geometric square-pattern mosaic in black and white, with red and ochre details). A brief examination of the main colour collocations indicates that red tends to describe rugs and carpets, and coats and cloth materials (mainly silk and velvet in the corpus), brown is typically associated with wooden or leather items (The library is lined with rich brown Indian mahogany), and pink with flowers, marble, granite, or other stones (Pink and grey mottled granite is divided horizontally) and fabrics, mainly silk. Green, yellow, purple, and orange do not seem to fit any recurrent pattern in the corpus. On a morpho-syntactic level, this corpus shows the tendency to prefer morphologically simple colour names that are paired or juxtaposed in long strings (as in a striped red, pink, and orange bedspread) or are part of short compound adjectives (grey green) rather than embedded structures or very long strings of colour adjectives typical of the painting corpus (e.g. painted in pale pinkish flesh tones and forms hover in vibrant pastels, including pink, peach, purple, red, mustard, seafoam green and teal, respectively). In Example 5.4, an excerpt of the AD on the American guitarist and singer Jimi Hendrix’s bedroom, incorporates these constructs to convey a sufficiently evocative picture of his lively bedspread and the colourful shawl hanging on his bedroom wall without resorting to more taxing constructions. Example 5.4 Excerpt from the AD tour of the Hendrix and Handel Museum The bedroom is full of rich fabrics and is a colourful and sumptuous space. A low double divan bed against the right wall is covered in a striped red, pink, and orange bedspread. A white shawl hanging overhead. Guests would sit around on the bed and on the floor, and every morning Hendrix would make the bed neat and presentable again. Probably a legacy of his military background. You are welcome to sit on the bed yourself if you so wish. Above the bed, the white tasselled shawl is embroidered with pink carnations, blue leaves, grey green stems, and smaller flowers of different varieties and colours. Blue, purple, and yellow. The flowers and vines spread across the shawl, creating an ornate and organic pattern. White tassels hang down in a long, fine fringe that frames the colourful detail. Comparatively, a brief assessment of the normalised frequency of the basic colour terms in the three art AD corpora analysed thus far shows the overwhelming dominance of chrononyms in the painting corpus. In addition, it shows overall distributional differences with a shared tendency to use the colours white and red in all the art ADs examined (Table 5.4).

AD tours  139 Table 5.4 Normalised frequency of the basic colour names in the tour, painting, and sculpture corpora Basic Colour Names White Blue Red Black Green Brown Yellow Purple Pink Orange Grey/gray

5.7

Normalised Frequencies per 10k Tour Corpus

Painting Corpus

Sculpture Corpus

20.53 6.36 10.73 14.70 5.43 5.03 3.71 1.32 3.84 1.99 6.49

38.64 36.39 34.13 33.01 23.63 22.13 18.76 6.00 10.88 9.00 7.51

12.20 4.88 13.42 4.88 1.22 9.76 0 0 3.66 0 3.66

Engaging the visitor

AD tours must have the ability to motivate visitors, hold their attention, increase their knowledge, and fully engage them directly, especially because they are longer than stand-alone ADs. To do so, relying on some aspects of listenability (par. 2.6), e.g. the use of clear structures and memorable words, can be an effective strategy; however, utilising a style that makes listeners feel more involved and makes texts more persuasive and appealing is equally important. These options offer listeners multiple ways to engage. The corpus frequency list shows the pervasive use of pronouns and personal adjectives: the second person pronoun you and the personal adjective your, which, respectively, occupy the 13th and 29th ranking positions, and the inclusive pronouns we (115/15.23) and us (73/9.67) are exploited more extensively than in other sub-corpora (Table 5.5). This distribution pattern suggests a stylistic choice aimed at producing affective context, highly inclusive and target-oriented texts, and at encouraging a desire to start the message decoding process. In this respect, AD tours successfully exploit one of the most common strategies of advertising and podcasting discourse, where second-person referencing is common, thereby addressing audiences directly to hold their attention and enhance memorisation and retention of the message. Interestingly, however, besides being an effective attention-seeking and listener-engaging device, the second person pronoun you also has the important role of deictic centre (The roof above you is like that in the Nave) which facilitates the visitor’s orientation. This facilitating function is helpful, especially in dynamic tours in big or intricate spaces; generally, visually

140  AD tours Table 5.5  Normalised frequency of the pronouns used in diverse art AD corpora Pronouns and Personal Adjectives You Your We Our

Normalised Frequency per 10k Painting Corpus 16.50 9.38 15.38 5.63

Sculpture Corpus 4.88 4.88 7.32 4.88

AD Tour Corpus 67.14 34.03 15.23 11.79

impaired people only become acquainted with the space that their body occupies. This tends to restrict their exploration to proximate areas and to objects that they are in direct contact with. This tendency is usually developed in childhood and is normally maintained in adulthood with a different perception of localisation and orienting, not usually based on external reference points (Bakke et al. 2019; Wyver and Livesey 2003; see par. 1.5 and 1.6). Orientation indications that favour situation dependency and place the visitor at the centre, talking to them directly can therefore be particularly effective for reassurance and encouragement (Around you, eight arches encircle the dome; With the front door behind you, walk along the carpet runner; leave the dining room by the door you came in; The door opens away from you; In front of you is a rectangular, grey, granite plinth; Closer to you are the fish of the sea). Moreover, they might motivate the visitor to try moving around independently and without fear, which remains a challenge for visually impaired museum-goers (ADLAB PRO 2019a). Visitors’ engagement is also enhanced by listener-dependent clusters constructed around the second-person pronoun you. The sentence-initial trigram As you + VERB (As you enter the lift, the buttons are on your left-hand side; cf. also as you come in, as you enter, as you face, as you leave, as you pass, as you go/step out, as you walk through/back) enables the writer to exploit an adverbial clause introduced by the subordinator as and to break the message down into two simultaneous steps, one of which can be very long and complex (Immersive, high-sensory spaces will be described in gallery overviews as you approach them, along with navigational directions to) or simply factual (Immediately to the right, as you enter, there is a stone sink in the corner of the room). While positioning these trigrams in non-initial sentence positions is infrequent, it is equally effective. The combination of second-person pronoun constructions with the modal might, which itself includes a semantic component of logical possibility with the speaker being ‘volitionally involved in the creation of the possibility’ (Lewis 1986: 113), tends to contribute to involving the visitor even more actively and directly. This makes them relevant to the museum visit context and the imaginative process, activating their background

AD tours  141 knowledge and initiating their deductive thinking. Further, it motivates them and ensures post-engagement with the museum, the content, and the experience (As you might remember there’s a slight change of floor height; As you might expect of an attic space designed for servants to sleep in). The same effect is achieved by the clusters if you want/if you wish/if you would like, which are occasionally paired with the politeness marker please and the copular trigram you are welcome. All of these clusters provide visitors’ freedom and independence, while still making them feel included and comfortable. These politeness strategies are often combined with imperatives to soften their tone (Please ask a volunteer if you would like guiding to the window seat) or to offer specific options along the tour (If you want to be reminded about how this handset works, press; If you wish to go to the gift shop press button number two; You are welcome to sit on the bed yourself if you so wish). Overall, the cluster You’re welcome + to-clause, where welcome functions as an adjectival predicate expressing willingness. Then, it is followed by a post-predicate to-clause that explicates the type of action that the visitor can perform (You are welcome to touch; You are welcome to sit down) and is used in active listener-engaging circumstances to emphasise politeness. Clusivity, a grammatical distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person pronouns and verbal morphology, is largely relied upon in AD tours as a powerful and means to increase engagement, whereby the firstperson pronoun we is used inclusively to embrace both the visitor and the speaker (Nowadays, we all know that pianos have pedals; We are remarkably fortunate to still live here); it can also be used to encompass the visitor (or group of visitors) and the speaker (Before we leave this floor, we’re going outside; We can look at this symmetrical representation of). In the latter case, we observed that most expressions regard directionality and involve direction indications avoiding bare imperatives that could sound impolite or trigger defensiveness and discomfort. The exclusive we specifically excluding the addressee, however, is selected when museum staff express a specific desire or call to action that involves the visitors and has a post-engaging function (We would love your feedback on). Warnings that consider the risks and needs of users’ particular vulnerabilities, make visitors aware of possible danger, and provide clear guidance on how to avoid it, are a further powerful listener-engaging strategy. In AD tours, besides fulfilling a protective function, warnings generally take the form of suggestions or advice delivered to impede discomfort (Cacchiani 2013; Swan 2016). They are never issued as a forceful imperative or in a strong tone. Conversely, their combination with mitigators functions to deliver caution while paying considerable attention to the visitor (Please take care when entering this space) or providing the reason why the context can cause danger (cf. the use of as to introduce the background

142  AD tours situation: Be careful as tables and chairs are set around the space; Take care as the handrails jut out beyond the top step). The verb remember in the imperative mode is useful to remind visitors of a known situation while also politely generating a sense of immediate engagement, informing them of possible problems or unpleasant situations in advance (Remember there is a sign in the middle). Irrespective of its primary aim, issuing warning messages establishes trust between the museum and the visitor, fostering engagement and making them feel valued and respected. Finally, for listeners, referencing known facts or analogies is considered reassuring and can function as an engagement tool and trigger active participation. For instance, in the AD of the Earthquakes and Volcanoes Gallery at the Natural History Museum in London, whereby using an analogy the narration invites visitors to participate in what is being explained (A good analogy for the way earthquakes occur is clicking your fingers. When you click your fingers, friction between your fingertips allows you to increase the pressure until it is suddenly released). Unlike metaphors or similes, analogies are more of a logical argument. Because they compare two different things and look for shared similarities (A two-metre wide corridor runs, like a spine, down its centre, with openings), they can be very effective for conveying, and subsequently, understanding complex information because of the human tendency to learn new ideas based on established concepts (One of the museum’s prize specimens, this tooth is displayed in its own case, set against an orange background, and spot-lit like a jewel), and favour high cognitive fluency, namely the ease (and therefore reduced energy) with which information is processed, understood, and accepted. An AD passage describing shield volcanoes at the Volcanoes and Earthquake Gallery is based on such premises: the visitor is often reminded of common situations (e.g. a texture like the soft crumb inside a baguette, gone stale, and more examples are found in Example 5.5), suggesting cataphorically that what is being described is normally found in real life and is therefore likely to be known. Example 5.5 Excerpt from the AD of the Volcanic eruptions: Shield volcanoes in the Volcanoes and Earthquake Gallery We come to a glass case containing three samples of lava from Hawaii. A’a lava is pinky grey, with a texture like the soft crumb inside a baguette gone stale. A’a lava forms as the surface of a lava flow cools and hardens while the inner part continues flowing, breaking it into sharp, angular shapes. The second sample, in the centre, is a mass of gleaming golden threads, like something from a fairy tale. It is called Pele’s hair, after the Hawaiian goddess of volcanoes. Tiny pieces of magma are thrown in the

AD tours  143 air and spun by the wind into golden strands of volcanic glass. The third sample is called Pahoehoe lava. Dark brown and ridged, it resembles thick cake batter that has solidified while being mixed. Pahoehoe lava flows down the volcano in oozy steps called toes. As the surface begins cooling and solidifying, the lava underneath continues flowing, causing its folded appearance. Overall, similar and noteworthy examples were also found, quite extensively, in the painting corpus (This painting, as tall as an average person and as wide as a seven foot couch, fills an entire wall; His right hand is extended behind him clutching a six-foot spear as one would hold a walking stick; she twists her body to the right and thrusts her arms around Adonis’s chest, like an anchor, as though to restrain him; a deep, rich red, like tomato soup) and, to a lesser extent, in the sculpture corpus (From its centre hangs a chandelier. A delicate iron framework radiates from the centre down to the circumference like the segments of an orange). 5.8

Directional language

Since AD tours help visitors move through a museum or gallery, either assisted or autonomously, a large part of their scripts include, and strongly rely on, facilitating wayfinding and navigation instructions or directional language (the so-called ‘audio description directions’; see Fina 2018 and the similar instrumental role of tourist guides). Some visually impaired museum-goers prefer being accompanied to museums or galleries, or they make sure the visit is arranged beforehand so they can be sufficiently assisted (ADLAB PRO 2019b). If visiting a museum or gallery alone, visually impaired individuals will need verbal and physical guidance to successfully and comfortably reach and navigate the building, locate the points of interest, exit the building, and, in some cases, even reach their homes. Thus, the efficacy of human guides in museum visits is crucial, especially when they are part of the museum staff and therefore knowledgeable about the exhibits. However, because this approach is not yet systematically implemented (Fineman and Cock 2022), pre-recorded audio guides with built-in directions6 can be useful especially if they are user-friendly and not overly detailed, irrespective of the type of space being described: small overcrowded rooms may be difficult to navigate and big rooms can make people feel lost; in general, complex unfamiliar indoor places can be discouraging and difficult for visually impaired patrons to navigate, especially the first time they experience these places (Jeamwatthanachai et al. 2019: 7). In general, when drafting an AD tour, prioritising and organising directional information, such as establishing the tour’s points of departure and arrival, and

