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Title: Audiovisual Translation and Media Accessibility in Education

Audiovisual Translation and Media Accessibility in Education

by Margherita Dore (Volume editor) Alejandro Bolaños García-Escribano (Volume editor) Stavroula Sokoli (Volume editor)
©2026 Edited Collection XIV, 228 Pages
Linguistics
Open Access
Series: New Trends in Translation Studies, Volume 45

Summary

‘Didactic audiovisual translation has moved well beyond proof of concept, and this volume takes stock of where it now stands. It offers empirically grounded evidence and a clear-eyed account of the questions the field must now answer.’ – Alberto Fernández Costales, Full Professor in Language Education, University of Oviedo
‘A timely addition to the growing scholarship on audiovisual translation and language education, this volume creatively showcases how subtitling, dubbing, audio description and other accessible media practices can be successfully harnessed in language learning, translator training and inclusive education.’ – Valentina Ragni, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Warsaw
Audiovisual translation and media accessibility have moved from the margins of language education to its centre, reshaping how learners engage with language, culture and meaning. This volume examines that transformation and asks where it may lead next. Bringing together contributions from researchers and practitioners from around the world, the various chapters explore the pedagogical uses of subtitling, dubbing, audio description, voiceover and accessible filmmaking in foreign language and translator education. It addresses the theoretical frameworks, platform ecologies and institutional conditions that shape these practices, and it confronts the unresolved questions that a growing body of evidence has brought into focus, about methodology, about terminology, and about what learners actually gain when they work as producers of audiovisual content rather than consumers.

Table Of Contents

  • Cover
  • Title Page
  • Copyright Page
  • Contents
  • List of Figures
  • List of Tables
  • Acknowledgements
  • Foreword (Patrick Zabalbeascoa)
  • Introduction: Audiovisual Translation and Media Accessibility in Language Education: Looking Back and Moving Forward (Margherita Dore, Alejandro Bolaños García-Escribano and Stavroula Sokoli)
  • 0.1. Introduction
  • 0.2. Looking Back
  • 0.2.1. Past Projects
  • 0.2.1.1. LeViS and ClipFlair
  • 0.2.1.2. TRADILEX
  • 0.2.1.3. SL@VT
  • 0.3. Where this Collection Stands
  • 0.4. Moving Forward
  • Acknowledgements
  • Bibliography
  • 1 Didactic Audiovisual Translation Applied to Translation Training: The TranslateDAT Project (Mar Ogea Pozo and Carla Botella Tejera)
  • 1.1. Introduction
  • 1.2. Theoretical Background: DAT and Specialised Translation
  • 1.2.1. The Foundations of Didactic Audiovisual Translation
  • 1.2.2. The TRADILEX Methodology
  • 1.2.3. DAT in Translation Training
  • 1.3. The TranslateDAT Project
  • 1.3.1. Objectives and Scope
  • 1.3.2. Pedagogical Foundations
  • 1.3.3. Alignment with EFFORT Competences
  • 1.3.4. TranslateDAT Methodology
  • 1.3.4.1. Structure of the TranslateDAT Lesson Plans
  • 1.3.4.2. DAT Modalities and Educational Scenario
  • 1.3.5. Towards the Design of a Competence-Based Model of Learning Assessment in TranslateDAT
  • 1.4. Conclusions
  • Bibliography
  • 2 Didactic Audiovisual Translation to Improve English Proficiency and Reader Self-perception Skills: The LitDAT Project (Noa Talaván and José Javier Ávila Cabrera)
  • 2.1. Introduction
  • 2.2. Literature Review
  • 2.3. Methodology
  • 2.3.1. Participants and Context
  • 2.3.2. Research Design
  • 2.3.2.1. Research Questions
  • 2.3.2.2. Materials
  • 2.4. Data Analysis and Discussion
  • 2.4.1. Language Test
  • 2.4.2. Reader Self-Perception Scale 2
  • 2.4.3. Qualitative Items
  • 2.5. Conclusion
  • Funding
  • Acknowledgements
  • Bibliography
  • Appendices
  • Appendix 2.1. The Reader Self-Perception Scale 2 (Henk et al. 2012: 314)
  • Appendix 2.2. Qualitative Items Included in the Instrument
  • Appendix 2.3. Lesson Plan 1
  • Appendix 2.4. Lesson Plan 2
  • Appendix 2.5. Lesson Plan 3
  • Appendix 2.6. Lesson Plan 4
  • 3 Audiovisual Translation and Media Accessibility Training: Terminology and Culture in Texts on Eating Disorders (Maribel Tercedor Sánchez and Clara Inés López Rodríguez)
  • 3.1. Introduction: Eating Disorders, the ‘Silent Epidemic’
  • 3.2. Social Media and Multimodality for Accessible Public Health Communication and Education
  • 3.3. Methods Linking Specialised Knowledge, Accessibility and Classroom Audiovisual Translation Tasks in the EIMITA Project
  • 3.4. Challenges in the Translation of Multimodal Texts on Eating Disorders
  • 3.4.1. The Importance of Selecting Reliable Sources of Information
  • 3.4.2. Terminology and Term Variation in Subtitling
  • 3.4.3. Application of Guidelines and Standards: Technical Constraints and Their Impact on Terminology and Word Choice
  • 3.4.4. Creative Translation and Transcreation
  • 3.4.5. Translating Gender
  • 3.4.6. Translating Culture
  • 3.5. Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Bibliography
  • 4 The Integration of Subtitles in Healthcare Education to Facilitate Medical Terminology Acquisition: An Innovative Approach for ESP Classes (Noelia Marqués Cobeta)
  • 4.1. Introduction
  • 4.2. Theoretical Framework
  • 4.3. Pedagogical Intervention: An Applied Activity for Physiotherapy Students
  • 4.4. Results of the Questionnaire
  • 4.5. Discussion
  • 4.6. Conclusions
  • Bibliography
  • 5 Engineering Better Oral Production Skills: The Impact of Didactic Dubbing in ESP Contexts (Paula Buil Beltrán and Pilar González Vera)
  • 5.1. Introduction
  • 5.2. Theoretical Background: Didactic Dubbing (DD)
  • 5.3. The Study
  • 5.3.1. Context and Methodology
  • 5.3.2. Participants and Instruments
  • 5.3.2.1. Pre-questionnaire and Post-questionnaire
  • 5.3.2.2. Dubbing Lesson Plans
  • 5.3.2.3. Oral Production Test
  • 5.4. Analysis and Discussion
  • 5.4.1. Analysis of the Pre-questionnaire and Post-questionnaire
  • 5.4.2. Comparison of the Dubbing Tasks
  • 5.4.3. Comparison of the Oral Production Tests
  • 5.5. Conclusion
  • Bibliography
  • Appendices
  • Appendix 5.1. Pre-questionnaire Dimensions and Items
  • Appendix 5.2. Post-questionnaire Dimensions and Items
  • Appendix 5.3. DSe1: Interviews
  • Appendix 5.4. DSe2: Pitch Presentation
  • Appendix 5.5. DSe3: Phone and Video Calls
  • Appendix 5.6. Dubbing Rubric
  • Appendix 5.7. Oral production Rubric
  • 6 The Use of Cooperative Audio Description Written Tasks to Teach English as a Foreign Language in the Brazilian State-School Context (José Rildo Reis da Silva and Patrícia Araújo Vieira)
  • 6.1. Introduction
  • 6.2. Theoretical Foundations
  • 6.2.1. Audiovisual Translation and Language Teaching
  • 6.2.2. Didactic Audio Description: Concepts and Possibilities
  • 6.2.3. Relevance of Audio Description in Language Teaching
  • 6.2.4. AD and Textbooks: Multimodality and Accessibility
  • 6.2.5. Cooperative Learning as a Methodological Strategy
  • 6.3. Methodology
  • 6.3.1. Nature and Characteristics of the Research
  • 6.3.2. Participants and Research Context
  • 6.3.3. Data Collection Instruments
  • 6.3.4. Structure and Development of the Workshop
  • 6.3.5. Data Analysis Procedures
  • 6.4. Results and Analysis
  • 6.4.1. Participant Profile – Survey Questionnaire
  • 6.4.2. Pre-test Performance
  • 6.4.2.1. Self-Description
  • 6.4.2.2. Description of a Photograph
  • 6.4.2.3. Description of a Graph
  • 6.4.2.4. Pre-test Rubric Scores
  • 6.4.3. Post-test Performance
  • 6.4.3.1. Self-AD in a Live Event
  • 6.4.3.2. Description of a Photograph
  • 6.4.3.3. Description of a Cartoon
  • 6.4.4. Comparative Analysis of Pre- and Post-test Results
  • 6.5. Discussion
  • 6.6. Concluding Remarks
  • Bibliography
  • 7 Mediating the Visual: Contrasting Human- and AI-Generated Audio Descriptions in the Language Classroom (Alessandra Rizzo)
  • 7.1. Introduction
  • 7.2. Literature Review
  • 7.2.1. Technology and AI
  • 7.2.2. Mediation
  • 7.3. Theoretical Background
  • 7.4. Methodology
  • 7.4.1. Bloom’s Educational Sections
  • 7.4.2. Aims and the Learner Subgroup
  • 7.4.3. Cloud-based AD Platform: Frazier
  • 7.5. Results and Discussion
  • 7.5.1. Activation of Mediation Skills, Descriptors and Narrativisation
  • 7.5.2. AI Versus Human
  • 7.6. Concluding Remarks
  • Bibliography
  • 8 Accessible Filming for Inclusivity and Resilience: A Proposal for Students as Producers (Marga Navarrete, Mazal Oaknín, Rachel Perowne and Leslie Gutman)
  • 8.1. Introduction
  • 8.2. Didactic Audiovisual Translation and Accessible Filmmaking
  • 8.3. Aims and Context of Project
  • 8.4. Methodological Design of the Pilot Intervention
  • 8.5. Recruitment of Participants
  • 8.5.1. Syllabi Adaptions and Resources Used
  • 8.6. Intervention: Accessible Short Films as a Language Learning Task
  • 8.7. Preliminary Results
  • 8.8. Conclusions
  • Bibliography
  • Notes on Contributors
  • Index

