# Audio description translation from Spanish into Chinese as an alternative to creating audio description: A reception study

Yuchen Liu

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

## Abstract

This article presents a reception study with Chinese audio description (AD) users to investigate the feasibility of AD translation by having them evaluate three AD versions for the Spanish movie *The Invisible Guest* (Paulo, 2017): one created from scratch in Chinese, another translated from the Spanish AD script, and a third translated from the Spanish script and localised into Chinese. A questionnaire including questions on demographic information, comprehension, presence, and overall satisfaction with quality was used to measure participants' viewing experience. Some participants also offered personal feedback after AD viewing. The results show that the Chinese AD received the highest mean score, followed by the Localised AD and the Translated AD, although a statistically significant difference is only observed between the Chinese AD and the Translated AD. Furthermore, there is no relevant difference between the three AD versions regarding comprehension or presence. Consequently, it can be claimed that AD translation may be an alternative for creating AD in Chinese, and localisation can potentially give greater user satisfaction overall compared to literal translation.

## Keywords

audio description translation, Spanish-Chinese, presence, localisation, reception study
# 1. Introduction

One of the main obstacles facing audio description (AD) in China is copyright infringement due to the lack of legal guarantees, which do not explicitly include the fair use of AD products. Consequently, it has not been easy to get permission from the copyright holder of the original audiovisual work to create and disseminate AD since its start as a volunteer-dependent service around 2005 (Tor-Carroggio & Casas-Tost, 2020). However, in 2021, Chinese AD stakeholders were finally able to welcome two legal initiatives concerning this issue. The first concerns the decision to observe the Marrakesh VIP Treaty (MVT) (WIPO, 2013), which is a treaty on copyright aimed at facilitating access to works for persons with partial or total sight loss or other print disabilities. As a consequence of this, the Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China (中华人民共和国著作权法, Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo Zhuzuo Quanfa) has recently been amended to add a new exemption for providing accessible formats of published works, including audio-visual products, for people with print disabilities (articles 3 & 24)<fnref n="1" />. This modification came into force on June 1, 2021. In addition, China, which had already signed the MVT as a contracting party in 2013, officially ratified this treaty on October 23, 2021, through the National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China²³. These two Chinese legislations should play a key role in providing a more adequate legal framework for AD standardisation in China. Nonetheless, the scarcity of qualified AD script writers is a potential hindrance to Chinese AD with the anticipated increase in legally required AD (Tor-Carroggio & Casas-Tost, 2020).

Given this context, translating AD scripts, in our case from Spanish into Chinese, was considered an alternative to creating a new AD from scratch. The expected advantages are to increase the number and variety of AD products, speed up production time, reduce costs, and possibly improve AD quality in China by introducing some Western expertise. It was assumed that if this method proves valid for this language pair, it could be applicable to other language combinations as well. However, the need to draft localisation guidelines may arise for translating AD since AD methodologies may vary between languages according to previous research on AD translation (Jankowska et al., 2017; López Vera, 2006; Remael & Vercauteren, 2010), studies contrasting ADs in different languages (Arma, 2012; Bourne & Jiménez-Hurtado, 2007; Limbach, 2012; Matamala & Rami, 2009; Sanz-Moreno, 2017), and our preliminary findings comparing Chinese and Spanish ADs (Liu & Tor-Carroggio, 2022a, 2022b; Liu et al., 2022).

Based on a user-centred approach, this article presents a reception study with Chinese AD users to investigate the feasibility of our proposal by testing with them three AD versions for the Spanish movie *The Invisible Guest* (Paulo, 2017): one created from scratch in Chinese (henceforth Chinese AD), another translated from the Spanish AD script (Translated AD), and a third translated from the Spanish script and localised into Chinese (Localised AD) based on AD approaches in Chinese. Our research question is whether the three versions will make a relevant difference for the users' viewing experience in terms of comprehension, presence, and overall satisfaction. Our hypothesis is that the Chinese AD will be the best received, followed by the Localised AD and the Translated AD.

This article is divided into five sections: first, a review of previous research related to this subject; second, an explanation of the methodology used in our reception study; third, a detailed review of the results obtained; fourth, discussion on the comments provided by some participants; and finally, conclusions including the limitations of this study and possible avenues for future research.

<footnote n="1">¹ https://flk.npc.gov.cn/detail2.html?ZmY4MDgwODE3NTJiN2Q0MzAxNzVINDc2NmJhYjE1NTc%3D</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² http://www.npc.gov.cn/npc/c30834/202110/24c0f011644542da879c78e8654cc9b8.shtml</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³ This ratification decision applies to Mainland China and Hong Kong but not Macau.</footnote>
# 1. Introduction

One of the main obstacles facing audio description (AD) in China is copyright infringement due to the lack of legal guarantees, which do not explicitly include the fair use of AD products. Consequently, it has not been easy to get permission from the copyright holder of the original audiovisual work to create and disseminate AD since its start as a volunteer-dependent service around 2005 (Tor-Carroggio & Casas-Tost, 2020). However, in 2021, Chinese AD stakeholders were finally able to welcome two legal initiatives concerning this issue. The first concerns the decision to observe the Marrakesh VIP Treaty (MVT) (WIPO, 2013), which is a treaty on copyright aimed at facilitating access to works for persons with partial or total sight loss or other print disabilities. As a consequence of this, the Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China (中华人民共和国著作权法, Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo Zhuzuo Quanfa) has recently been amended to add a new exemption for providing accessible formats of published works, including audio-visual products, for people with print disabilities (articles 3 & 24)<fnref n="1" />. This modification came into force on June 1, 2021. In addition, China, which had already signed the MVT as a contracting party in 2013, officially ratified this treaty on October 23, 2021, through the National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China²³. These two Chinese legislations should play a key role in providing a more adequate legal framework for AD standardisation in China. Nonetheless, the scarcity of qualified AD script writers is a potential hindrance to Chinese AD with the anticipated increase in legally required AD (Tor-Carroggio & Casas-Tost, 2020).

Given this context, translating AD scripts, in our case from Spanish into Chinese, was considered an alternative to creating a new AD from scratch. The expected advantages are to increase the number and variety of AD products, speed up production time, reduce costs, and possibly improve AD quality in China by introducing some Western expertise. It was assumed that if this method proves valid for this language pair, it could be applicable to other language combinations as well. However, the need to draft localisation guidelines may arise for translating AD since AD methodologies may vary between languages according to previous research on AD translation (Jankowska et al., 2017; López Vera, 2006; Remael & Vercauteren, 2010), studies contrasting ADs in different languages (Arma, 2012; Bourne & Jiménez-Hurtado, 2007; Limbach, 2012; Matamala & Rami, 2009; Sanz-Moreno, 2017), and our preliminary findings comparing Chinese and Spanish ADs (Liu & Tor-Carroggio, 2022a, 2022b; Liu et al., 2022).

Based on a user-centred approach, this article presents a reception study with Chinese AD users to investigate the feasibility of our proposal by testing with them three AD versions for the Spanish movie *The Invisible Guest* (Paulo, 2017): one created from scratch in Chinese (henceforth Chinese AD), another translated from the Spanish AD script (Translated AD), and a third translated from the Spanish script and localised into Chinese (Localised AD) based on AD approaches in Chinese. Our research question is whether the three versions will make a relevant difference for the users' viewing experience in terms of comprehension, presence, and overall satisfaction. Our hypothesis is that the Chinese AD will be the best received, followed by the Localised AD and the Translated AD.

This article is divided into five sections: first, a review of previous research related to this subject; second, an explanation of the methodology used in our reception study; third, a detailed review of the results obtained; fourth, discussion on the comments provided by some participants; and finally, conclusions including the limitations of this study and possible avenues for future research.

<footnote n="1">¹ https://flk.npc.gov.cn/detail2.html?ZmY4MDgwODE3NTJiN2Q0MzAxNzVINDc2NmJhYjE1NTc%3D</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² http://www.npc.gov.cn/npc/c30834/202110/24c0f011644542da879c78e8654cc9b8.shtml</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³ This ratification decision applies to Mainland China and Hong Kong but not Macau.</footnote>
## 2. AD translation and AD reception research: An overview

As one of the most contentious topics in accessibility research, AD translation has been studied by some scholars as a viable cost and time-saving strategy for creating AD, given that the increasing demand for AD products has been considerably stimulated by legislation, with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities adopted on December 13, 2006, as a turning point. López Vera (2006) was the first to experiment with the proposal of AD translation. His tentative results suggested AD translation could be more accurate, faster and cheaper than creating AD from scratch. Remael and Vercauteren (2010) compared the AD scripts translated into Dutch and the English originals for two movies. They viewed AD translation as a logical option for countries relatively new to AD because they usually import many foreign audiovisual products and have enough professional audiovisual translators of their own. Furthermore, when focusing on the translation of a specific grammar point or of cultural references, they asserted that AD translation poses problems common to AVT as well as others more specific to AD. Jankowska et al. (2017) explored the possibility of translating AD scripts into English created locally for non-English-language films. Based on a case study, they looked into the possible strategies for rendering cultural references in AD translation. In line with López Vera (2006) and Remael and Vercauteren (2010), one of their conclusions was that AD translation can avoid a significant loss of necessary cultural references since the original AD originating from the same culture as the movie gives the appropriate cultural background. Finally, Jankowska (2015) conducted a small-scale reception study to test the acceptance of AD translation from English into Polish after demonstrating that it was less time-consuming and more cost-effective. She found that the visually impaired participants in her study preferred translated AD scripts to original ADs more often than sighted people. Nevertheless, she acknowledged that her study sample was too small—only sixteen valid questionnaires from visually impaired children aged 12-18, and that further research with a larger and more diverse sample group was needed to confirm her results.

Inspired by other fields like communication studies, sociology and psychology, reception research has been increasing in AD studies, taking the user-centred approach advocated by many scholars (Greco, 2018, 2019; Greco & Jankowska, 2019). Two common methodological difficulties often encountered are the diversity of the audience and the transversal or multidisciplinary nature of audience research (Di Giovanni, 2020). Hence, most of these reception studies tend to be small-scale and exploratory. The researched topics range from different AD methods to the impact of AD on the visually impaired or the sighted to explore AD's benefits for them and the feasibility of mixing persons with and without sight loss to gain a similar viewing experience (Perego, 2016). In the case of AD methods, most studies have focused on AD script writing, such as the use of first-person narrative (Fels et al., 2006), or a more subjective and narrative style including cinematic terms or subjective descriptions (Bardini, 2017, 2020; Fryer & Freeman, 2012, 2013, 2014; Fryer & Walczak, 2017; Ramos, 2013, 2016; Walczak, 2017). Others have dealt with AD delivery, such as the use of synthetic voices (Fryer & Freeman, 2014; Szarkowska, 2011; Szarkowska & Jankowska, 2012; Tor-Carroggio, 2020b; Walczak, 2017) or AD prosody (Iglesias Fernández et al., 2011; Machuca et al., 2020). All these studies acknowledge the diversity and heterogeneity of people with sight loss and the need for customization, leading to accepting new AD creation alternatives, such as text-to-speech AD and AD translation, or more varied AD styles that allow for more subjectivity in contrast to the objectivity principle required by existing AD guidelines.

Regarding research design in reception studies, mixed methods and tools are preferred (Di Giovanni, 2020) and questionnaires are the most widely applied research tool for data collection in reception studies about AD and AVT in general. Apart from the demographic
## 2. AD translation and AD reception research: An overview

As one of the most contentious topics in accessibility research, AD translation has been studied by some scholars as a viable cost and time-saving strategy for creating AD, given that the increasing demand for AD products has been considerably stimulated by legislation, with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities adopted on December 13, 2006, as a turning point. López Vera (2006) was the first to experiment with the proposal of AD translation. His tentative results suggested AD translation could be more accurate, faster and cheaper than creating AD from scratch. Remael and Vercauteren (2010) compared the AD scripts translated into Dutch and the English originals for two movies. They viewed AD translation as a logical option for countries relatively new to AD because they usually import many foreign audiovisual products and have enough professional audiovisual translators of their own. Furthermore, when focusing on the translation of a specific grammar point or of cultural references, they asserted that AD translation poses problems common to AVT as well as others more specific to AD. Jankowska et al. (2017) explored the possibility of translating AD scripts into English created locally for non-English-language films. Based on a case study, they looked into the possible strategies for rendering cultural references in AD translation. In line with López Vera (2006) and Remael and Vercauteren (2010), one of their conclusions was that AD translation can avoid a significant loss of necessary cultural references since the original AD originating from the same culture as the movie gives the appropriate cultural background. Finally, Jankowska (2015) conducted a small-scale reception study to test the acceptance of AD translation from English into Polish after demonstrating that it was less time-consuming and more cost-effective. She found that the visually impaired participants in her study preferred translated AD scripts to original ADs more often than sighted people. Nevertheless, she acknowledged that her study sample was too small—only sixteen valid questionnaires from visually impaired children aged 12-18, and that further research with a larger and more diverse sample group was needed to confirm her results.

Inspired by other fields like communication studies, sociology and psychology, reception research has been increasing in AD studies, taking the user-centred approach advocated by many scholars (Greco, 2018, 2019; Greco & Jankowska, 2019). Two common methodological difficulties often encountered are the diversity of the audience and the transversal or multidisciplinary nature of audience research (Di Giovanni, 2020). Hence, most of these reception studies tend to be small-scale and exploratory. The researched topics range from different AD methods to the impact of AD on the visually impaired or the sighted to explore AD's benefits for them and the feasibility of mixing persons with and without sight loss to gain a similar viewing experience (Perego, 2016). In the case of AD methods, most studies have focused on AD script writing, such as the use of first-person narrative (Fels et al., 2006), or a more subjective and narrative style including cinematic terms or subjective descriptions (Bardini, 2017, 2020; Fryer & Freeman, 2012, 2013, 2014; Fryer & Walczak, 2017; Ramos, 2013, 2016; Walczak, 2017). Others have dealt with AD delivery, such as the use of synthetic voices (Fryer & Freeman, 2014; Szarkowska, 2011; Szarkowska & Jankowska, 2012; Tor-Carroggio, 2020b; Walczak, 2017) or AD prosody (Iglesias Fernández et al., 2011; Machuca et al., 2020). All these studies acknowledge the diversity and heterogeneity of people with sight loss and the need for customization, leading to accepting new AD creation alternatives, such as text-to-speech AD and AD translation, or more varied AD styles that allow for more subjectivity in contrast to the objectivity principle required by existing AD guidelines.

Regarding research design in reception studies, mixed methods and tools are preferred (Di Giovanni, 2020) and questionnaires are the most widely applied research tool for data collection in reception studies about AD and AVT in general. Apart from the demographic
information, the phenomena primarily addressed can be roughly divided into four groups: comprehension, preference—the two aspects were included in almost all the studies, presence (Fels et al., 2006; Fryer & Freeman, 2012, 2013, 2014; Fryer & Walczak, 2017), and emotion elicitation, often linked with presence (Bardini, 2017, 2020; Fryer, 2013; Fryer & Freeman, 2014; Fryer & Walczak, 2017; Ramos, 2013, 2015, 2016).

However, few reception studies have been done in the Chinese context, except for two PhD dissertations: Leung (2018) conducted a reception study in Hong Kong to gauge users' preferences for different AD strategies on some specific issues like film language, while Tor-Carroggio (2020b) tested text-to-speech AD with users in Shanghai and found that the participants welcomed it as an interim alternative or even a permanent solution if it implied increasing the offer of AD products. Both scholars used questionnaires for data collection.

**3. Methodology**

This section explains the stimulus used and the questionnaire design for measuring users' viewing experience, and then explains how the experiment was developed. The study design was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona on 1 March, 2021 (Reference Number: 5458).

**3.1. Stimulus**

**3.1.1. Film selection**

Some previous reception studies on AD used short clips aiming to employ a within-subjects design, testing the users with different film genres or with various AD versions for the same clip without making the experiment too long and tiring for the users (Fernández-Torné & Matamala, 2015; Fresno et al., 2014; Fryer & Walczak, 2017; Tor-Carroggio, 2020b). In contrast, Bardini (2020) used a complete short film with three AD versions instead of a feature film under a within-subjects design, possibly also to limit experiment time. Though using short audio clips in their reception study, Fresno et al. (2014) commented that their reception might differ from that of complete movies, and they encouraged the use of complete films for future studies. Therefore, in our reception study, it was decided to measure overall viewing experience with a full-length film to give people more time to get familiar with the different AD styles of each version. Another important reason was that some differences between Chinese and Spanish AD cannot be analysed using short clips. For example, Chinese AD tends to reveal certain key information at the beginning of a movie to create suspense, which is only unveiled at the end (Liu et al., 2022).

Since Spanish and Chinese are our language pair, a Spanish film was considered ideal because its AD script in Spanish was assumed to reflect Spanish AD methods thoroughly. Although Tor-Carroggio (2020a) found out that historical films emerge as the genre of choice for Chinese AD users, a mystery thriller of about 100 minutes — *The Invisible Guest* (Paulo, 2017) — released in Mainland China in 2017 was finally chosen for three reasons. First, it is one of the most famous Spanish films in China, where the market for Spanish cinema is very limited. Second, it is not very culturally loaded so that the influence of cultural elements, which is not the main focus of this study, is kept to a minimum. Third, its AD in Spanish was produced under the Audesc system developed by ONCE, so the AD methods followed by this script will be consistent with our previous studies, where the Spanish AD scripts under analysis were created under the Audesc system (Liu et al., 2022).

**3.1.2. Creation of the three AD versions**

To create the three AD versions, the Spanish AD script was first purchased directly from the
information, the phenomena primarily addressed can be roughly divided into four groups: comprehension, preference—the two aspects were included in almost all the studies, presence (Fels et al., 2006; Fryer & Freeman, 2012, 2013, 2014; Fryer & Walczak, 2017), and emotion elicitation, often linked with presence (Bardini, 2017, 2020; Fryer, 2013; Fryer & Freeman, 2014; Fryer & Walczak, 2017; Ramos, 2013, 2015, 2016).

However, few reception studies have been done in the Chinese context, except for two PhD dissertations: Leung (2018) conducted a reception study in Hong Kong to gauge users' preferences for different AD strategies on some specific issues like film language, while Tor-Carroggio (2020b) tested text-to-speech AD with users in Shanghai and found that the participants welcomed it as an interim alternative or even a permanent solution if it implied increasing the offer of AD products. Both scholars used questionnaires for data collection.

**3. Methodology**

This section explains the stimulus used and the questionnaire design for measuring users' viewing experience, and then explains how the experiment was developed. The study design was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona on 1 March, 2021 (Reference Number: 5458).

**3.1. Stimulus**

**3.1.1. Film selection**

Some previous reception studies on AD used short clips aiming to employ a within-subjects design, testing the users with different film genres or with various AD versions for the same clip without making the experiment too long and tiring for the users (Fernández-Torné & Matamala, 2015; Fresno et al., 2014; Fryer & Walczak, 2017; Tor-Carroggio, 2020b). In contrast, Bardini (2020) used a complete short film with three AD versions instead of a feature film under a within-subjects design, possibly also to limit experiment time. Though using short audio clips in their reception study, Fresno et al. (2014) commented that their reception might differ from that of complete movies, and they encouraged the use of complete films for future studies. Therefore, in our reception study, it was decided to measure overall viewing experience with a full-length film to give people more time to get familiar with the different AD styles of each version. Another important reason was that some differences between Chinese and Spanish AD cannot be analysed using short clips. For example, Chinese AD tends to reveal certain key information at the beginning of a movie to create suspense, which is only unveiled at the end (Liu et al., 2022).

Since Spanish and Chinese are our language pair, a Spanish film was considered ideal because its AD script in Spanish was assumed to reflect Spanish AD methods thoroughly. Although Tor-Carroggio (2020a) found out that historical films emerge as the genre of choice for Chinese AD users, a mystery thriller of about 100 minutes —*The Invisible Guest* (Paulo, 2017) — released in Mainland China in 2017 was finally chosen for three reasons. First, it is one of the most famous Spanish films in China, where the market for Spanish cinema is very limited. Second, it is not very culturally loaded so that the influence of cultural elements, which is not the main focus of this study, is kept to a minimum. Third, its AD in Spanish was produced under the Audesc system developed by ONCE, so the AD methods followed by this script will be consistent with our previous studies, where the Spanish AD scripts under analysis were created under the Audesc system (Liu et al., 2022).

**3.1.2. Creation of the three AD versions**

To create the three AD versions, the Spanish AD script was first purchased directly from the
script writer. An experienced Chinese AD script writer was then asked to create the Chinese version<fnref n="4" />, while a professional translator was hired for the Translated and Localised ADs. Since there are no professional Chinese translators with experience in AD, the translator was asked to undergo self-training using materials from the first two modules of ADLAB PRO<fnref n="5" />. She had to answer a series of multiple-choice questions to guarantee she was prepared for the task. Once she was considered to have a basic understanding of AD, she was sent the Spanish AD script to create the Translated AD, which was essentially a translation of the original Spanish AD script. After completing the Translated AD, the translator was sent our preliminary localisation guidelines in Chinese. However, her localised AD did not meet our expectations, possibly owing to her lack of experience in AD, so in light of this situation as well as because of time and budget constraints, the job was allocated to the author of this article who, although not a professional translator or an experienced AD script writer, had received theoretical training in both and is a native Chinese speaker.

The three persons involved in creating the AD versions were required to record the script writing time and once all three versions were available, a voice talent in China was hired for the recording and a technician for the sound mixing afterwards. Strictly speaking, both the Chinese AD scriptwriter and the voice talent are not AD professionals because they belong to an AD group formed by volunteers, most of whom are radio presenters. We decided not to hire a person to review the three AD versions to avoid homogenization.

As a result of the differences found between Chinese and Spanish AD (Liu et al., 2022), the following two aspects were addressed in the localised version: a bigger information load, and a higher degree of script writer intervention, mainly referring to more explicitness-related information, subjective comments and cause-effect relationships. According to our analysis, the Chinese AD in our study took the longest time and is the most subjective; the Translated AD took the least time and is also the shortest and most objective; while the Localised AD took almost twice as long to carry out compared to the translated version, was the longest and reflected an intermediate degree of subjectivity compared with the other two versions. Table 1 shows the time for creating each version and their length.

<table><caption>**Table 1.** Creation time and length of the three AD scripts</caption><thead><tr><td>AD version</td><td>Time</td><td>Length</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Chinese AD</td><td>23 hours</td><td>9,361 Chinese characters</td></tr><tr><td>Translated AD</td><td>8 hours</td><td>6,759 Chinese characters</td></tr><tr><td>Localised AD</td><td>15 hours</td><td>9,663 Chinese characters</td></tr></tbody></table>

Although localisation took much longer than mere translation, both saved a significant amount of time compared to creating an AD in Chinese from scratch.

## 3.2. Questionnaire design

Building on the previous studies reviewed in section 2, we developed a questionnaire to measure the viewing experience of participants. It consisted of four blocks: demographic information, comprehension, presence and a final question on satisfaction with quality. We decided not to include *preference* as a parameter as it would possibly lead to inconclusive results depending on users' personal tastes and inclinations (Chmiel & Mazur, 2012; Mazur, 2020; Ramos, 2016).

<footnote n="4">⁴ She has been in charge of AD script writing in an AD group in Shanghai since 2018.</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵ https://www.adlabpro.eu/coursematerials/</footnote>
script writer. An experienced Chinese AD script writer was then asked to create the Chinese version<fnref n="4" />, while a professional translator was hired for the Translated and Localised ADs. Since there are no professional Chinese translators with experience in AD, the translator was asked to undergo self-training using materials from the first two modules of ADLAB PRO<fnref n="5" />. She had to answer a series of multiple-choice questions to guarantee she was prepared for the task. Once she was considered to have a basic understanding of AD, she was sent the Spanish AD script to create the Translated AD, which was essentially a translation of the original Spanish AD script. After completing the Translated AD, the translator was sent our preliminary localisation guidelines in Chinese. However, her localised AD did not meet our expectations, possibly owing to her lack of experience in AD, so in light of this situation as well as because of time and budget constraints, the job was allocated to the author of this article who, although not a professional translator or an experienced AD script writer, had received theoretical training in both and is a native Chinese speaker.

