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, Sara Rovira-Esteva (codir. tes.) , Miquel Edo Julià (secret.) , Eva Espasa Borrás (voc.) Despite China being the country with most disabled people in the world, the provision of media accessibility services and their academic study are still in their infancy, including audio description. Audio description is a “description of visual information delivered via an audio channel” (Salway, 2007, p. 151) catering people with sigh loss, but not exclusively. Audio description is currently mainly offered in the so-called “first-tier cities” in China, such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. This is not surprising considering that the provision of audio description relies on the priorities of each regional government, along with grassroot initiatives. The academic side of audio description does not come off better, although the state of Audio-visual Translation is quite vibrant in China. In the light of the apparent precarious state of audio description and the challenges it still has to face in China, the present thesis sets out to not only contextualise audio description in the country as a first step to launch academic research on the topic, but also offers an audio description-related alternative that will facilitate the provision of audio description. More specifically, the general aims of this thesis are the following. First, to describe the history and the current state of audio description in Mainland China, both as an access service and as an object of study, with special focus on the city of Shanghai. This is carried out by reviewing the history and the current state of audio description in China; profiling audio describers in Mainland China; investigating the habits, needs and satisfaction of audio description users towards this access service; and analysing some unpublished Chinese audio description guidelines currently in use, especially for training purposes. Second, to compare the Chinese case with the European context regarding the aspects mentioned in the first objective. Third, to determine whether text-to-speech audio description can be accepted in movies in China. The methodology employed includes questionnaires, interviews and a focus group, all of which were distributed or carried out in China. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected. The results confirm that audio description in Mainland China is still in its infancy, both as professional practice and as an object of study, especially when compared to some countries in the West. It is mainly offered in films and thanks to volunteers, who usually either write the scripts or voice them. Our user participants were mainly retired old people with little or no education that consume audio described films quite frequently mainly for entertainment purposes. They are all satisfied with the service provided so far, despite it not being delivered by persons who have been professionally trained in this field. Regarding our reception study, the results show that, although natural voices have statistically higher scores than synthetic voices, these can be viewed as both an interim alternative and even as a permanent solution by our participants if that translates into more access to audio described movies. The findings offer important insights into the situation of audio description in China, especially in Shanghai, and recommendations are put forward for future developments to serve the community.
