Whereas the comparison of AD with other genres was very common in the beginning of research in AD (e.g. Kautz (1995) about AD and radio plays), the focus has now shifted to the definition of AD as a genre in its own right. Single topics within this strand of research include analyses of typical sentence structures or narrative structures (e.g. Fix 2005) or the use of prototypes (e.g. Braun n.d.). Although the recognition of AD as a genre is important in its consequences for research as well as for the public attitude towards AD, influences of other genres cannot be denied. These influences are manifest not only in the use of structures but also, and even more so, in prosody conventions borrowed from other planned oral genres. Now that the position of AD as a genre is relatively stable, actual AD may use these genres as a help rather than see them as a hindrance and profit from experiences and conventions which have developed there. This paper deals with radio features and voice-over video narrations and tries to show how AD might draw creative impulses from them. The extracts from these genres in focus deal with the description of rooms and people.

References
Fix, U. (ed.)(2005). Hörfilme. Berlin: Erich Schmitt.
Braun, S. (n.d.) "Audio Description from a discourse perspective", http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/ translation/1
Kautz, H. (1995.: Audiodeskription. Diplomarbeit, Berlin.

Heike ELISABETH JÜNGST is currently employed as a professor of Translation Studies at the Würzburg University of Applied Sciences (Germany). Her main areas of research are audiovisual translation, interpreting and word-picture relationships. She also works as a translator for AV texts.