A narratological approach to content selection in audio description: towards a strategy for the description of narratological time

Abstract

As more and more countries start to provide audio description services for a growing range of products and events, research into this new discipline is growing and diversifying as well. Two questions that seem to be at the heart of much of this research focus on what should be described and how this should be done, in other words on content selection and formulation of the description. The present article looks at the first of these two questions and approaches it from a narratological point of view. After a general discussion of the use of narratology for audio description, the focus will shift to one particular constituent of narrative, namely time. The different temporal aspects will be discussed in greater detail, after which a strategy for the audio description of time in film will be proposed.