144  AD tours explaining their current positioning with reference to the position of the visitor, is essential. In addition, appropriate linguistic strategies are crucial for indicating changes of direction (after five metres, turn right; turn left as you enter Room 14) and naming familiar environmental objects, such as handrails, benches, walls, etc., that can sometimes function as useful benchmarks for visitors whose orientation system is predominantly spacebased and self-referential (par. 1.6; ‘egocentric’ or ‘self-based’ in Giudice 2018; ‘body-based’ in Fryer et al. 2013), and not ‘visuocentric’. This should not be a problem; most perceptual modalities (audition and touch as well as language) can convey much of the same spatial information as vision (Giudice 2018; see also Fryer et al. 2013; Jeamwatthanachai et al. 2019). Finally, clearly and verbally situating a visually impaired person by describing where they should stand at an exhibit—e.g. the front, back, or side (tactile maps seem not to be as effective as most believe)—is important. The drawback of verbal orientation information addressed to blind and partially sighted people is that it is usually provided by fully sighted people who are not experts in orientation and mobility, thus posing the issue of its efficacy for end-users (Fryer et al. 2013). These and other decisions, combined with the ability of the visually impaired visitor to integrate verbal and spatial information, will determine the efficacy of navigation directions meant to guide visitors from one exhibit to the other, and help users properly locate the ancillary facilities (e.g. the information desk, stairs or lifts, toilets, the café, the bookshop, etc.), which should be pointed out at the beginning of the tour or indicated en route. Interior locations, large buildings, or buildings with several floors need special attention7 as they might require visitors to use the lift or the stairs to an upper floor and to follow detailed directions to situate themselves (Jeamwatthanachai et al. 2019). Being guided effectively is a main concern for blind or visually impaired visitors, especially regarding steps and other hazards, so lifts’ locations should be described (ADLAB PRO 2019b). Manoeuvring in outside locations can be equally challenging; in museum parks, botanical gardens, or sensory gardens, there are greater distances to travel, and detailed indications identifying long distances (e.g. go ahead 115 metres) are sometimes replaced with references to familiar and visible landmarks such as trees or waste paper baskets. Noteworthily, however, these are only effective for visitors with residual sight. In a recent experiment, when asked to provide orientation information regarding known paths, blind and partially sighted people—compared to their sighted pairs—provided more references to distance and specified the distances with greater precision than sighted people (Fryer et al. 2013: 131). Similarly, mentioning landmarks in city tours is more effective than mentioning road names, as road names are not usually accessible or visible

AD tours  145 (even to sighted people) (ADLAB PRO 2019b). What should never be overlooked, however, is that landmarks and spatial details considered important by those with vision might not be equally helpful to those without (Fryer et al. 2013). AD professionals need strategic recommendations to work well, especially when they are not particularly experienced. However, clearly defining rules on how to give directions is difficult. Blind patrons have a variety of needs and preferences, and some prefer simple directions that are definite about an indication of distance, or steps. Some generally find it more comfortable, quicker, and easier to receive directions based on left, right, forward, and behind, and they appreciate pre-emptive information on what to expect (ADLAB PRO 2019b). Professionals should be aware that some visually impaired people, especially congenitally blind people, might perceive space, their own body, and their surroundings very differently from sighted individuals. Additionally, as anticipated, the idea of landmarks can differ greatly between fully sighted people and people without sight. For the latter, landmarks can include objects, but they can also include abstract entities such as sounds, temperature, and odours; these could be familiar, easily recognisable, and have a permanent location in the environment (Fryer et al. 2013: 125). To empirically explore and describe orientation instructions in AD tours, we only included the sub-section of the AD tour sub-corpus (Table 5.6) that specifically comprised navigation or orientation instructions and terminology. We manually extracted this information from the 12 AD tours of the AD tour sub-corpus and only retained directional information (which represents 12% of the whole corpus). Further, we removed descriptive strings of texts, such as struck-through wording below: You can go left or right to pass it. Beyond the wall is a room some 10 metres square, with a vaulted ceiling and thick rectangular pillars in the middle. This enabled us to focus on a type of procedural language used for very specific purposes. Our corpus comprised carefully planned texts of 9,105 tokens and 1,207 types, where the sentences were shorter, the readability increased (more so than in the full AD tour sub-corpus), and the lexical density was unexpectedly comparable. Potentially, this is because of the wide array of terms used by audio describers to provide detailed and comprehensible instructions, including a wide repertoire of movement verbs, simple and complex prepositions, and adverbs specifying the type of movement required.

146  AD tours Table 5.6  AD tour directions sub-corpus: Quantitative data Characters Syllables Complex words Tokens Types Lemmas TTR/STTR % (decimals) Mean word length (SD) Sentences Mean in words (SD) Lexical density Gunning fog index Passive voice Parts of speech Nouns Adjectives Verbs Adverbs Prepositions Pronouns Auxiliary Verbs

49,240/39,752 12,050 583 9,105 1,207 1,164 12.62% / 29.59% (0.13/0.63) 4.25 (2.12) 578 15.78 (8.23) 49.39% 8.86 8.65% 28.13% 6.18% 10.97% 4.11% 15.12% 3.12% 4.09%

The communicative purpose of directional language, which is highly action-oriented and aims to effectively instruct the receiver to complete a task, is to instruct people on how to interact with elements in a room to move around effectively and autonomously. The corpus shows a high frequency of simple prepositions and particles as well as second-person pronouns (Table 5.7) that specifically relate to directionality. Still, other parts of speech were also significant. The second most frequent word in the corpus is the particle to, used as a simple directional preposition (see also par. 6.6 and the role of to (352/284.70) in tactile direction). To is typically followed by a noun phrase indicating where the visitor is heading (you will come to a fireplace on your right; The step up takes us to the back of the Entrance Hall), or it is used as a place preposition indicating the position where something is located (there is seating to your left); the 2-gram to the counts 167 raw occurrences and a normalised frequency to 10K of 183.42, to your 48 (52.72), and to a 20 (21.97). To can also be incorporated in complex or multi-word sequences functioning semantically and syntactically as single directional prepositions (in frequency decreasing order: into, back to, up to, down to, right to, left to, out to, forward to, off to), left-collocates with movement verbs (turn to, come to, return to, leads to, go to, access to), and generally right-collocates with movement verbs as an infinitive marker (to enter, to exit, to find, to go through, to leave, to move on, etc.). Other

AD tours  147 Table 5.7 The first 35 types found in the word list of the AD tour directions corpus Type

the to a of and you on is left your right with are in at turn door room through there walk this wall into about ahead gallery for back it from floor paces corridor will

Frequency Raw

Normalised

1041 366 307 276 209 186 183 170 142 136 136 95 87 85 83 80 74 68 64 60 59 58 55 49 48 47 46 46 46 46 45 44 44 43 42

1143.33 401.98 337.18 303.13 229.54 204.28 200.99 186.71 155.96 149.37 149.37 104.34 95.55 93.36 91.16 87.86 81.27 74.68 70.29 65.90 64.80 63.70 60.41 53.82 52.72 51.62 50.52 50.52 50.52 50.52 49.42 48.33 48.33 47.23 46.13

place prepositions that contribute, with their frequency and their variety, to creating very detailed expressions of movement instructions include in, at, through, into, ahead, and from, along with many others. However, the whole corpus is imbued with diverse clusters that express movement and deixis (or directional clusters). The most frequent trigrams (≥ 10 occurrences), for instance, relate to directionality (to the right, to the left, on your right, there is a, to your right, on the left, on your left, to your left, the

148  AD tours left of, end of the, with your back, on the right, through the door, back to the, the right of, of the stairs, your back to, left of the, of the gallery, side of the, turn to your, in front of, right of the, the top of, top of the, at the top, the far end, is on the). The quantity and variety of such expressions, along with the use of specific verbs, facilitates the communicative purpose of procedural language. In addition, it accurately describes a sequence of steps to help visitors successfully move around in safe, efficient, and appropriate ways via clear instructions organised in a logical manner (Dautriche and Saint-Dizier 2009; Derewianka 1990; Isani 2019). From a procedural point of view, the instructions provided in Example 5.6 can be arranged into seven clear steps that alternate specific movement and stative verbs and precise prepositions: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Stand with your back to the fireplace The doorway is on your left Make your way through the doorway The doorway leads into the shop Walk around eight paces through the shop Then, walk straight on through the doorway The doorway leads to the lift

Example 5.6 Excerpt from the AD tour of the Hendrix and Handel Museum Standing with your back to the fireplace make your way through the doorway to your left which leads into the shop. Walk around eight paces through the shop and straight on through the doorway that leads to the lift. Verbs play a significant role in the directional language of AD tours. Browsing through our data, we can observe high frequency of movement verbs such as turn and walk and their frequent association with external deictic referents, such as door, room, wall, gallery, floor, and corridor (turn left keeping close to the wall; walk back up the corridor). The use of internal deictic reference, however, is equally frequent and contributes to making orientation instructions more digestible for blind visitors’ self-based orientation system (par. 1.6). Accordingly, referring directly to parts of their bodies within the cluster directional preposition + your + part of body is quite common (With your back to the calf-height grave slabs; beneath your feet is, above your head). Other movement verbs that typify the orientation sub-corpus are approach, arrive, come (including in the past tense as in The door that you came in is just on your right), continue, cross, enter, exit, follow, go, lead (another open door that leads to a small reception area), leave, move,

AD tours  149 open, pass, proceed, reach, re-enter, return, step, turn, and walk. We also observed the frequent sentence-initial pattern to reach + noun phrase (To reach the next treasure you’ll need to) where the lexical bundle indicates the final aim of the navigation and it precedes the orientation information expressed via polite imperative strategies. Some of these verbs characterise specific moves or rhetoric strategies in the tours, such as approaching the gallery/site (The easiest way to approach the gallery is via), entering the gallery/site (We enter the gallery itself through…), navigating the gallery/ site (Turn your back on the pillow lava and cross the gallery again; There are benches in the centre of the gallery if you’d like to sit down; We are now back on the side of the gallery; turn to your right and continue to the second section of the gallery), exiting the gallery/site (you’ll exit the gallery through the open entrance you came; To exit this gallery, proceed to), and leaving the gallery/site (You can leave the gallery at either end).8 Verbs that are not related to movement, such as the activity verbs face, find, and stand, are used recurrently to refine directional instructions and relate to something that is situated and can be found. They are all visitor centred, indirectly call visitors to action, and get visitors to pay attention to something (As you face the wall, there is a bench behind you; Facing the Waterloo painting, the doorway is to its right). The verb find is used to mean discovering one’s position (If you find yourself here, turn back) and can also occur in the common cluster you’ll find + noun phrase (You’ll find the vertical stair post on the left). The positional or existence relationship verb stand links the visitor to a specific location (Stand with the fireplace behind you; We’re now standing at the rear of the long entrance) and prepares them for a further stage of their orientation experience, as in Example 5.7. Example 5.7 Excerpt from the AD tour of Walmer Castle Stand with the fireplace behind you. Diagonally to your right is an open door, about three metres away. Go through the door and continue ahead for just a couple of paces. There is a rope stretching across in front of you at about knee height. Stop here. Furthermore, standing in a place implies a physical and a cognitive pause that can help the visitor to process the instructions supplied to successfully perform the full orientation procedure. This is an important stage to include in most orientation instructions, especially in big environments. In Example 5.8, for instance, the ‘standing stage’ (crucial verb in bold) assumes the function of an important functional move as it comes between two informatively rich moments; it could be exploited as a recapitulation stage for a potentially overwhelmed visitor.

