The article presents a proposal for developing audio description (AD) guidelines in the form of strategies. The author refers to results of a study conducted as part of a European project ADLAB: Lifelong Access for the Blind. Following a qualitative ADprocess and -product analysis, the so-called “Audio Description Crisis Points” and the corresponding solutions were determined, which may form the basis for developing audio description strategies. In the second part of the article, the author proposes the application of the functional approach to AD, which has been used in both translation practice and theory. The adoption of such an approach would also be an argument for applying different audio description strategies, depending on the purpose of the AD, the text type and the target audience. It should be noted that such strategies would in no way contradict the existing AD standards, but would only supplement them.

Poland, a country of short audio description (AD) tradition, faces two major problems as far as AD implementation is concerned: lack of fi nancing and of experienced audio describers. The article presents the results from a three-stage study carried out in order to prove that translation of scripts written by experienced British audio describers into Polish in not only feasible but also less time- and therefore cost-consuming and in result the translation of audio description scripts could be an alternative method of script creation.

The paper presents a novel solution that aims to supplement audio description (AD): audio introduction. The fi rst part of the article tackles the problems connected with writing AD. Then the functions of the audio introduction are described, as well as its form and application. The further part of the paper consists of comparative analysis of two audio introductions, the English and the Polish one, to the fi lm Man on Wire. The analysis takes into account the audiences’ opinions on the audio introductions.

The article outlines a new type of audio description: auteur description, which aims to immerse the blind and partially sighted audience into the story world created by the auteur-director, as presented in the screenplay. Two fi lms: Volver by Pedro Almodóvar and Dzień Świra (The Day of the Wacko) by Marek Koterski, are used to highlight the main features of auteur description: the use of metaphors, emotional and marked language, subjective descriptions, all based on the screenplay text.

The aim of this paper is to present the results of a research study on the possibility of using audio description (AD) as an additional didactic tool in the education of the blind and partially sighted children. More specifi cally, the study meant to investigate whether and, if so, to what extent adding AD enhances the comprehension of educational fi lms among children and what the possible value of AD in educational settings could be. In addition, the underlying objective of the study was to raise the awareness among teachers about the importance of AD as a means to achieve audiovisual accessibility.
The filmic material employed for the purposes of the study consisted of three episodes from the educational animation series Once Upon a Time..., namely Once Upon a Time... Man (episode America), Once Upon a Time… Life (episode Blood) and Once Upon a Time… Discoverers (episode Newton). A total of 55 children participated in the study. After each screening, the children were invited to take part in a quiz competition, whose aim was to test their level of comprehension of the shown fi lm. To gather children’s responses, the researchers employed innovative clicker devices and supporting software from InterWrite PRS. Both the screenings and the questionnaires with clickers were greeted with much enthusiasm by children and they arouse interest and curiosity also among teachers. The study revealed that AD in educational fi lms helps to develop and retain specialised vocabulary. Moreover, it helps the children to follow the fi lm, thus improving its overall comprehension. It is the researchers’ assumption that AD, through its use of varied word choice, synonyms, metaphors and similes, can boost literacy of the blind and partially sighted children. Finally, a conclusion can be drawn that fi lms with AD could not only complement lessons, but also make them more enjoyable.

The aim of this article is to present audio description as a technique of subtle gaze direction during the perception of multimedia material. Multimedia educational materials dynamically take over the educational market. Substantial research findings support their effectiveness; however, there are also arguments pointing at difficulties in the perception of multimedia materials. In this paper we focus on two potential sources of these problems. The first source we associate with the design of multimedia. There are a number of rules that need to be followed when designing multimedia educational materials, such as the rule of multimodality or the rule of time and space coherence. The second source of the diffi culties we assign to the complexity of multimedia which may result in cognitive overload. As a solution we postulate to introduce audio description as a technique leading to the unity of image and sound. Supporting arguments come from eye-tracking studies on audio description in the education of sighted people. For example, primary school children watching a film with audio description concentrated their gaze more on the object highlighted in audio description than the control group what helps in the learning content understanding. The research overview positively verifies the potential role of audio description as a subtle gaze direction in the multimedia education of sighted people.

This article presents the results of the research concerned with perception of audio description amongst the teachers employed in special schools for the visually impaired in Poland. Due to the lack of data in this field, qualitative methods were used. 19 teachers from 3 special schools took part in the project, of which 11 in-depth interviews with teachers from two special schools were analysed. Questions focused on previous experiences with audio description and possibilities for wider application of this technique in educational settings. The results show that teachers know what AD is and their experiences with this technique are positive. Nonetheless AD is not widely used in education, although teachers admit that it has huge potential in this sphere and recommend its use in numerous didactical contexts. Furthermore, teachers offer a range of activities that could be undertaken to popularise AD in educational settings. Their recommendations concern writing scripts, distribution and promotion of AD.

