Accessibility of subtitling for the hearing-impaired

Abstract

The paper aims at answering the question how to improve accessibility of subtitling for the hearing-impaired. One of the most frequently asked questions in captioning is whether captions should be edited or verbatim. e paper reports on the results of an eye-tracking study on captioning for the hearing-impaired, reading different types of captions. By examining eye movement patterns when watching clips with verbatim, standard and edited captions, we tested whether the three different caption styles were read differently by deaf, hard of hearing and hearing participants. In terms of group differences, deaf participants differed from the other two groups only in the case of reading verbatim captions. The results are discussed with reference to classical reading studies, audiovisual translation and a new concept of viewing speed.