150  AD tours Example 5.8 Excerpt from the AD tour of Walmer Castle There’s a fireplace in the wall to your right, across from the bed, with a rectangular, gold-painted mirror above it. To the left of the fireplace an arched recess, two metres wide, reaches back three metres to a window, hung with fringed white curtains. This interior has been recreated as it might have appeared when William Pitt was Lord Warden, using an inventory of his possessions at Walmer from 1806. We will now move to Pitt’s library. Stand with the fireplace behind you. Diagonally to your right is an open door, about three metres away. Go through the door and continue ahead for just a couple of paces. There is a rope stretching across in front of you at about knee height. Stop here. This large room stretches out in front of you for about 12 metres, the walls covered with painted white panels from floor to ceiling, almost three metres high. It has been recreated to represent William Pitt’s study. Compared to our findings on stand-alone paintings and sculptures, in this sub-corpus, we observed the dominant use of be as a verb of existence rather than as a copular verb (Object B is in the first cabinet; On the sloping surface to the right is a touch object) and its frequent association with the existential or introductory there (Biber et al 1999: 943–944), which is a formal device used to predicate the existence of something that clearly states where an object is located (There are benches in the centre of the gallery). Turning to how directional information is provided, we observed the use of diverse instructive strategies. This means that sequences of actiondemanding sentences in the form of imperatives with a weak directive force (Go through the door and continue ahead for just a couple of paces) co-exist with declarative sentences incorporating modality to ensure a less authoritative tone when directing visitors (We will now move to Pitt’s library; you can go through the right-hand door; You may like to step back). In terms of modal auxiliaries used with this communicative purpose, will (also in the contracted form) and can are the most frequent in the sub-corpus. Both are intrinsically grounded in the moment of speaking (Lewis 1986: 111) and contribute to directly involving the visitor in what actions they will take, thus linking them to a psychologically close or immediate state. Will brings about the semantic trait of willingness and the idea of a promise made to the user; can brings about the semantic traits of chance and opportunity and suggests that users have the knowledge, skills, and strength to do something. In this respect, it is a very inclusive modal auxiliary for imperative strategies (cf. the frequent pattern you can

AD tours  151 + verb which is used to stress the fact that an option is offered to the user). May stresses the dimension of suggestion vs. imposition or command (cf. Lewis 1986; Swan 2016). Interestingly, the use of let to construct imperatives or make suggestions to a group that includes the receiver (cf. the cluster let’s + verb) is never exploited as strong obligation modals such as must, should, or ought to—with the exception of have to sometimes referring to the actions necessary to reach a goal in a particularly difficult context (It’s quite low down — you’ll have to stoop, but you can touch it if you like, where the verb stooping, namely lowering the body by inclining the trunk or the head and shoulders forward, sometimes bending the knee at the same time, could in fact be very or even too challenging for a number of visitors). Finally, directional language in AD tours that is meant to assign visitors movement tasks to help them reach a given place should involve expressions associated to distance. However, how to convey distance varies; currently, writers choose whether to use a metric system of measurement, the British imperial system, or the United States customary system, or even the noisier step model, which is subject to extreme variability in the length and direction of individual steps (Kallie et al. 2007). Visually impaired museum-goers have individual preferences (ADLAB PRO 2019a) that should be respected, and the corpus analysis shows that different describers (who are professional British or American English speakers) tend to use different approaches. We observed that the corpus alternates measurement words such as meter(s)/metre(s), which normally relate to an external reference frame, and the more indefinite terms step(s) and pace(s), which normally relate to an internal reference frame. All tend to collocate with hedging adverbs (about, just, etc.) or expressions indicating short distances (a couple of), and adverbs that specify direction or movement (cf. directly, left-collocating with ahead and opposite, and the adverb immediately, leftcollocating with on the right/left and with right or left). This emphasises the indefiniteness (and user-dependent nature) of the expressions used to convey distance and direction while considering the impracticality of both, as well as conveying precise measurements (especially when it comes to long distances, which are likely to include landmarks; Fryer et al. 2013), potentially making them misleading or easily misinterpreted. The word step (56/61.50) is used as a noun and as a verb. In the former case, step is used as a noun equating pace and is normally preceded by a definite or indefinite quantifier (Couple of steps ahead is the small Wash House; turn around and move approximately 10–12 steps in the 11 o’clock direction), or it is used when visitors are guided up or down the stairs (Three steps down will take you to the semi-circular landing; 15 steps descend to the lower ground floor foyer; Short flights of steps allow entry). In the latter

152  AD tours case, step left-collocates with directional prepositions (step forward, step into, step up) to give as clear navigation instructions as possible (Step out onto the landing and turn right; Step into a small carpeted vestibule; turn immediately to your left, step through an open doorway), normally given in the imperative mode but with an instructive purpose. The noun metre(s) (44/48.33 + 18/19.77), again preceded by definite or indefinite quantifiers (two, some two, about three, a few, a couple of, several), is used for physical navigation in the museum space (follow it back around the curve for about 10 metres until it turns a sharp corner; Walk along the corridor for around 4 meters). In addition, it is used to indicate the location of objects (About three metres from the top of the stairs there is an open door on the left with printed gold lettering on the lintel above reading) and provide dimensional information (a room some 10 metres square; a large screen about two metres tall and three metres wide). Pace(s) (45/49.42) has approximately the same frequency as metre(s)/meter(s) and shares exactly the same function. The two nouns distribute evenly in British and American English descriptions. Notes 1 The importance of gaining feedback from end-users is well known in this field. AD trainers, for instance, often resort to visual impaired patrons’ feedback, especially regarding their main sources of satisfaction, dissatisfaction, and comprehension (ADLAB PRO 2017a). Moreover, professionals are known to actively seek, evaluate, and incorporate end-users’ feedback, even though it might be challenging (ADLAB PRO 2017b: 21). 2 Section 4 of the ADLAB PRO questionnaire (ADLAB PRO 2017b: 77 ff.) can be a starting point for customising a list of questions to obtain end-user feedback. 3 RNIB is one of the UK’s leading sight loss charities and the largest community of blind and partially sighted people. 4 The following brief description of each, mainly retrieved from official websites, is grouped by country. Apsley House is a Georgian building that was the London home of the first Duke of Wellington. It hosts one of the finest art collections in London, with paintings by Velázquez and Rubens, and a wonderful collection of silver and porcelain. Eltham Palace is a striking Art Deco mansion that was transformed by eccentric millionaires Stephen and Virginia Courtauld into their stylish home which incorporates original medieval features into an otherwise ultra-modern 1930s design. The Charles Dickens museum, of his family’s London home, houses a significant collection linked to Dickens and his works, and it is set up as though Dickens himself had just left. It appears as a fairly typical middle-class Victorian home, complete with furnishings, portraits, and decorations which are known to have belonged to Dickens. Handel and Hendrix in London is a museum in Mayfair dedicated to the lives and works of the Germanborn British baroque composer George Frideric Handel and the American rock singer-guitarist Jimi Hendrix, who lived at 25 and 23 Brook Street, respectively. The museum comprises a carefully restored set of period and exhibition rooms. Walmer Castle hosts exhibits covering the career and the life story of the Iron

AD tours  153 Duke of Wellington. St Paul’s Cathedral is a vibrant church, a national treasure and a London icon, home to a spectacular array of art, including modern works created by decorated artists. The Natural History Museum in London exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history. The tours selected for the analysis are the Human Evolution Gallery, where visitors embark on a 7-million-year journey, from the first hominins to the last surviving human species, and the Volcanoes and Earthquakes Gallery, which enables visitors to explore how the powers within shape the world in which they live. The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco houses one of the most comprehensive Asian art collections in the world. The tours that we explore include Buddhism across Asia, Tattoos in Japanese Prints, and The Bold Brush of Au Ho-Nien. Finally, the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum offers a timeless experience by capturing the history of Team USA at the Olympic and Paralympic Games, and the hopes and dreams of future generations. 5 In the corpus, the raw and normalised frequencies of the proper noun Buddha (98/12.98) relate to the AD of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, and specifically of the tour exploring Buddhism across Asia. In a text of 6,723 tokens, the word Buddha represents 1.5% of the words used, suggesting that cohesion in this AD relies heavily on repetition rather than on pro-nominal reference. 6 Without the assistance of any skilled human guide, the options available besides AD guides with built-in directions include, for instance, a cord to follow through the museum, or tactile paths (see also Jeamwatthanachai et al. 2019 reporting blind and visually impaired people’s preferences). 7 On the other hand, in small, little-known museums, there is not usually a congestion problem, and processing professional or home-made orientation instructions could be easier, especially when the visitor is alone and a private visit can be organised. On the other hand, in well-known, well-attended institutions, the enormous crowds could make it impossible for people with sight loss to navigate comfortably only relying on a pre-recorded guide, irrespective of its quality and usability. 8 Overall, the movement verbs selected by describers to give direction instruction are simple and direct, and they are very different from the movement verbs that have been analysed and detected in the screen AD corpus (Arma 2011; Salway 2007), where they do abound but are varied and nuanced, normally reporting specific ways of doing something to enhance description (e.g. swagger, lope, tiptoe and march are preferred to just walk; Salway 2007).

References ADLAB PRO (2017a). Assessment of current AD training practices [Project report]. adlabpro.eu/ ADLAB PRO (2017b). Audio description professional: Profile definition [Project report]. adlabpro.eu/ ADLAB PRO (2019a). Tactile exploration [Video]. https://videosdigitals.uab.cat/ almacen/downloads/461/11125.mp4 ADLAB PRO (2019b). Audio description directions [Video]. https://videosdigitals. uab.cat/almacen/downloads/461/10511.mp4 Arma, S. (2011). The language of filmic audio description: A corpus-based analysis of adjectives [Unpublished doctoral thesis]. University of Naples Federico II, Italy.

154  AD tours Bakke, H.A., Cavalcante, W.A., de Oliveira, I.S., Sarinho, S.W., & Cattuzzo, M.T. (2019). Assessment of motor skills in children with visual impairment: A systematic and integrative review. Clinical Medicine Insights: Pediatrics, 13, 1–10. Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., & Finegan, E. (1999). Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Longman. Black, G. (2005). The engaging museum. Developing museums for visitor involvement. Routledge. Black, G. (2012). Transforming museums in the twenty-first century. Routledge. Brown, P., & Levinson, S.C. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. CUP. Cacchiani, S. (2013). Understanding written practical instructions. Aracne. Candlin, F. (2006). The dubious inheritance of touch: Art history and museum access. Journal of Visual Culture, 5(2), 137–154. Charlton, J. (2000). Nothing about us without us: Disability oppression and empowerment. University of California Press. Collavini, V. (2019). L’audio descrizione museale per i disabili visivi e il caso del Museo Archeologico di Aquileia [Unpublished BA thesis]. University of Trieste, Italy. COME-IN! (2017). COME-IN! Handbook for museum operators. https://www. interreg-central.eu/Content.Node/COME-IN/COME-IN-HANDBOOK-ENG. pdf Dautriche, I., & Saint-Dizier, P. (2009) A Conceptual and operational model for procedural texts and its use in textual integration. Proceedings of the 8th international conference on computational semantics (pp. 73–89). Tilburg. De Coster, K., & Loots, G. (2004). Somewhere in between touch and vision: In search of a meaningful art education for blind individuals. The International Journal of Art & Design Education, 23(3), 326–334. Derewianka, B. (1990). Exploring how texts work. Primary English Teaching Association. Eisenstein, M., & Bodman, J.W. (1986). ‘I very appreciate’: Expressions of gratitude by native and non-native speakers of American English. Applied Linguistics, 7(2), 167–185. Fina, E. (2018). Investigating effective audio guiding. Carocci. Fineman, A., & Cock, M. (2022). Audio description in museums: A service provider perspective. In C. Taylor & E. Perego (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of audio description (pp. 215–231). Routledge. Fryer, L., Freeman, J., & Pring, L. (2013). What verbal orientation information do blind and partially sighted people need to find their way around? A study of everyday navigation strategies in people with impaired vision. BJVI, 31(2), 123–138. Giansante, L. (2015). Writing verbal descriptions for audio guides. Art Beyond Sight. http://www.artbeyondsight.org/mei/verbal-description-training/writing-verbaldescription-for-audio-guides/ Giudice, N.A. (2018). Navigating without vision: Principles of blind spatial cognition. In R.D. Montello (Ed.), Handbook of behavioral and cognitive geography (pp. 260–288). Edward Elgar. Hutchinson, R.S., & Eardley, A.F. (2019). Museum audio description: The problem of textual fidelity. Perspectives, 27(1), 42–57.

AD tours  155 Hutchinson, R.S., & Eardley, A.F. (2022). Visitor studies: Interdisciplinary methods for understanding the impact of inclusive museum audio description experiences. In C. Taylor & E. Perego (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of audio description (pp. 232–245). Routledge. Isani, S. (2019). Of technical writing, instructions for use as a specialised genre and discourse. La Revue du GEAS, 75, 3–23. Jeamwatthanachai, W., Wald, M., & Wills, G. (2019). Indoor navigation by blind people: Behaviors and challenges in unfamiliar spaces and buildings. BJVI 37(2): 1–13. Kallie, C.S., Schrater, P.R., & Legge, G.E. (2007). Variability in stepping direction explains the veering behavior of blind walkers. J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform, 33(1): 183–200. Kozloff, S. (2000). Overhearing film dialogue. University of California Press. La Colla, C. (2020). Analisi linguistica e proposta di audio descrizione del Santuario Maria SS. Di Loreto di Acireale [Unpublished BA thesis]. University of Trieste, Italy. Lewis, M. (1986). The English verb. Heinle. Li, W. (2010). The functions and use of greetings. Canadian Social Science, 6(4), 56–62. Neves, J. (2012). Multi-sensory approaches to (audio) describing the visual arts. MonTI, 4, 277–293. Neves, J. (2015). Descriptive guides: Access to museums, cultural venues and heritage sites. In A. Remael, N. Reviers & G. Vercauteren (Eds.), Pictures painted in words. ADLAB audio description guidelines (pp.70–73). EUT. Pacinotti, R. (2022). Audio describing churches: In search of a template. In C. Taylor & E. Perego (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of audio description (pp. 246–262). Routledge. Perego, E. (2017). Audio description: A laboratory for the development of a new professional profile. International Journal of Translation, 19, 131–142. Perego, E. (2018). Into the language of museum audio descriptions: A corpus-based study. Perspectives, 27(3), 333–349. Perego, E., & Taylor, C. (2022). A profile of audio description end-users: linguistic needs and inclusivity. In C. Taylor & E. Perego (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of audio description (pp. 38–53). Routledge. Pietracci, C. (2017). “If your eyes could speak, what would they say”. Proposta di audiodescrizione per il Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Aquileia [Unpublished BA thesis]. University of Trieste, Italy. Salisbury, K. (2000). Enhancing the experiences of blind and visually impaired visitors in botanical gardens [Unpublished MA thesis]. University of Delaware, Newark, US. Salway, A. (2007). A corpus-based analysis of audio description. In J. Díaz Cintas, P. Orero & A. Remael (Eds.), Media for all: Subtitling for the deaf, audio description and sign language (pp. 151–174). Rodopi. Salzhauer, A.E., Hooper, E., Kardoulias, V., Stephenson, T., Keyes, S., & Rosenberg, F. (1996). AEB’s guidelines for verbal description adapted from making visual art accessible to people who are blind and visually impaired. Art Beyond Sight. http://www.artbeyondsight.org/handbook/acs-guidelines.shtml

156  AD tours Secchi, L. (2014). Between sense and intellect. Blindness and the strength of inner vision. In D. de Kerckhove & C.M. de Almeida (Eds.), The point of being (pp. 197–212). Cambridge Scholars. Secchi, L. (2022). “Ut pictura poesis”: The rendering of an aesthetic artistic image in form and content. In C. Taylor & E. Perego (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of audio description (pp. 127–142). Routledge. Swales, J. (1990). Genre analysis. CUP. Swan, M. (2016). Practical English usage. OUP. Taylor, C. (2014). ADLAB: Aspetti di un progetto sull’audiodescrizione. In E. Perego (Ed.), Emerging topics in translation: Audio description (pp. 47–57). EUT. Taylor, C., & Perego, E. (2021). New approaches to accessibility and audio description in museum environments. In S. Braun & K. Starr (Eds.), Innovation in audio description research (pp. 33–54). Routledge. Valle, C. (2019). Audiodescrizione museale: Traduzione e analisi del percorso tattile audiodescrittivo al Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Aquileia [Unpublished BA thesis]. University of Trieste, Italy. Ventura, P. (2013). Il museo archeologico nazionale di Aquileia. Electa. Wyver, S.R., Livesey, D.J. (2003). Kinaesthetic sensitivity and motor skills of school-aged children with a congenital visual impairment. BJVI, 21, 25–31.

