Audiovisual translation and media accessibility in language learning contexts. Multiple modes, innovative practices and further explorations

This special issue – which lies at the interface of translation studies (TS), media accessibility (MA) and language acquisition (LA) – brings together a selection of studies representative of current research strands in the field of audiovisual translation (AVT) in foreign language education (FLE). It comprises five contributions, which are mostly experiment-based and practice-related, and deal with a plurality of integrated perspectives, a variety of audiovisual (AV) modes, a range of learning and teaching contexts, a scale of language levels and different language combinations. Significantly, the contributions focus on still under-researched areas, such as the involvement of alternative AV modes to dubbing and subtitling, the most recent integration of MA practices such as subtitling for the deaf and hard of hearing (SDH) – in its less common interlingual mode –, and audio description (AD) addressed to visually impaired audiences, along with more traditional subtitling practices albeit with a metalinguistic value (mainly sociolinguistic and pragmatic) and the less common use of so-called reverse subtitles. Furthermore, many of the activities proposed by the authors are action-oriented tasks, in which learners are actively involved in creating AVT material, also thanks to the most recent free software applications. Technology plays a major role in some of the contributions, as well as the multi-faceted learning and teaching environments of current educational settings, including not only face-to-face but also e-learning and distant learning experiences. Although technological skills, combined with language skills, are a key element in various contributions, all articles also share a focus on ‘awareness raising’ concerning, by turns, different issues, from reflecting on social inclusion, thanks to the use of accessibility modes, to gaining a better understanding of semiotic codes or of a transposition of one code into another in intersemiotic modes as well as film literacy; from increasing one’s own appreciation of intercultural differences and thus laying the ground for achieving an intercultural competence to thinking about one’s own translational skills while only watching reverse subtitling. AVT is seen as a vibrant research and applied area, now innovatively combined with MA, whose fruitfulness is made evident in the issue by means of its main facets.