Figures

Figure 2.1: Layout of the sequence Subtitling and Literature in the TRADILEX platform

Figure 2.2: Pre- and post-language tests raincloud plot

Figure 2.3: Pre- and post-RSPS2 tests raincloud plot

Figure 3.1: English-Spanish alignments in the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus

Figure 3.2: Terminological variants of eating disorders in VariMed

Figure 3.3: Terminological options prompted with the Language Reactor tool

Figure 3.4: Intentional variants in the Spanish translation of the concept ‘cheat meal’

Figure 3.5: Subtitle master file of the video Eating Disorders Awareness

Figure 3.6: Spanish subtitles of the video Eating Disorders Awareness

Figure 3.7: File preparation for character count in Excel

Figure 3.8: Subtitles showing image-text interdependency

Figure 3.9: Creative subtitling for explicitation purposes

Figure 3.10: Selection of creative translations of the slogan ‘Let’s be bodykind’ and the related text ‘bodykind families’

Figure 3.11: Random concordances of cultura de la dieta in the EsTenTen23 corpus

Figure 3.12: Gender-inclusive language in Spanish for the Source ‘A friend (or yourself) saying “I feel fat”’

Figure 3.13: Translation of religious references proposed by students

Figure 4.1: Questionnaire results

Figure 5.1: Self-reported resources used by participants to practise English

Figure 5.2: Students perceived improvement in language skills after dubbing activities

Figure 5.3: Distribution of positive and negative differences in dubbing tasks 1 and 2

Figure 5.4: Distribution of positive and negative differences in dubbing tasks 2 and 3

Figure 5.5: Distribution of positive and negative differences in dubbing tasks 1 and 3

Figure 5.6: Distribution of positive and negative differences in Initial and Final Oral Production Test

Figure 7.1: Interface of Frazier

Figure 7.2: Comments section on Frazier

Figure 7.3: An extract from a learner’s AD script downloaded in RTF format

Figure 8.1: Seligman’s (2011) PERMA Model of Wellbeing

Tables

Table 1.1: The TRADILEX Methodology (Talaván & Lertola 2022)

Table 1.2: Model of Lesson Plans in TranslateDAT based on the TRADILEX methodology

Table 1.3: Competence Mapping across Lesson Plan Phases

Table 1.4: Proposal of LPs in TranslateDAT

Table 1.5: Structure of the questionnaire on learning assessment in TranslateDAT

Table 2.1: Timeline for LitDAT intervention

Table 2.2: Pre- and post-language test results

Table 2.3: Normality test (Shapiro–Wilk) for pre-test and post-test scores

Table 2.4: Paired samples t-test for pre-test and post-test scores

Table 2.5: Descriptive statistics for RSPS2 pre-test and post-test scores

Table 2.6: Paired samples t-test for RSPS 2 scores

Table 3.1: Wrong translation solutions for ‘Ana’, ‘Mia’ and ‘in-patient’