6 Touch tours

6.1

Touch and art

In all human beings, touch is a crucial sense for learning and communicating as well as a primary means of experiencing the world. When sight is absent, touch can contribute to filling visual gaps as it becomes an important source of information and a highly appreciated means for experiencing the aesthetic beauty of objects, especially if it is adequately trained and developed (Candlin 2006; De Coster and Loots 2004; Secchi 2022). Using only words to make art accessible to blind and visually impaired users could be restrictive, off-putting, and less effective. Thus, haptic support can contribute considerably to projecting the beauty of an object, influencing the aesthetic experience of an artwork, and making the art and overall museum or gallery experience more direct, immersive, and memorable for all, including those who cannot easily process verbal language. Understanding artworks through touch is a process that takes more time than visual perception. It is not immediate, but is ‘successive, slow, analytical, and active’ (De Coster and Loots 2004: 331; Secchi 2014, 2022). Its effectiveness can depend on several factors, including, but not restricted to, visitors’ art familiarity and experience, their experiences from when they were sighted, their cultural, historical, and individual differences, and their motivation, among others. Not all museums or heritage sites provide touch tours or self-contained tactile experiences for a selected number of items. The service is cost and time intensive, and it requires extensive interdisciplinary networking and the full participation of a solid team of experts from diverse and complementary fields (Fineman and Cock 2022; Secchi 2022; Taylor and Perego 2021). Effective tactile exploration needs forward strategic planning and the ability to select objects that are suitable for both audio and tactile description. The most meaningful items within a museum, gallery, exhibition, site, etc., must be identified. The final selection should include the most appealing items to the touch and eye either in their original form or DOI: 10.4324/9781003134237-7

158  Touch tours as reproductions for comprehensive inclusion. There are no absolute rules in the selection of the items for tactile exploration; instead, the selection depends on the context of the objects as well as their meaning, size, and physical nature. Audio describers should discuss their choices with museum curators while also relying on their own knowledge of the theory and practice of tactile exploration. In the National Tile Museum in Lisbon, for instance, the choice of which tile panels should have tactile reliefs was based, among other things, ‘on the presence of similar tiles or motifs in contemporary daily life of the Portuguese people’ (Eardley et al. 2016: 268). Furthermore, ‘elaborate patterns were broken down in sequences of several individual replicas of the most relevant motifs’ (ibid.) to facilitate the tactile reading (or ‘haptic exploration’, Secchi 2022: 133). In a different context, at the Arab Museum of Modern Art in Qatar, a large mixed media artwork by Jassim al-Zaini that incorporated wood, metal, and textured paintwork was made accessible through a rich sensory toolkit where touch could play a major role in enhancing visitors’ engagement based on the variety of available textures (Neves 2016). The feel, or texture, of the materials used for tactile replicas is crucial for most users, especially because the emotional value generated by materials can be extremely powerful (Bertheaux et al. 2020). Plaster reproductions are normally appreciated because of their velvety, powdery feel, for example. Conversely, raised or relief drawings (Figure 6.1), and tactile maps are considered more challenging and less gratifying, especially when they contain too many details. Some users liken the experience to a black and white picture rather than a colourful visual image of the experience (ADLAB PRO 2019a, 2019b). Touching real objects can be a rewarding experience. Original objects can be made available for tactile exploration when they are not fragile or perishable, or when the object is very common and easily replaceable, as in the case, for instance, of ancient pottery oil lamps in archaeological museums. Paintings, which are bidimensional, are normally reproduced and translated into bas-reliefs (Secchi 2022) (Figure 6.2). Thus, they are threedimensional art items that cannot be touched in their original form. While museums and galleries can select items available for tactile exploration, nowadays the number of tactile museums that offer guided tactile experiences exclusively is growing. In Italy, excellent examples are the Tactile Painting Museum of Ancient and Modern Art Anteros in Bologna curated by Loretta Secchi, where reliefs in white plaster of famous paintings are produced and successfully used in local or external guided settings (ADLAB PRO 2019c; Neves 2012; Secchi 2022; Taylor and Perego 2021); the unique barrier-free State Tactile Museum Omero in Ancona, directed by Aldo Grassini, hosts various copies and casts of real archaeological finds, pieces of art, and famous building reproductions, thus allowing the

Touch tours  159

Figure 6.1 Relief drawing of a candelabrum created by the Institute for the Blind in Milan. Photograph by the author.

‘tactile vision’ of artworks; and the Multimedia centre in Catania directed by Luca Grasso and designed to raise awareness about sight disabilities through a tactile museum including a selection of scaled tridimensional reproductions of artworks and monuments, a sensory garden, and a blind bar (EASIT 2021). The importance of including at least some tactile experiences in museums and galleries is supported by users (ADLAB PRO 2019a). When interviewed about the opportunity to handle objects in a museum or gallery, they agree on its importance both for blind and for low-sighted people. For instance, the latter can find it difficult and discouraging to try to see through glass cases containing art items because light reflection impedes

160  Touch tours

Figure 6.2 White plaster reproduction of Reni’s Atalanta and Hippomenes. Photograph by the author.

clarity. As such, handling objects can enable users to get closer to museum items, making the visit experience more personal and adding enormously to information understanding and retention. Providing tactile input can effectively reinforce the verbal information received by a guide and complement the partial visual information low-sighted visitors can collect (ADLAB PRO 2019a; Giudice 2018; Secchi 2022). Although pre-recorded audio guides with tactile instructions can be a functional substitute in given circumstances, touch tours work better when a skilled human guide is available. Face-to-face interactions favour an immersive and interactive experience that is lost when audio guides are the only accessibility tool for an exhibit. Face-to-face interactions enable visitors to ask questions and allow describers to tailor their recommendations around an individual’s particular interests. Furthermore, live touch tours enable the guide to direct visitors’ hands to the correct areas of the replica during the tactile exploration procedure (Figure 6.3), which can be a highly structured and challenging activity (Secchi 2014, 2022). Although this approach favours a human guide, there are instances when visitors can only rely on pre-recorded guides for touch tours. In this final chapter, we observe how pre-recorded guides can compensate

Touch tours  161

Figure 6.3 Hands guided to the relevant spots during a haptic exploration. Photograph by the author.

when human assistance is unavailable. In addition, we focus on how handling instructions can be delivered effectively. 6.2

Corpus overview

For our analysis, we used a corpus of approximately 18 AD scripts including haptic instructions used in different museums (Table 6.1). The items described range from bas-reliefs to tactile images and from a tactile

Name of Item

Foundation ritual of Aquileia, I Cent AD Medusa head, I Cent BC/AD Wine amphora, II-I Cen AD Old man with protruding ears, I Cent AD Goddess Venus, I Cent BC/AD Statue of Augustus, I Cent AD Ancient Greece Running Girl, 500 BC Cinerary urn with funeral banquet, I Cent BC/AD Boat-building near Flatford Mill (J. Constable, 1815) Portrait of John Purling (T. Gainsborough, 1770-80) St. Cecilia and the Angels (P. Delaroche, 1836) Study of the Trunk of an Elm Tree (J. Constable, 1831) The Manby Apparatus (W. Turner, 1831) The Virgin and Child in Egypt (W. Blake, 1810) Locomotive: Jackie Milburn Locomotive: A No 5 Locomotive: Diesel No.10 Locomotive: Billy Locomotive: NER Luggage van Locomotive: Electric Locomotive E4 Locomotive: Thomas Burt Locomotive: Ted Garrett Stonehenge—Four tactile models by MC Modelmaking (2013) Atalanta and Hippomenes (G. Reni, 1620-25) Head of Boreas, II Cent. BC

Type of Item

Original bas-relief Original bas-relief Original item Original item Original statue Original statue Original statue Original urn Tactile image of painting Tactile image of painting Tactile image of painting Tactile image of painting Tactile image of painting Tactile image of painting Tactile image on board Tactile image on board Tactile image on board Tactile image on board Tactile image on board Tactile image on board Tactile image on board Tactile image on board Tactile models Tactile bas-relief of painting Tactile replica of bas-relief

Table 6.1  Touch tour ADs: Corpus details

Archaeological Museum of Aquileia Archaeological Museum of Aquileia Archaeological Museum of Aquileia Archaeological Museum of Aquileia Archaeological Museum of Aquileia Archaeological Museum of Aquileia British Museum Archaeological Museum of Aquileia Victoria and Albert Museum Victoria and Albert Museum Victoria and Albert Museum Victoria and Albert Museum Victoria and Albert Museum Victoria and Albert Museum Stephenson Railway Museum Stephenson Railway Museum Stephenson Railway Museum Stephenson Railway Museum Stephenson Railway Museum Stephenson Railway Museum Stephenson Railway Museum Stephenson Railway Museum Stonehenge Visitor Centre Tactile Museum Anteros Archaeological Museum of Aquileia

Museum

University of Trieste University of Trieste University of Trieste University of Trieste University of Trieste University of Trieste VocalEyes University of Trieste VocalEyes VocalEyes VocalEyes VocalEyes VocalEyes VocalEyes VocalEyes VocalEyes VocalEyes VocalEyes VocalEyes VocalEyes VocalEyes VocalEyes n/a University of Trieste University of Trieste

AD Provider

Touch tours  163 model to some original archaeological items; they come from the National Archaeological Museum of Aquileia and the Tactile Painting Museum of Ancient and Modern Art Anteros in Bologna; the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, which includes several tactile stations and many touch objects throughout their galleries; the British Museum in London, which has a long history of accessibility and various facilities designed to enhance accessibility and inclusion; the Stonehenge Visitor Centre, which opened in 2013 and includes four 3D bronze-modelled environments showing the story of Stonehenge from 2900 BC to modern times; and, finally, from the Stephenson Railway Museum in North Shields, which displays a range of fascinating locomotives and a selection of their tactile images on boards. The corpus has a total size of 12,364 tokens and 2,068 types. The quantitative data (Table 6.2) show an average STTR (34.91%), indicating a low lexical diversity. Its mean value of lexical density (49.87%) is slightly lower than in the other corpora but still points to a good level of text informativity. As in the other corpora, information is conveyed mainly through short words (the average mean word length in characters is 4.39, SD = 2.31) and sentences with a mean length of 16.94 (SD = 7.62), with a resulting readability index (Gunning fog) of 10.34. The distribution of the parts of speech parallels that of the distribution already identified in the corpora analysed thus far, including a high frequency of nouns followed by prepositions. Table 6.2  Touch tour corpus: Quantitative data Characters Syllables Complex words Tokens Types Lemmas TTR/STTR % (decimals) Mean word length (SD) Sentences Mean in words (SD) Lexical density Gunning fog index Passive voice Parts of speech Nouns Adjectives Verbs Adverbs Prepositions Pronouns Auxiliary Verbs

68,230/55,595 17,346 1112 12,364 2,068 1,886 15.93% / 34.91% (0.17/0.64) 4.39 (2.31) 736 16.94 (7.62) 49.87% 10.34 20.65% 29.24% 7.58% 9.74% 3.32% 14.36% 3.63% 4.68%

164  Touch tours 6.3

Typifying verbs

Overall, the corpus analysis revealed the presence of a substantial quantity of action-related language. Regarding verbs, those that typify the touch tour AD corpus include movement verbs, aspectual verbs, and verbs that are used in a haptic context to identify something through touch or to acknowledge the item’s existence. Some of the most common activity verbs used are especially salient (though never specialised), namely those associated with tactile actions that hands and fingers perform on the object to be discovered and that ‘prepare us for the perception of the physicality of form (understood as a solid body with a specific weight)’ or help us to view their geometric-morphological architecture (Secchi 2014: 204). If we focus on the tactile instructions, the activity verb move is the most frequent (42/33.97) (Move a little further to your right and then up to locate the cab at the rear) and it typically collocates with directional prepositions that contribute to specifying the place or location to be explored (move along to the right; move back; move down; move further; move up; move upward). The degree adverb slightly (cf. the expression move a little further) describes the extent of the movement well (Move slightly to the right to find the Ted Garrett’s rear buffer; but cf. also The exploration should be made with soft and light movements on the surface and the shapes). In addition, it reminds us that the amount of space that can be observed haptically is limited and that fine movements are preferred and more effective. Although the modality and nature of a tactile activity and movements is not systematically explicit (soft and light movements on the surface; you can gently touch the statue), specifying it could better train the user and enhance their independence. The common trigram move your fingers clarifies which tactile organ is involved most frequently in the exploration activity (If you move your fingers down you will feel the slight bulge of the smoke box door at the front of the locomotive; Move your fingers back up to her head) and recalls that tactile perception does not rely solely on the hands. Thanks to the presence of numerous receptors, the fingertips are in fact the most refined tactile organ and they enable a very effective reading of an object and an overall solid tactile sensitivity (Secchi 2022: 133). Another activity verb used repeatedly in the corpus is follow, which implies the action of moving after a given reference point or following along a given path (Follow down the left edge of the board; Follow the fronds to the right; The left hand follows Atalanta’s profile), especially in time and order (As you follow the jetty across to the left, you will feel a series of vertical struts—although in the actual painting, many of these are obscured by the chalky waves. The end of the jetty is indicated by a tall vertical strut. Following the line of this vertical up, a small solid dot represents the second missile streaking across the sky). The use of follow relates to and

Touch tours  165 stresses the sequentiality of the exploratory activity. While, run, which is always part of the trigram run your fingers, emphasises the softness and brevity of a given movement preceding a situation that is more important (As you run your fingers up the left-hand side, you will find the scaly trunk of the palm tree, that frames the figure). Similarly, slide, or rather the trigram slide your fingers, is useful for inviting visitors to perform movements smoothly along the surface while maintaining continuous contact with it, which is very important during exploration (Julius Caesar, which you can start to touch by sliding your fingers along its surface; If you slide your fingers towards the bottom you will feel a deep breach above the foot). The verb explore, which is used in literature to describe the process, is not used in tactile instructions. The aspectual verb start plays an important role in the corpus as it specifies the initial stage of the process of a given tactile action and contributes to signalling a specific physical point where the action should take place (you can touch the reproduction of the applique, starting from the top and then moving down; The face has a rather round shape. Starting from the top, you will find). The bundle starting from (cf. starting from the top and starting from its edge) is very common. Similarly, continue is useful when the persistence of the action within the same exploration session is emphasised (You can continue to touch them following their length down to Medusa’s neck). Movement in tactile exploration is functional for discovering particularly relevant details and pausing on them, and for reaching direct contact with the physicality of a salient form. Thus, in a sequential pattern that is typical of the tactile exploratory procedure (Secchi 2014), after moving, the agent will find (74/59.86), locate (31/25.07), feel (14/11.32), meet (8/6.47), recognise (6/4.85), or encounter (5/4.04) a relevant part of the object to be discovered, studied, enjoyed, or recognised (Move upward to find the curved top of the side tank; Locate the bottom of the board; You will feel a small irregular patch—about a centimetre high—indicating the puff of smoke from the Manby Apparatus; You will meet a narrow rectangular indentation; try to appreciate the material the urn is made of, or recognise the stone, the geometric shapes, the proportions and the arrangement of the numerous decorations; The first shape you encounter is the rectangular sandbox at the front of the locomotive). A more neutral and less precise alternative to such semantically rich and highly descriptive verbs is the existential use of be (On the top of the tank is a safety cover at the rear), which might be preferred in contexts where text simplification is required. The activity that characterises tactile exploration, however, is that of bringing one’s hand into contact with the object to be discovered. Yet, the tactile verb touch is only used occasionally (18/14.56) to convey this meaning. Rather, it is found in general instructions that prepare the visitor for the tactile experience. In addition, it is used to overcome touch

166  Touch tours defensiveness (You can either listen to the audioguide without touching the relief, or explore it with your hands following the instructions given by the audio), or, during tactile sessions, to indicate the possibility of performing this action at a given moment in time (One can touch Atalanta’s dense and wavy hair; Now concentrate on the element under the chin: bend over and touch the slight relief of the last pair of snakes). Sometimes, specifications on precise touching strategies are delivered (you can gently touch the statue with two hands). Touch also hints at the feeling that can be perceived while touching (The ground is bleak, clearly stony to the touch), thus directly relating the physical sense of touch to emotional feeling and perception (Bertheaux et al. 2020). 6.4

Tense, aspect, and modality

Our analysis of tactile instructions shows that the simple present is used extensively with both a descriptive and an expository function. It often introduces the presence of a tactile item in the tour (There are two coloured tactile images on this board); thus resorting to the existential (non-referential) there is common to assert the presence of something, and it details the tactile configuration that the visitor is about to explore. This can be seen in the following example (Example 6.1) describing the tactile image that reproduces a Turner painting exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum: Example 6.1 Excerpt from the AD of the tactile image of The Manby Apparatus (W. Turner, 1831) To the left of this, the horizontal line becomes slightly thicker as it continues as the jetty. Above it, a number of angled lines represent the masts of ships anchored in the distance. As you follow the jetty across to the left, you will feel a series of vertical struts—although in the actual painting, many of these are obscured by the chalky waves. The end of the jetty is indicated by a tall vertical strut. Overall, the simple present is used to give instructions, demonstrations, and directions enumerating a series of events that will unfold. Instructions are also supplied via sequential imperatives with a weak directive force located at the beginning of each sentence to facilitate listeners to follow them as they move through the process outlined in the aural text step by step (Locate the bottom of the board and move half an inch (1 centimetre) up on the right to find the stickman). In procedural discourse, imperatives are normally used to instruct, suggest, recommend, or even warn and caution rather than command (Cacchiani 2013). However, the realisation of imperative strategies varies in the corpus. Verb constructions including the

Touch tours  167 modal will (as the one exemplified above: you will feel a series of vertical struts) are used consistently to guide the visitor through the various stages of the tactile experience, inspiring confidence in their actions (i.e. that they will be able to locate what they are looking for). Will (71/57.42) is mainly used with a predictive meaning; it is not directly linked to the future but rather relates to its most common semantic feature: psychological immediacy (Lewis 1986: 115) and therefore certainty (Swan 2016: 69.5) (you will find an indentation). Often, the description reports two relevant states or situations which are seen as inevitably related and immediately subsequent (Move up from these windows to locate the roof of the cab and you will find that the chimney in the centre stands higher than the roof of the cab). Tactile instructions can also be conveyed through the permission or opportunity modal auxiliary can that contributes to making the visitor feel more involved as active participants in choosing whether to explore the object or not (Now you can touch the reproduction of the applique, starting from the top and then moving down). The permission and the possibility to perform a given action can be combined with politeness markers (Please) or politeness expressions such as If you wish (If you wish, you can try to identify them by touching the chipped surface which seems rougher to the touch). A variety of proposed if-clauses containing second-person subjects and verbs of choice (including choose, like, prefer, want, wish, and will) can be used as pragmatic markers to stress the possibility of avoiding the activity, therefore maintaining a harmonious relationship between the prerecorded speaker and the listener during the visit. In addition, it ensures that any threats to self-esteem are minimised for touch-defensive users (Brown and Levinson 1987). The same function is achieved using impersonal recommendations in passive constructions (To start the exploration, the synchronic use of the hands is recommended). In fact, in any context where a tactile experience is available, it is essential to give clear general instructions on the role, extent, and scope of the tactility, and to leave enough freedom to the visitor-listener to decide whether to touch the relief or just to enjoy its verbal description. Not all visitors feel comfortable with touching objects and they might prefer to avoid this experience. [It] is not wise to force the listener to stick to the pace of the narration or to touch while listening: visitors have different backgrounds and needs, and these have to be taken into account. (Taylor and Perego 2021: 47) 6.5

Lexical specificities

Overall, quite expectedly, the corpus features a large number of lexical units that relate to what is described, which reflects a general trend whereby the most frequent words are topic-specific and refer to the art

168  Touch tours items selected for the tour. Our corpus, made of items belonging to an archaeological museum, includes several occurrences of words such as statue, statuette, applique, and urn. Several items belong to the Stephenson Railway Museum, thus justifying the low ranking of the lemma locomotive (50/40.44). Reproducing paintings through tactile images, like at the Victoria and Albert Museum, relates to the frequency of the noun image (as in the description of the tactile reproduction of St. Cecilia by Delaroche: Two undulating lines run across the lower third of the image). Model is mentioned in relation to the tactile Stonehenge models and occurs 12 times in the corpus, especially within instructions (Move to the final model and press… The final model shows just the central stone settings as they are today, after four thousand years of decay), whereas bas-relief occurs less frequently since it rarely appears in the corpus. For example, Atalanta and Hippomenes by Guido Reni, the Head of Boreas and the slab stone representing the Foundation ritual of Aquileia (In order to trace the history of Aquileia, one of the most important items is the limestone bas-relief which depicts the foundation ritual of the Roman colony). The frequency data, however, point to a substantial nominal repetition of all the referents that are described and made available for a lexical strategy that contributes to ensuring textual cohesion. In addition, it reminds visitors of what they are touching because haptic exploration is complex and requires adequate time and pauses to be performed successfully. Repeating nominal references frequently is functional for a better understanding of the narration and of the tactile instructions, and it favours textual cohesion. Textual cohesion however is also ensured through the substantial use of personal and possessive pronouns. In a short AD passage explaining the tactile image of Delaroche’s first major religious work, St. Cecilia, saint patron of music, is referred to in two ways. Her title and name are used twice, once in the initial and once in the central portion of the expert (Example 6.2), while the bare title Saint is used in the final position in the excerpt. The possessive pronoun her is used 17 times. Example 6.2 Excerpt from the AD of the tactile image of St. Cecilia and the Angels (P. Delaroche, 1836) To the right, you will find the seated figure of St. Cecilia. Her gleaming dark hair is coiled in a plait around her head. Outlined are her pale face and neck, and then the textured fabric of her milky-white gown. It drapes over the side of her throne and falls in soft folds to the floor—with one bare foot peeping out. Butting up against St. Cecilia’s toes are the knees of the pink angel, resting on the marble plinth, covered by the soft, gathered fabric of her gown. The pink angel partly conceals the blue angel the other side of her. The blue angel’s robes—illustrated in a different texture—fill the narrow gap between the pink angel and the Saint.

Touch tours  169 Colour terms and material names, which, respectively, distinguish the ADs of paintings and sculptures, are limited in the tactile description subcorpus. Except for the colour name black (13/10.51), widely used to describe the locomotives at the Stephenson Railway Museum (the side view of the locomotive in black; The upper image has the front view of the old steam locomotive, and is entirely in black; At either end are the round black buffers), other colours are mentioned sparingly and are normally light hues: green, pink, blue, white, yellow, yellowish, yellow-shaded, golden, creamcoloured, and milky-white. The same goes for material names (cf. wooden, marble, ceramic, bluestone, clay, and chalk), which are mentioned sparsely and are used to describe the material of the handled object (It is a female statue in white Greek marble). Sometimes they combine with a hint to the feeling that visitors are supposed to perceive (You will feel the ribbed effect that has been made to suggest the wooden slats). We believe that a more substantial use of materials and material names could serve to train touch and trigger emotional responses better (Bertheaux et al. 2020). Despite the explicit aim of tactile instructions in touch ADs, tactile adjectives, or words and expressions directly referring to physical perception, are not as frequent as expected. This means that the visitor’s perception is not guided specifically; instead, they are left to make their own judgements. This is, potentially, because the materials used to transcribe images on a tactile surface may not allow for perceptive differences in feeling, or because ADs want to avoid any patronising attitude. Still, a few exceptions were detected. The most common perception adjectives, smooth and rough, only occur three and one times, respectively, and are associated with the adjective cold (explore the low and smooth forehead; while caressing the cold and mostly smooth surface of the marble with your hands; Of the left arm only the upper part remains, where there is a small hole with a pin, rough and cold to the touch that originally served to hold together the forearm and hand; by touching the chipped surface which is rougher to the touch). The use of participial adjectives referring to the conservation status of the items that are explored (e.g. chipped, damaged; cf. also par. 4.3) indirectly or directly suggests the type of feeling one might expect to experience or could be used to ease the tactile interpretation (The edges of the rim and the surface of the amphora are in some parts damaged and it is easy to feel their irregularity). Other descriptive adjectives seem to suggest the type of tactility to be expected, for instance with the word delicate, suggesting a very fine texture (the delicate and sensual forms of her body; but cf. the derived noun delicacy, with a similar effect: Atalanta’s veil […] wraps the girl’s bust with extreme delicacy), and the adjectives thin and thick suggesting the lightness or heaviness of the described materials (Atalanta’s veil is very thin and sometimes transparent; Hippomenes’ veil is red and thicker, like a cloth; The upper rim of the amphora is high and very thick and encloses the narrow mouth of

170  Touch tours the amphora like a large collar). The derived adjective feathery has a similar aim, while being very descriptive and vivid, as often happens in a descriptive context (To the left of the angel’s body—at shoulder level—sprout the magnificent feathery wings) where the experience of art is inextricably tied to language rather than entirely dependent on sight (Kleege 2018; Secchi 2014, 2022). The participial descriptive adjective textured (7/5.66), meanwhile, generally refers to something having a rough or uneven surface or consistency and seems to be useful for preparing the visitor for an item’s coarse texture (you would be able to feel the textured long braids that fall down her back; The second patch of sky—again textured with small circles—is contained within the curl of this branch. However, see also the use of the noun texture: Below his neck, a rougher texture illustrates his frothing neck-cloth). Finally, body parts are referred to nominally (and pronominally) in the corpus to make haptic instruction more effective and reveal what is being explored (cf. in alphabetical order: ears, eyebrow, eyelashes, eyelids, knees, mouth, palm, shoulder, toes, torso). For people who are untrained, irrespective of their visual ability, recognising details haptically can be very challenging, thus frequent reminders are extremely helpful. Again, the use of an anticipatory noun group in object position (fully formed features) (Example 6.3) is successfully exploited as a cohesive mechanism and prepares the listener for the subsequent detailed description of the curly haired Christ-child’s body parts (muscular torso, little arms, legs extended to the left, the toes of his right foot, his chubby thigh, etc.) (see also Example 4.3). Example 6.3 Excerpt from the AD of the tactile image of The Virgin and Child in Egypt (W. Blake, 1810) The Christ-child has tightly curled hair and fully formed features. He has a muscular torso. His little arms are held out to each side, following the line of Mary’s forearms. His legs are extended towards the left. You will find the toes of his right foot in the very left-hand corner of the picture. The knee of his left leg is bent, so that his chubby thigh conceals his genitals.

6.6

The exploration process

As already mentioned, touch needs to be trained and adequately guided to be exploited successfully. In fact, ‘[h]aptic exploration takes more time than visual exploration [and] it is demanding on a sensory, perceptual, attentional, mnemonic and mental level’ (Secchi 2022: 133). These are just

Touch tours  171 some reasons why, in the absence of a human guide, it is essential to offer clear instructions, break tasks into manageable chunks, follow a logical or chronological order, and put the visitor at ease as they approach a potentially challenging experience. The analysis of the touch tours we have gathered enabled us to identify a codified pattern of important macro and micro stages, namely semantic-pragmatic units or communicative moves (Swales 1990) that could ensure the construction of effective tactile AD scripts to be used both in live and in pre-recorded narratives. A flexible template might include a pre-exploration stage with the communicative purpose of creating the best conditions in which the tactile experience can happen, followed by an exploration proper stage following specific logical phases, and a superordinate stage on tactile dexterity issuing procedural instructions on the correct way to exploit and coordinate tactile organs and avoid tactile fatigue (Canestrati 2017; Venier 2017; Secchi 2014, 2022). The three stages and their main procedural tasks are synopsised in Figure 6.4.

Pre-exploration stage

Exploration proper stage

Tactile dexterity stage

Adjusting one’s position

General to specific

Wrist and hand mobility

Offering choice to take part in the activity

External to internal

Finger mobility

Announcing tour structure

Left to right

Fine tactility and fingertip training

Announcing pauses

Top to bottom

Figure 6.4 Main stages and procedural tasks for the preparation of tactile AD scripts.

172  Touch tours During any haptic exploration, assuming the correct position is crucial. Irrespective of whether the visitor will stand or sit in front of the tactile item, information on the optimal position for the experience should be conveyed in the opening section of any pre-recorded tactile guide (If you want to touch the relief while listening, make sure you are sitting/standing comfortably. You can check the distance from the relief by stretching your arms in front of you to see if your hands can reach the surface without problems) (Figure 6.5), while also clearly stating that users have the option of taking part, i.e. nothing is mandatory (You can either listen to the audio guide without touching the relief, or explore it with your hands following the instructions given by the audio). Before the core narration begins, the tour structure should be presented with pauses in the AD (if they have been integrated in the guide). This could be combined with an underlying functional motivation (Some pauses were introduced in the audio guide. They have an average duration of 10/20 seconds. These

Figure 6.5 Adjusting one’s position in front of a bas relief. Photograph by the author. Thanks to Christopher Taylor.

Touch tours  173 pauses will give you more time to make particular movements during the tactile exploration or to focus on some details of the work and appreciate them more). Normally, these scene-setting instructions tend to use inclusive linguistic devices that consider the interactor’s positive feelings and make them feel safe (cf. politeness theories and the notion of face-threatening act; Brown and Levinson 1987). These favour an extensive use of the second person pronouns you (119/96.25, in the 9th ranking position, but cf. the personal adjective your: 29/23.46; cf. Table 5.5 for a comparative overview). Overall, most instructions in tactile ADs are given directly to the listener in such a way as to involve them directly in the actions to take, allowing them to feel unique and free to participate only if they want to (Now you can touch the reproduction of the applique). The use of you as a deictic centre is instead occasional in this sub-corpus (vs. the orientation sub-corpus). The second person pronoun you occurs in clusters such as you will + verb and more specifically with action and mental verbs not entailing volition but rather perception: you will find + noun phrase and you will feel + noun phrase. Less frequently mentioned are you will meet and you will notice (You will immediately notice that the statue has no head; you will notice the roughness of the mortar used to glue the two parts together). The possessive adjective your is not very frequent (29/23.46, but comparable to the normalised frequency found in the tour corpus corresponding to 34.03) and mainly right-occurring with body parts linked to tactile experiences: your fingers, your fingertips, your hands (Run your fingers from the nameplate up to the top edge of the saddle; If you slide your fingers towards the bottom; You can put your hands over the urn). Once the visitor is ready, the descriptive narrative and the exploration can start. From a procedural perspective, any tactile exploration process is not random but logical, structured, organised, and highly context- and target dependent (Secchi 2014, 2022), following functional subsequent stages. Normally, a general-to-specific, external-to-internal, and left-toright order of exploration is preferred. The first approach to a bas-relief, for instance, should comprise the exploration of its outer edges to convey a rough idea of the dimensions of the object, and to later slowly move centripetally to the centre for a finer exploration of its most relevant details (First of all, touch the perimeter of the bas-relief, then move the hands towards the centre, in a tactile AD excerpt of Atalanta and Hippomenes). This is where the real exploratory process begins. If relevant, a hint to the original dimension of the artwork and to the dimension of its reproduction can be useful (Example 6.4), such as in the AD of the three-dimensional plaster reproduction of Atalanta and Hippomenes (Figure 6.2), the famous Renaissance painting by Guido Reni (Canestrari 2017; Venier 2017).

174  Touch tours Example 6.4 Excerpt from the AD of the bas-relief of Atalanta and Hippomenes (G. Reni, 1620–1625) The relief is on a smaller scale compared to the original masterpiece of Guido Reni, which portrays the crucial moment of the race between Atalanta and Hippomenes according to the Greek myth. The relief is the result of a complex work of translation of painting values into relief values. The same strategies can apply to other similarly shaped items (The stone slab, which you can touch starting from its edges, is over one meter wide and about 44 centimetres high, in a tactile AD excerpt of the limestone relief of the sulcus primigenius depicting the foundation rite of Aquileia), but generally, they are followed when describing statues or different tactile images or models, which can feature different degrees of content simplification based on the fact that individuals who are blind or visually impaired experience smaller information bandwidth with touch than a person with sight might experience with sight (Romeo et al. 2018; Secchi 2014, 2022). The unmarked top-left to bottom-right description and exploration order, for instance, is common in the ADs of the Stephenson Railway Museum (Example 6.5). Example 6.5 Excerpt from the AD of the tactile image of the Electric Locomotive E4 (Stephenson Railway Museum) At the top left-hand corner of the board is the name of the locomotive, Electric Locomotive E4, with the name in Braille beneath it. Follow down the left edge of the board. About halfway down, just inside the edge of the board is a stick man. He is standing beside the front view of the locomotive and is about a third of its total height. Some descriptive strategies can be used to enhance the effectiveness of the tactile instructions. Whenever the shapes are suitable for this purpose, it is important to consider the principles of symmetry and reduce regular or irregular shapes to basic (therefore easily recognisable) geometry. Showing the tactile exploration of an ancient well with lavabos (Figure 6.6), for instance, Loretta Secchi, curator of the Tactile Museum Anteros, points to the ovoid regular geometry of this lavabo, which iconically represents a valve shell, and emphasises the decoration on the lavabo, which resembles two overlapping triangles (one facing downwards and one facing upwards). It points to a symmetrical anthropomorphic structure, similar to a

Touch tours  175 face, that can be easily perceived by people with sight loss based on their familiarity with the concept (ADLAB PRO 2019c). This exemplifies the importance of content simplification and emphasises that a direct transcription of the painting on a tactile surface is irrelevant for people who

Figure 6.6 Ancient well with lavabos. Piazza Sant’Antonio, Gorizia, Italy. Photograph by the author.

176  Touch tours are visually impaired as it does not allow an appropriate understanding of its content and appreciation of the artwork’s aesthetic quality (Romeo et al. 2018; Secchi 2022). Instructions on tactile dexterity are equally important. From a technical perspective, visitors should be encouraged to explore any item with both hands (namely performing ‘bidextrous explorations’; ADLAB PRO 2019c), using their palms, fingers, and fingertips (as their tactile acuity is particularly strong, though it might decline as one ages) to investigate the surface of the item, recognise the layout of its components, and enjoy the texture and temperature of its material. Their hands will operate either on the same or different levels, depending on the users’ needs and the item explored. In the presence of symmetrical elements, hand movement will be synchronic. The presence of irregular shapes is a particularly challenging scenario, so visitors will have to move their hands asynchronically to perform different activities. For example, it may be necessary to finger-wrap a partial shape to better perceive its depth and understand its texture while contemporarily perceiving its contour lines or sensing the design of its shape, thus exploiting a surface refined tactility. As such, developing excellent joint and disjoint hand mobility is crucial to following a progression; reading an artwork haptically is a sequential action where key information must be considered first, and background information should come later or be purged (ADLAB PRO 2019c; Secchi 2014). Clause links can help facilitate the complexity of haptic exploration, especially when hands are supposed to move independently of one another, through the way the procedural text is organised internally. In Example 6.6, the instructions are dense and conveyed in a compressed yet coherent text that uses textual grammar devices to clearly signal the relationship between the various units of discourse that describe the stages of a complex exploration phase (To start the exploration…; first of all…; Later…; In this way…; At the same time…). Example 6.6 Excerpt from the AD of the bas-relief of Atalanta and Hippomenes (G. Reni, 1620–1625) To start the exploration, the synchronic use of the hands is recommended. The left hand discovers the stooped body of Atalanta, who is picking up the second golden apple, while the right hand explores the body of Hippomenes, who is running. The left hand follows Atalanta’s profile: first of all, it analyses her left arm bent toward the side and her hand holding the first apple. Later it proceeds towards the head, reaching the right arm that stretches to the ground to gracefully pick up the apple. In this way, the reader can notice the elegance of her movements and the sinuosity of her body. At the same time, the right hand follows Hippomenes’ body.

Touch tours  177 Besides being important devices for creating textual cohesion, linking adverbials can be effectively used for the enumeration (e.g. first, second, then, finally, lastly) of pieces of procedural information in an order chosen by the describer and to add items of discourse (Biber et al. 1999: 875). Furthermore, they are especially essential when complex haptic instructions are broken down and delivered in small tasks, and their connection is explicitly emphasised when used in the initial position. They identify exactly how the subsequent discourse is to be understood in relation to the previous discourse. Finally, because the exploration process and the exploration instructions are closely related to directionality, we should stress the extensive presence of prepositions and particles (cf. to: 352/284.70; see also par. 5.8 and the role and frequency of to (36/401.89) in AD tour’s directional language) that are used to give hand-directions. The particle to, for instance, is used both as a preposition and an infinitive marker, and in common directional trigrams such as to the right (55/44.48) (Run your fingers to the right and you will find; move to the right until you meet a vertical line) and to the left (39/31.54). Despite the number of noun-qualifying prepositional phrases embedded within complex noun phrases (Biber et al. 1999: 103) (a pair of snakes; a man with curly hair), these indicate the position where the visitor’s hands are or should reach (cf. on top of, in front of, etc.). References ADLAB PRO (2019a). Handling tactile objects [Video]. https://videosdigitals.uab. cat/almacen/downloads/461/11127.mp4 ADLAB PRO (2019b). Raised drawings [Video]. https://videosdigitals.uab.cat/almacen/downloads/461/11129.mp4 ADLAB PRO (2019c). Tactile explorations [Video]. https://videosdigitals.uab.cat/ almacen/downloads/461/11125.mp4 Bertheaux, C., Toscano, R., Fortunier, R., Roux, J.-C., Charier, D., & Borg, C. (2020). Emotion measurements through the touch of materials surfaces. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 13. Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., & Finegan, E. (1999). Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Longman. Brown, P., & Levinson, S.C. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. CUP. Cacchiani, S. (2013). Understanding written practical instructions. Aracne. Candlin, F. (2006). The dubious inheritance of touch: Art history and museum access. Journal of Visual Culture, 5(2), 137–154. Canestrari, M. (2017). “Atalanta e Ippomene” di Guido Reni: Audiodescrizione per un pubblico dell’infanzia. Analisi, semplificazione e traduzione verso l’inglese [Unpublished BA thesis]. University of Trieste, Italy. De Coster, K., & Loots, G. (2004). Somewhere in between touch and vision: In search of a meaningful art education for blind individuals. The International Journal of Art & Design Education, 23(3), 326–334.

