Since the pioneering work of the 1990s, research on multimodality has expanded and it now includes the analysis of web pages, film texts and genres, along with the study of the printed page and static images. Multimodal transcription is one of the methodologies devised for the examination of film texts and genres, and it is applied successfully in much of this kind of research. In spite of the obvious interface between multimodality and AVT, very little has been done in terms of methodology to join the two approaches. Taylor (2003, 2004) seems to be one of the fewest examples of research based on multimodal transcription of films and novice subtitlers’ training. The present work in progress aims to replicate this investigation with novice subtitlers and audio describers in Brazil. Our hypothesis is that multimodal transcription could also be a tool to teach future expert translators to handle text analysis and multi-media technology for successful subtitling and audio description. This paper analyses an extract of a Brazilian feature film (The Grain) audio described for the visually impaired, in two steps. The first part focuses on the genre with a special focus on multimodality; the second part focuses on students’ audio descriptions of the film within the framework of audiovisual translation. Multimodal transcription is used to divide the extract into functional chunks and the audio description is tested against the semiotic, multimodal meanings obtained with the transcription. Besides finding an inroad into audio anchored in multimodality, our final purpose is to devise a model to be used in translation education that combines multimodality and audiovisual translation.

Vera LÚCIA SANTIAGO ARAÚJO has a PhD from the University of Sao Paulo (Brazil), with a dissertation on the translation of clichés in dubbing and subtitling (META, 49/1, 2004). Currently, she teaches EFL and Translation at the State University of Ceará (Brazil) and is a certified researcher with the Brazilian Government, CNPq. She carries out research on audiovisual accessibility: audio description (AD) and subtitling for the deaf and hard of hearing (SDH). Some of her papers have been published in The Translator (9/2, 2003), Topics in Audiovisual Translation (edited by Pilar Orero, John Benjamins: 2004) and The Didactics of AVT (edited by Jorge Diaz Cintas, 2008).