An Introduction to Audio Description

An Introduction to Audio Description is the first comprehensive, user-friendly student guide to the theory and practice of audio description, or media narration, providing readers with the skills needed for the effective translation of images into words for the blind and partially-sighted.


A wide range of examples – from film to multimedia events and touch tours in theatre, along with comments throughout from audio description users, serve to illustrate the following key themes:

the history of audio description

the audience

the legal background

how to write, prepare and deliver a script.



Covering the key genres of audio description and supplemented with exercises and discussion points throughout, this is the essential textbook for all students and translators involved in the practice of audio description. Accompanying film clips are also available at: https://www.routledge.com/products/9781138848177 and on the Routledge Translation Studies Portal: http://cw.routledge.com/textbooks/translationstudies/.