178  Touch tours Eardley, A.F., Mineiro, C., Neves, J., & Ride, P. (2016). Redefining access: Embracing multimodality, memorability and shared experiences in museums. The Museum Journal, 59(3), 263–286. EASIT (2021). Touch tours in museums (Unit 1, Element 5) [Video]. https://transmediacatalonia.uab.cat/easit/unit-1/element-5/touch-tours-in-museums/ Fineman, A., & Cock, M. (2022). Audio description in museums: A service provider perspective. In C. Taylor & E. Perego (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of audio description (pp. 215–231). Routledge. Kleege, G. (2018). More than meets the eye: What blindness brings to art. OUP. Lewis, M. (1986). The English verb. Heinle. Neves, J. (2012). Multi-sensory approaches to (audio) describing the visual arts. MonTI, 4, 277–293. Neves, J. (2016). Enriched descriptive guides: A case for collaborative meaningmaking in museum. Cultus, 9(2), 137–153. Romeo, K., Chottin, M., Ancet, P., Lecomte, C., & Pissaloux, E.E. (2018). Simplification of painting images for tactile perception by visually impaired persons. In K. Miesenberger & G. Kouroupetroglou (Eds.), Computers helping people with special needs (pp. 250–257). Springer. Secchi, L. (2014). Between sense and intellect. Blindness and the strength of inner vision. In D. de Kerckhove & C.M. de Almeida (Eds.), The point of being (pp. 197–212). Cambridge Scholars. Secchi, L. (2022). “Ut pictura poesis”: The rendering of an aesthetic artistic image in form and content. In C. Taylor & E. Perego (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of audio description (pp. 127–142). Routledge. Swales, J. (1990). Genre analysis. CUP. Swan, M. (2016). Practical English usage. OUP. Taylor, C., & Perego, E. (2021). New approaches to accessibility and audio description in museum environments. In S. Braun & K. Starr (Eds.), Innovation in audio description research (pp. 33–54). Routledge. Venier, G. (2017). “Atalanta e Ippomene” di Guido Reni: Analisi, audiodescrizione e traduzione verso l’inglese [Unpublished BA thesis]. University of Trieste, Italy.

Conclusion

Art ADs for visually impaired people are structured ‘expert to non-expert’ spoken monologues written and planned for oral delivery with a main informative and imaginative function. These can combine with instructional portions of texts that guide museum-goers in the physical navigation of museums and galleries or instruct them on the tactile exploration of art items. AD for the arts as a sub-genre of AD (Chapters 1 and 2) had not been systematically explored prior to this point because of the considerable challenges in its study. These primarily include the following: finding sufficient art AD scripts, as most art ADs are unscripted; gathering homogeneous scripts in terms of types of items described, period when the AD was produced, and background of the audio describer; and setting and analysing ADs in their authentic context. This leads to possible misinterpretations of the findings and to the results’ limited generalisability. The results of this study, however, remain a useful reference for further analyses and can serve as broad descriptive accounts that systematise the manner in which AD texts tend to work. While its use is increasing, art AD is still quite new. Small-scale studies have already shown that linguistic specificities can be detected. For this project, we worked on an overall body of texts of 87,878 running words which was sectioned into four corpora, each covering a type of art AD with a specific communicative purpose. These corpora comprise a collection of professional stand-alone ADs of paintings (26,659 running words) (Chapter 3) and sculptures (8,198 running words) (Chapter 4), namely self-contained AD tracks of specific artworks to be consumed without following a set order. In addition, it includes a collection of professional AD tours (75,614 running words) made of a careful selection of interconnected ADs with the additional aim of assisting people with sight loss in navigating the museum space (Chapter 5); and a collection of professional touch tours (12,364 running words), which are ADs incorporating procedural instructions on how to enjoy the beauty of an art object or a reproduction using one’s tactile organs (mainly hands and fingertips) (Chapter 6). DOI: 10.4324/9781003134237-8

180  Conclusion Our results partially mirrored previous studies (Perego 2018), thus highlighting some generalisable aspects of art AD. First, the comparison of the corpora’s quantitative data showed a comparable average standardised type-token ratio that indicates that all these texts feature a high lexical diversity, and a similar mean value of lexical density that points to the texts’ high level of informativity irrespective of the type of art item they deal with or the purpose they serve (i.e. purely descriptive or also procedural, as in the case of AD and touch tours). Describers seem to generally comply with the guidelines’ requirement of being vivid and visually informative but not too technical; the lexical variety of the ADs in question relates to the diversity of their descriptive lexical repertoires rather than the employment of specialised terms, which are typically avoided or are very limited. Despite the similar readability index of the corpora (each features a Gunning fog index equalling approximately 10), which indicates that the ADs normally require ten years of formal education to be understood, and despite the overall presence of short words and sentences, we observed several interesting deviations from the average quantitative data calculated via language analysis software (LancsBox, WordSmith Tools 8, and Analyze My Writing). The longest words can reach a length of up to 22 characters, and even when they are slightly shorter, they are in general semantically loaded and comprise derived lexical items, typically in the form of adverbs and adjectives, that can package complex information in a single semantic entity. Heavily descriptive compound adjectives, normally embedded in long nominal groups, contribute to the evocative force of these texts and, presumably, to their complexity, especially for audiences that may need linguistic support or simplification. The difficulty of the art AD texts under analysis is in the packaging structures they use rather than in their syntax, which can remain linear, and in the use of focused lexical verbs that contribute to the texts’ lexical variety and their considerable informativity. Even the many copular verbs used are not restricted to the most common ones, especially in the ADs of standalone paintings, to highlight nuances of meaning and to ensure listeners perceive interpretative freedom (It seems to be a desolate coastal region vs. Everything is vibrant and active). Differences in the verb choices can be detected comparing the four corpora analysed: overall, topic-specific verbs are selected based on what is being described and mirror the corpora we worked with. For instance, paint is typical of the painting corpus, while carve and cut are typical of the sculpture corpus; movement verbs like move and turn and action-demanding sentences are typical of AD tours where directions are provided, while verbs that point to the action of reaching direct contact with a salient form (e.g. find, locate and meet) and lexical items or clusters inviting haptic (move/slide your fingers; you can touch) or perceptive (you will feel; recognise) actions are typical of touch tours.

Conclusion  181 Overall, verbs of vision (see, appear) and sight-specific expressions are not banned but rather used to point to a deductive activity rather than to visual perception, entailing an inclusive function especially when paired with first- and second-person pronouns that foreground the museum visitor as ‘senser’ and engage them directly (through a partially raised black curtain behind the table, you see storm clouds fill the sky; we see a clarinet player wearing the white costume). Passive constructions are favoured in the ADs of art items (normally sculptures, in our corpus) whose authors are unknown and where the descriptive focus is on the technique used to achieve a given effect ([The back] has been carved with as much care as the front), while active constructions are frequent in the ADs of paintings where famous painters’ agency are normally emphasised (A white plate on which Matisse has painted a blue nude woman). All art ADs typically assume the third-person perspective and encompass a neutral objective speaker who presents the story with an omniscient, reliable, and authoritative voice that is not condescending or patronising. This enables the describer to deliver a rich and complex narrative and to even, in occasional circumstances, be inside a character’s thoughts, feelings, and sensations. However, third-person narration is avoided when moving from pure description and exposition to procedural language. To successfully serve their purpose, AD tours and touch tours must alternate descriptions and instructions to ensure, respectively, that museum users can move around safely and comfortably, and that they can correctly perform and enjoy the tactile exploration of art. In these cases, in an attempt to soften an imperative’s sometimes forceful tone, politeness markers (please) and clusters constructed around verbs of choice (including choose, like, prefer, want, wish, and will) are used as pragmatic markers to mitigate the force of a command, to maintain a harmonious relationship between the pre-recorded text and the listener during the visit, to involve the visitor and request their cooperation, and to leave them with the choice to participate. This is particularly important in touch tours and can minimise the visitor’s frequent touch-defensiveness. Finally, nowadays, the use of colour terms in AD is accepted and even sometimes encouraged (both in screen and art AD) because visually impaired users recognise the symbolic and metaphorical meanings of colours. In this regard, our data-driven analysis has shown an unexpected variety, especially in the painting ADs, where colour is a primary communicative element. Basic colour terms co-occur with derived and compound items whose extent and assortment suggest the writer’s desire to be as detailed and vivid as possible but simultaneously poses the question of comprehensibility. If colour terms abound in painting ADs, material and body part names characterise the sculpture ADs. The details that recur in art AD are included and exemplified in each chapter, and their nature and presence enabled us to confirm the

182  Conclusion register-specificity of these texts while providing a descriptive overview of the most frequent or salient linguistic patterns that typify them. This process occurred due to a data-driven approach to such texts. Besides offering a snapshot of at least some linguistic peculiarities of art AD (we believe that more can be found, and we are planning to further exploit the data that we gathered), this descriptive work can function both as a reference or starting point for comparative analyses to be carried out comparing diverse AD genres, or English art AD with art ADs in other languages. These can, in fact, function very differently and can feature linguistic specificities that we did not find while focusing solely on English. In addition, far from being prescriptive, it can serve as a tool warranting didactic considerations. The collection of authentic examples offered to back up our findings can function as useful instances for trainers who are building (and expanding) working glossaries of typical communicative moves with their trainees to construct or boost their art AD knowledge. These examples can also provide a distillation of good practices for art AD professionals who wish to compare approaches, thus possibly expanding their personal toolkit— or merely offering a new perspective. This journey through the linguistic specificities of art AD has shown a multitude of typifying features that reveal the lack of any popularising or facilitating strategies in texts that, while lacking in jargon, are still sophisticated enough to appeal mostly to high-knowledge audiences. Far from being a criticism, this claim uncovers a fact: AD for the arts can be quite complex linguistically, and, nowadays, we live in a world where the importance of communicative inclusion is being recognised and is increasingly implemented in several sectors. Based on new forms of accessibility meant for audiences who need linguistic support via more or less extreme forms of simplification (cf. Easy and Plain Language), future reflections on how to deliver simpler but equally effective art-related content is needed. As such, this book can be thought of as a first step towards deeper reflections on art’s linguistic accessibility for multiple audiences.

Index

Note: Bold page numbers refer to tables; italic page numbers refer to figures and page numbers followed by “n” denote endnotes. absolute jasmine 65n8 accessibility: defined 12–13; media 12, 30n3; and translation 11–13 Accessible Culture & Training (ACT) 19 action-demanding sentences 180 action verbs 24; see also verb(s) activity verb 164; see also verb(s) adjectives: AD language 24; in art AD 94; colour 24; descriptive 169; participial 169; possessive 173 adverbial elliptical construction 137 adverbs 25, 118–119; descriptive 25; slightly 164 aisle 135 Analyze My Writing 3 anticipatory noun group 170 applied art 38 appraisal language 24 Apsley House 152n4 Arab Museum of Modern Art in Qatar 158 art: applied 38; and audio descriptors 39; defined 38; fine 38; forms of 38; -related descriptive verbs 133 art AD 44–46, 78, 179–182; adjectives in 94; colour terms in 138; corpora 138, 140; feature of 99; guidelines 89; language devices in 118; listenability and 61, 64; live 100; narrative 64; painting in 80; pre-recorded 76; recommendations 66n14; vs.

screen AD 15; systematic and settled 45; tense, aspect, and modality in 83; use of colour names in 89–90 Asian Art Museum of San Francisco 153n4, 153n5 aspect: paintings 83–87; sculptures 108–112 aspectual verb 165 Associated Press 4 audio-described film 10 audio describers 23, 158; US and UK 27; and vocabulary 25 audio description (AD) 100n7; of art items 181; for arts 38–64; in authentic context 179; defined 1, 9; directions 143; drafting of 5–6; of Hapy 114; historical overview 14–17; introduction 9–29; of Iris Goddess of the Rainbow 112; itineraries 134; language 22–27; live and recorded 52–61; of OsirisApis 118; overview 13–14; of paintings 179; of Pauline Bonaparte 84; procedural discourse in 27–29; script 53– 60; of sculptures 179; software programs 3; sub-genre of 179; target users 17–19; see also art AD Audio Description: A Laboratory for the Development of a New Professional Profile (ADLAB

