French subtitling conventions are unique in many aspects: their sound and music representations, and particularly their use of colours for filmic voices and not character identification. Following the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) recommendation towards harmonisation existing conventions need to be challenged in order to address users’ needs.
The first part of the presentation will be an overview of the current subtitles for deaf and hard-of-hearing landscape in France on television focusing on the five channels which have to follow French Broadcasting Regulations from 2005 – which follows EC directives. The second part deals with an analysis of the effectiveness of pre-recorded SDH using a selected corpus. The presentation will address the issue by analysing subtitles for deaf and hard-of-hearing in France in a prescriptive way in order to check their reception by users. Many examples from broadcast subtitles will be used to illustrate the presentation.

Laetitia MULLER holds a BA in English studies from Paris IV La Sorbonne (France), a Diploma in Translation from City University (UK), and a Master of Audiovisual Translation from Roehampton University (UK). She is working on her PhD on the topic of Subtitling for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in France, at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain).