Abstract
In this chapter we consider the feasibility of using audio description (AD) as a method for enhancing cognitive, rather than physical, audiovisual accessibility. It is based on a study that centres on remodelling AD for an entirely new audience: individuals experiencing emotion recognition difficulties (ERD) which make identifying the affective states of protagonists portrayed in narratively simulated social situations more challenging. As an alternative to applying standard AD techniques we adopt a purpose-driven approach, trialling bespoke AD focused on reinforcing the emotional subtext and causal links in audiovisual material, with the intention of improving narrative comprehension and thus enhancing general cognitive availability. Working with an audience of young individuals on the autism spectrum, our study considers two approaches to remodelling AD for emotion recognition. The first ERD-specific approach, derived from an endgame-oriented text typology (Reiss, in Nord, 1997: 37–38) that was primarily ‘operative’, resulted in target texts which were descriptive in nature (‘EMO-AD’); by contrast our second ERD variant, evolved from a text type grounded in an ‘operative-expressive’ aesthetic, took the form of a more interpretive text (‘CXT-AD’). For the sake of completeness each of these ERD-AD variants was compared, according to content and style, with standard AD designed for sight-impaired audiences (‘BVI-AD’).