Neutrality in Audio Descriptions of Paintings: An Appraisal System-based Study of Corpora in English and Portuguese

Abstract

Appraisal analysis in translation focuses on ‘critical points’ of translators’ decision-making that indicate their subjectivity and/or ideology in the translation of specific genres. Following suit, this article investigates the audio descriptions of paintings using appraisal analysis. It analyses, from the viewpoint of neutrality (defined as the absence of subjectivity due to a lack of evaluation/interpretation) as a professional expectation, two small corpora of audio description scripts of paintings (one with six scripts in English, and the other with six scripts in Portuguese). The aim is to investigate the similarity/difference of the scripts in each language as far as the presence/absence of evaluation/ interpretation. The paper focuses on the feelings elicited by the paintings; the audio describers’ values regarding what they say in the audio descriptions and in dialog with other texts; the amplification/reduction of the degree of their evaluations/interpretations, if any. The analysis is carried out from a systemic-functional perspective through Appraisal systems: attitude (emotive/ethical/ aesthetic feelings), engagement (monoglossic/ heteroglossic stances), and graduation (‘force’/’focus’ evaluations). The results show that all appraisal subtypes are present in the scripts regardless of language. Tentatively, we may say that the evaluative style of the corpora seems to be marked by a tendency for attitudinal appraisals of aesthetic appreciation and by graduation of the force of those appreciations. Appraisal system seems to be capable of offering audiovisual translation, and audio description within it, the means to demonstrate that neutrality is not a given parameter of the mode (American Audio Description Coalition, 2007-2008).