Table 3.2: Omission of difficult term and use of an imaginative solution

Table 4.1: Respondents’ feedback

Table 4.2: Question 1: Usefulness of pre-video activities (n = 49)

Table 4.3: Question 2: Comprehension during first video viewing (n = 49)

Table 4.4: Question 3: Usefulness of subtitles (n = 49)

Table 4.5: Question 4: Overall perception of the activity (n = 49)

Table 6.1: Workshop lesson plan

Table 6.2: Rubric for assessing written productions

Table 6.3: Comparative scores in pre-test and post-test

Table 7.1: Aims, learners and general design

Table 7.2: Assessment question (on Frazier)

Table 7.3: Semantic areas identified in the (learner) human-generated AD scripts

Table 7.4: Extracts from AI-generated AD scripts

Table 7.5: AD script excerpts across the three participants in the study

Table 7.6: Examples of aristocratic jargon in the three participants’ ADs

Table 7.7: Comparative results: Netflix, learners and ChatGPT-5

Table 8.1: Nine-week short film process

Acknowledgements

This volume has been published in Gold Open Access as part of two projects funded by Sapienza University of Rome: ‘SL@VT: audiovisual tools and methodologies to Enhance Second Language Acquisition and Learning’ (CUP: B87G22001200001) and ‘ELICIT@Global. European Linguistic and Literary CITzenship in Global Perspective. New Research Directions and Pedagogical Tools for an Ethical Constitution of Texts’ (CUP: B83C24000170005).

We would like to express our sincere thanks to the series editor, Jorge Díaz Cintas, and Laurel Plapp and the editorial team at Peter Lang.

We would also like to acknowledge the insights provided by the external reviewers who took part in the double-blind peer review process for the selection of the contributions that have been included in this edited collection.

Foreword

Patrick Zabalbeascoa

‘Learn a new language while watching videos!’ The appeal is clear and easy to appreciate. ‘Learn a new language by translating!’ does not have the same ring to it at all and has been resisted by users and language learning experts alike. So, the audiovisual component of this approach to language education, as exposed in this book, requires less explanation and defence, it would seem, than translation. A somewhat unstated implication seems to be that in a globalised, multicultural world, various forms of translation are widespread in audiovisual consumption, so if you like audiovisuals you are going to have to take translation as part and parcel of the whole experience.

Whereas videos in foreign language learning (FLL) seemed like a natural progression from illustrations, photos, body language, props and role-play performances, the evolution of translation was more sketchy, patchy and even controversial, associated as it was to old-school methods of teaching dead languages and flying in the face of the findings of well-researched FLL methods, like the direct method, the natural method and the communicative method, which most had in common the mantra of ‘no mother tongue’, which, in turn amounted to ‘ban any use or mention of all other languages than the one being taught’. A factor that has helped promote audiovisuals even further and get translation out of the dog’s house was the progressive digitisation of everything and the spread of the internet and devices, especially laptops, tablets and smartphones.

Details

Pages
XIV, 228
Publication Year
2026
ISBN (PDF)
9781805844372
ISBN (ePUB)
9781805844389
ISBN (Softcover)
9781805844396
DOI
10.3726/b23629
Open Access
CC-BY
Language
English
Publication date
2026 (November)
Keywords
audiovisual translation media accessibility language education subtitling dubbing audio description translator training multimodal learning task-based language teaching pedagogical AVT captioning revoicing CEFR generative AI accessibility
Published
Oxford, Berlin, Bruxelles, Chennai, Lausanne, New York, 2026. xiv, 228 pp., 24 fig. col., 3 fig. b/w, 41 tables.
Product Safety
Peter Lang Group AG

Biographical notes

Margherita Dore (Volume editor) Alejandro Bolaños García-Escribano (Volume editor) Stavroula Sokoli (Volume editor)

Margherita Dore is Associate Professor at Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. Alejandro Bolaños García-Escribano is Associate Professor at University College London, UK. Stavroula Sokoli is Senior Researcher in Audiovisual Translation at the Computer Technology Institute Diophantus and Lecturer at the Hellenic Open University, Greece.

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Title: Audiovisual Translation and Media Accessibility in Education