184 Index PRO) 16–17, 45; questionnaire 152n2 Audio Description: Lifelong Access for the Blind (ADLAB) 16, 45; guidelines 65n5 audio descriptors, and art 39 audio guides and audio description tours (AD tours) 121–152; colour names 137–139; corpus overview 131, 132; directional language 143–152; directions corpus 147; directions subcorpus 146; of Earthquakes and Volcanoes Gallery at Natural History Museum 142–143; of Eltham Palace 136, 137; of Hendrix and Handel Museum 138, 148; lexical specificities 134–137; moves/rhetoric strategies 149; tour structure 126–131, 127, 129; typifying verbs 132–134; visitors’ engagement 139–143; of Walmer Castle 149, 150; working stages 122–126 Audio Vision 15 audiovisual room 135 audiovisual translation (AVT) 1–2, 10 Bank of English corpus 100n3 basic colour, normalised frequencies of 139 Battle of Waterloo 56 The Battle of Waterloo 84–85 Benecke, Bernd 66n12 Biber, D. 22, 83, 100n2 Blake, W.: The Virgin and Child in Egypt 170 blind/blindness 1–2, 9, 14–17, 20; community 61; listeners 66n15; patrons 21, 45, 65n3, 100, 122, 145; visitors 22, 41, 46, 50, 53, 60–61, 97, 124, 144; see also disability blind patrons 145 body parts 113–116, 114–115 Braille 65n3, 122 British imperial system 151 British Museum 106, 111, 119n1, 125, 163 Buddha 153n5 Buddhism 153n5

carving 107 castles 135 Charles Dickens museum 152n4 The Chelsea Pensioners Reading the Waterloo Dispatch (Wilkie) 56 cinematic audio description 30n4 Civic Botanical Garden (Trieste, Italy) 51, 65n7 Civic Scientific Museums 65n7 clusivity 141 Cock, M. 27 cohesion 27 Collins COBUILD 100n3 collocations 5–6, 108, 135, 136, 138 colour names: AD tours 137–139; in art AD 89–90; paintings 89–95, 90, 91 Composition (Mondrian) 90 Constable, J.: Salisbury Cathedral 85 Convergence (Pollack) 81 copular verbs 78–79, 107, 133, 150 corner 135 corpus: activity verb 164; AD tours 131, 132; alternates measurement words 151; aspectual verb 165; frequency 134; paintings 73–78, 74–75, 76; sculptures 105, 104–106, 106; touch tours 161–163, 162, 163 Cradle to Grave 10 D/deaf 12, 29n1 definite/indefinite quantifier 151 deictic centre 139 Delaroche, P.: St. Cecilia and the Angels 168 described video see audio description (AD) descriptive adjectives 169 descriptive adverbs 25 descriptive language 28 descriptive narration 14 dimensional information 152 directional language: AD tours 143– 152; communicative purpose of 146; frequent trigrams 147–148; infinitive marker 146; movement and stative verbs 148; movement instructions 147; movement verbs 146, 148; place preposition 146;

Index  185 precise prepositions 148; single directional prepositions 146; verbs role in 148 directional prepositions 152 disability: barriers 19; defined 19; visual 19–22 The Dream (Rousseau) 85 Eardley, A.F. 122 Earthquakes and Volcanoes Gallery at Natural History Museum 142–143 EASIT Educational Materials 124 EASIT project 61 Easy Language 5, 12, 16, 29n2 Easy Language for Social Inclusion Training (EASIT) 16 Electric Locomotive E4 (Stephenson Railway Museum) 174 elliptical clauses 25–26 Eltham Palace 136, 137, 152n4 end-users 25, 62, 97, 121, 144, 152n1 engare/engaging English: as lexically mixed language 4; writing and Gunning fog index 4 enriched AD 46–52, 47; expressive soundpainting 50; olfactory dimension 51; smell 50–51; sound effects 48–49 European Union (EU) 16, 65n5 exploration process 170–177 expressive soundpainting 50 face-to-face interactions 160 Fathers of the Church (St Paul’s Cathedral) 106 feedback 152n1 fine art 38 Fineman, A. 27 Frazier, Gregory 15 frequency lists 5 frequent sentence-initial pattern 149 frequent trigrams 147–148 Fryer, Louise 58, 66n12 galleries 39–44 genre: ADs 22–23; defined 22; vs. text type 22 geological domain 134 Girl with a Mandolin (Picasso) 98, 99

Gombrich, Ernst Hans: The Story of Art 2 grammatical distinction 141 GraphColl analysis 135 Grassini, Aldo 158 Grasso, Luca 159 Group in Crinolines (Kandinsky) 92–93 Group of Three Sculptures (British Museum) 106 guide 153n6; pre-recorded audio 160; skilled human 153n6, 160 Gunning fog index 4, 66n13, 77 Guttmann, Ludwig 59 Handel, George Frideric 152n4 haptic exploration 161 Hapy 114 Hendrix, Jimi 49–50, 138, 152n4 Hendrix and Handel Museum 138, 148 Human Evolution Gallery 153n4 Hutchinson, R.S. 122 impairment: defined 30n6; visual 20–21 infinitive marker 146 Institute for the Blind in Milan 159 internal deictic reference 148 International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) Model 19–20 International Council of Museums (ICOM) 40, 64n1 International Phonetic Alphabet 59 intersemiotic translation 12 in-text orientation, paintings 95–97, 96 Iris Goddess of the Rainbow 112 Italian National Archaeological Museum of Aquileia 125 Italy 51, 65n7, 158, 175 Jakobson, R. 12 Kandinsky, W.: Group in Crinolines 92–93; Striped 90, 97 Kelly green 100n4 Key Action ERASMUS Multilateral Projects 65n5

186 Index LancsBox 3, 6, 7n1, 135 Landi, Neroccio de’: Mirror Frame Showing a Female Head 41 language: analysis software 180; appraisal 24; audio description (AD) 22–27; descriptive 28; lexically mixed 4; procedural 145, 148, 181; see also directional language Lefèvre, R.: Pauline Bonaparte 84 Les Damoiselles d’Avignon (Picasso) 85 lexical clusters 5 lexical density 3–4 lexical specificities: AD tours 134–137; paintings 87–89, 89; sculptures 112–119; touch tours 167–170 lexical variation 3 lexical words 23–24 Lifelong Learning Programme 65n5 listenability 61–64 Listenability style guide (Rubin) 66n14 listenable 13, 58; recorded narration 124; text 62–64 listener-engaging strategy 141 live AD 52–61 loan words 4 Longman Spoken and Written English corpus (LSWE) 100n2 The Manby Apparatus (Turner) 166 material names 116–118, 116 Matisse, H.: The Red Studio 83, 96–97 mean word length 4 media accessibility 12, 30n3 metre(s)/meter(s) 151–152 metric system of measurement 151 Mirror Frame Showing a Female Head (Landi) 41 modality 166–167; paintings 83–87; sculptures 108–112 Mona Lisa (da Vinci) 10 Mondrian, Piet 77; Composition 90 movement and stative verbs 148; see also verb(s) movement instructions 147 movement in tactile exploration 165 movement verbs 146, 148, 153n8; see also verb(s) multimodal texts see semiotically complex texts

multisensoriality 42, 46 museums 39–44 museum–temple model 44 National Archeological Museum of Aquileia 46, 49, 163 National Tile Museum in Lisbon 158 Natural History Museum (London) 128, 134, 153n4 Neo-Plasticist painting 77 Neves, J. 50 node room 136 node wall 135 noisier step model 151 non-initial sentence 140 normalised frequencies: of basic colour 139; of pronouns 140 noun(s): AD language 24; anticipatory noun group 170; image 168; metre(s) 152; room 134, 135; wall 134 Obama, Barack 14 O’Keeffe, Georgia: Summer Days 86 Osiris-Apis 118 Pacinotti, R. 130 paintings 73, 158, 180; ADs of 179, 181; in art AD 80; colour names 89–95, 90, 91; corpus 143; corpus overview 73–78, 74–75, 76; in-text orientation 95–97, 96; lexical specificities 87–89, 89; tense, aspect, and modality 83–87; typifying verbs 78–82; writing in the third person 97–100 paleontological domain 134 participial adjectives 169 passive constructions 5, 181 passive sentences 5 past tense 133 pattern: distributional 131; frequency 90; imperceptible 2; linguistic 2, 182; regularity 5; sentence 25; sentence-initial 149; sequential 165; syntactic 30n9; visual 130 Pauline Bonaparte (Lefèvre) 84 people with disabilities see disability Pfanstiehl, Cody 14 Pfanstiehl, Margaret 14

Index  187 Piazza Sant’Antonio, Gorizia, Italy 175 Picasso, P.: Girl with a Mandolin 98, 99; Les Damoiselles d’Avignon 85 place preposition 146 plaster reproductions 158 Pollack, J. 81; Convergence 81 possessive adjective 173 precise prepositions 148 pre-recorded: ADs 53; audio guides 160 present tense 133 procedural: discourse in AD 27–29; functions 6; information 177; instructions 1, 171, 179; language 145, 148, 181; tasks 171, 171; texts 28–29, 176 pronouns, normalised frequency of 140 Ramesses 115–116 Readability indices 66n13 receptor tools 60–61 recorded AD 52–61 The Red Studio (Matisse) 83, 96–97 Regan, Ronald 14 relief drawing of a candelabrum 159 Reni, Guido 168, 173; Atalanta and Hippomenes 160, 168, 173, 174, 176 Rogers, L.R. 116 Rousseau, H.: The Dream 85 Royal National Institute of Blind (RNIB) 152n3 The Royal National Institute of Blind (RNIB) People 125 Salisbury Cathedral (Constable) 85 Salter, William: Waterloo Banquet 86 Salzhauer, A.E. 89 Scarab Beetle 108, 119n1 scene-setting instructions 173 Scott, Mike 3 screen AD: vs. art AD 15; features 26; language 24–25 sculpture ADs 179, 181 sculptures 104; adverbs 118–119; body parts 113–116, 114–115; corpus overview 105, 104–106, 106; lexical specificities 112– 119; material names 116–118, 116; tense, aspect, and modality

108–112; typifying verbs 107–108 Secchi, Loretta 158, 174 second person pronoun (you) 139–141 second-person referencing 139 semiotically complex texts 9–11; translating 10 single directional prepositions 146 skilled human guide 153n6, 160 smell 50–51 Snyder, Joel 66n12 sound effects 48–49 standardised type-token ratio (STTR) 3 State Tactile Museum Omero in Ancona 158 St. Cecilia and the Angels (Delaroche) 168 Stephenson Railway Museum 169 Stephenson Railway Museum in North Shields 163, 168 Stewart, Iain 49 Stonehenge Visitor Centre 163 The Story of Art (Gombrich) 2 St Paul’s Cathedral 135, 153n4 Striped (Kandinsky) 90, 97 suggestion vs. imposition 151 Summer Days (O’Keeffe) 86 tactile maps 158 Tactile Painting Museum of Ancient and Modern Art Anteros in Bologna 158, 163 tactile verb 165; see also verb(s) tactile vision 159 target-oriented texts 139 Taylor, Christopher 66n12 tense: in art AD 83; paintings 83–87; past 133; present 133; sculptures 108–112; touch tours and 166–167 text-to-speech audio description (TTS AD) 66n11 text type: ADs 23; vs. genre 22 Thatcher, Margaret 14 third-person narration 181 third-person writing see writing, third person TIME magazine 4 topic-specific verbs 133 touch defensiveness 165–166, 181 touch-defensive user 167

188 Index touch tours 157–177; art and 157– 161; aspect 166–167; corpus 161–163, 162, 163; exploration process 170–177; lexical specificities 167–170; modality 166–167; tense and 166–167; typifying verbs 164–166 tour structure: AD tours 126–131, 127, 129 transcreation 11, 50 translation: and accessibility 11–13; importance of 11; intersemiotic 12; non-interlingual forms of 12 Trunk of an Elm Tree (Constable) 98 Turner, W. 166; The Manby Apparatus 166 type-token ratio (TTR) 3, 7n1 typhlocommenting 15 typifying verbs: AD tours 132–134; paintings 78–82; sculptures 107–108; touch tours 164–166; see also verb(s) United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 11 United States customary system 151 usability 13 US Audio Description Associates, LLC 131 user 65n2; end-users 25, 62, 97, 121, 144, 152n1; physical or cognitive impediments 13; target 17–19; touch-defensive 167; user-centred concepts 12; user-dependent variables 3; visually impaired 10, 44, 61, 181; wheelchair 41 U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum 153n4 verb(s): action 24; AD language 24; architectural and interior

design realms 134; built 133; carpet 133; of choice 167; constructions 166; copular 133, 150; cover 133; explore 165; face 149; find 149; move 164; movement and stative 148; remember 142; role in directional language 148; stand 149; of vision 181 Victoria and Albert Gallery Text Writing Guidelines 41 Victoria and Albert Museum 163, 166, 168 video description see audio description (AD) da Vinci, Leonardo: Mona Lisa 10 The Virgin and Child in Egypt (Blake) 170 visitors’ engagement: AD tours 139–143 ‘visitor studies’ 125 visual disability 19–22 visual impairment 20–21 visually impaired museum-goers 151 visually impaired people/users/visitors 10, 44, 61, 144, 145, 181 vocabulary: and AD language 23; and audio describers 25 VocalEyes 65n6, 131 The Wall Street Journal 4 Walmer Castle 149, 150, 152n4 Waterloo Banquet (Salter) 86 white plaster reproduction 160 Wilkie, David: The Chelsea Pensioners Reading the Waterloo Dispatch 56 Wood, Joanna 53 WordSmith Tools 8 3, 7n1 working stages: AD tours 122–126 Wren, Christopher 135 writing, third person 97–100 al-Zaini, Jassim 158