Audio description is a technique used for making visual content accessible to people with visual impairments, i.e. the blind and partially sighted. Specially prepared descriptions allow them for independent and competent reception of fi lms, theatre and opera performances, works of art or sport events. The practice and theory of audio description focused primarily on researching and making accessible the descriptions added to audiovisual productions; the question of accessibility of museums and galleries was marginalized. It is the one, however, for years requiring theoretical considerations followed by practical implementation of the solutions developed. This article concentrates on two issues, namely how to convey in audio description the beauty inherent in every work of art, which creates unique aesthetic experience in its receiver, how long such audio description should last and how detailed it should be to meet the perceptive capabilities of the blind and partially sighted. In this article, audio description is subject to analysis carried out until now primarily in relation to literary texts. The author concentrates on the possibilities of conveying, in a verbal description extending over time, the visually perceived beauty, meaning perceived immediately, in the process lasting for a short time. The author also discusses the work of researchers focusing on intersemiotic translation and analyzing the borderline between literature and fi ne arts. Moreover, the article presents the notion of literary ekphrasis, being a description whose aim, while caring about the reader’s aesthetic experience, is to ensure that the reader becomes familiar with the described work of art. Is it possible for the audio description that makes museum exhibits accessible to its target audience to become a special type of ekphrasis? Or should it only draw on solutions proposed by the authors of ekphrases? This article poses the above questions to induce theoretical refl ection. It also points out that research aimed at evaluating the length and level of detail of audio description of the works of art carried out, for the fi rst time ever, by the Polish researchers is on the way to come, as soon as this year.

Audio description has been present in Poland since 2006. On the one hand, it is still very unfamiliar to the general public and fairly unknown even among its target group of visually impaired persons. On the other hand, there is a rapidly growing number of those who are actively involved in the production, distribution and promotion of audio description. They include registered charities, art galleries, museums, fi lm clubs and local culture centres, film festivals and distributors, companies offering Audio Visual Translation services, individual persons, research groups and universities offering courses in audio description. Audio description in Poland is prepared, on a more or less regular basis, for television, cinema, theatre, museums, art galleries, exhibitions (both seasonal and permanent), historical and architecture tours, nature paths and sports events. A new application of audio description was added to that list in 2011, that is audio description used for describing photographs, illustrations and graphics in newspapers and magazines. The aim of this paper is to present the development and the current situation of audio description for the press in Poland. The paper also offers a set of exercises which may be used in the training of audio describers for press illustrations.

Audio description to films is about understanding emotions and body language expressed by actors; in other words, it is about translating film language into the language of audio description. As a result, AD logically and consistently builds up tension and describes confl icts between film characters, who are followed by viewers through different twists and turns until the end of the film. Such audio description makes it possible for viewers to perceive a film as a coherent whole. It also engages them into the film, making its reception rewarding. Last but not least, it provides viewers with the same emotions they would experience if they were watching the film as their sighted counterparts.

In 2012 Poland and Ukraine hosted Euro 2012. It is worth mentioning that all 31 matches in 8 cities were audio described. Audio description (AD) was a part of the UEFA EURO 2012 Respect Inclusion – Football with No Limits project. This article is an attempt to summarise the implementation of AD during Euro 2012 and to evaluate its impact on the development of AD in Poland. Could AD fi nally be provided during mainstream events, by big institutions cooperating with each other? Could this be a chance for the foundations to join forces and to benefi t from the attention given to this service in the media? Will AD become a fully professional activity performed on a national-wide scale? Last but not least, the notion of simultaneous audio description shall be introduced. Similarities between simultaneous AD and interpreting shall be briefl y discussed, as well as possibilities of including this technique in the curricula of translation studies.

The article focuses on three different versions of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland created by the very same Polish translator, Antoni Marianowicz (1924–2003), in the second half of the twentieth century. The paper initially describes his unabridged and frequently reprinted 1955 Polish translation of Alice, then discusses the musical adaptation from 1975, to fi nally concentrate on the third version, i.e. his 1996 translation of a picture book originally published by Disney corporation. The subsequent Polish versions of Alice were published at an interval of almost exactly twenty years, most probably making Marianowicz the only translator who retold Alice’s adventures in Polish at three different points in the twentieth century. The article highlights the distinguishing features of the three Polish Alices, explains what other texts, apart from Carroll’s original, these versions are indebted to, as well as examines the possibilities they offered to the translator and the ways in which they limited the translator’s imagination.

This review of Agata Brajerska-Mazur’s Filutka z filigranu paraduje w cudzym losie. Wisława Szymborska w anglojęzycznym przekładzie Stanisława Barańczaka i Clare Cavanagh includes a brief presentation of the author’s methodological approach. In particular, it focuses on the catena method which Brajerska-Mazur applies to the analysis of Wisława Szymborska’s poems with a view of producing a translation brief. The brief then is used as a yardstick to assess the quality of Barańczak’s translations. According to the author, the catena method allows her to establish translational proprieties much more objectively than Barańczak’s arbitrary semantic dominant. It is argued that, although the book presents a meticulous overview of the reception and criticism of Szymborska’s poetry, the method applied by the author, contrary to the her claims, is not objective and some of her assessments are arbitrary and prescriptive.

The aim of the paper is to discuss the book by Magdalena Pytlak on Polish and Bulgarian translations of Dostoyevski’s novel The Devils. Pytlak presents a diachronic analysis of the presence of Dostoyevski’s work in both contexts and singles out the canonical translations for each of them: Zagórski/Podgórzec for Polish and Rajczew for Bulgarian ones. Bachtin’s notion of narrative polyphony is the main methodological tool Pytlak uses. Conclusions drawn for the detailed analysis of translation series in both languages concern the level of trust on the part of the translator towards both the writer and the reader. The translator’s task is not to explain but let the reader decide for themselves as to the interpretation of the translated text. This controversial idea is an object of discussion in the present paper.