Didactic Audiovisual Translation: Action-oriented Interlingual SDH in the MFL Classroom

Abstract

This paper discusses the uses and applications of interlingual subtitling for the d/Deaf and hard of hearing (SDH) in the language classroom and builds on a pilot experiment involving over a hundred students who partook in a didactic initiative based on the use of SDH.

The present study forms part of the TRADILEX (2020–2023) international project, which draws on action-oriented approaches to produce didactic sequences of didactic audiovisual translation (AVT) and media accessibility (MA) tasks in foreign language education (FLE).

A pilot experiment involving didactic interlingual captioning (Spanish into English) was carried out with two cohorts of students (N = 104) from two undergraduate programmes at a Spanish higher-education institution. The results shed light on the students’ perception of didactic SDH, as well as the pedagogical benefits of learning English by captioning video clips. The students boosted their translation skills in different ways, and awareness was raised on the importance of analysing visual, acoustic and paralinguistic information when localising clips.

Ultimately, this paper examines the potential benefits of action-oriented captioning tasks and advocates for integrating didactic AVT-MA into the FLE curriculum.