The three persons involved in creating the AD versions were required to record the script writing time and once all three versions were available, a voice talent in China was hired for the recording and a technician for the sound mixing afterwards. Strictly speaking, both the Chinese AD scriptwriter and the voice talent are not AD professionals because they belong to an AD group formed by volunteers, most of whom are radio presenters. We decided not to hire a person to review the three AD versions to avoid homogenization.

As a result of the differences found between Chinese and Spanish AD (Liu et al., 2022), the following two aspects were addressed in the localised version: a bigger information load, and a higher degree of script writer intervention, mainly referring to more explicitness-related information, subjective comments and cause-effect relationships. According to our analysis, the Chinese AD in our study took the longest time and is the most subjective; the Translated AD took the least time and is also the shortest and most objective; while the Localised AD took almost twice as long to carry out compared to the translated version, was the longest and reflected an intermediate degree of subjectivity compared with the other two versions. Table 1 shows the time for creating each version and their length.

<table><caption>**Table 1.** Creation time and length of the three AD scripts</caption><thead><tr><td>AD version</td><td>Time</td><td>Length</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Chinese AD</td><td>23 hours</td><td>9,361 Chinese characters</td></tr><tr><td>Translated AD</td><td>8 hours</td><td>6,759 Chinese characters</td></tr><tr><td>Localised AD</td><td>15 hours</td><td>9,663 Chinese characters</td></tr></tbody></table>

Although localisation took much longer than mere translation, both saved a significant amount of time compared to creating an AD in Chinese from scratch.

## 3.2. Questionnaire design

Building on the previous studies reviewed in section 2, we developed a questionnaire to measure the viewing experience of participants. It consisted of four blocks: demographic information, comprehension, presence and a final question on satisfaction with quality. We decided not to include *preference* as a parameter as it would possibly lead to inconclusive results depending on users' personal tastes and inclinations (Chmiel & Mazur, 2012; Mazur, 2020; Ramos, 2016).

<footnote n="4">⁴ She has been in charge of AD script writing in an AD group in Shanghai since 2018.</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵ https://www.adlabpro.eu/coursematerials/</footnote>
The demographic information included age, gender, education level, sight condition, age of sight loss and interest in having more foreign-language films. The last question was incorporated to find out if this could be a niche of opportunity for AD translation or localisation. For the comprehension section, five multiple-choice questions on some details or overall understanding of the film were included.

Regarding presence, a reduced version of the ITC-SOPI (Lessiter et al., 2001), a questionnaire used to assess users' sense of presence experiences in virtual environments, was translated into Chinese and used in our study with copyright authorization from the authors. This cross-media presence questionnaire had already proved helpful for AD research by some scholars testing the entire experience of the AD user instead of the AD alone (Fryer & Freeman, 2012, 2013, 2014; Fryer & Walczak, 2017). The reasons for choosing a reduced version by extracting only 13 items from the original 44 were:

* To avoid fatigue for the audience with sight loss considering the ITC-SOPI questionnaire is not specific for this target group, and it may be more complex and tiring for them to answer all the questions after being exposed to a long movie;

* To encourage more informants to participate, because a very long questionnaire may discourage them from answering it after watching a full movie;

* The selected items were considered the most relevant for this study.

The short version of the questionnaire had four questions about Spatial Presence, five about Engagement, two about Ecological Validity and two about Negative Effect. As the ITC-SOPI is designed to be used in its entirety, it was necessary to analyse the reliability of our reduced version for the results to be valid. Internal reliability coefficients were computed for each of the four levels and the results of this analysis with the alpha threshold of 0.800 (Cronbach, 1951) are summarised in table 2:

<table><caption>**Table 2. Reliability of the four adapted scales of the ITC-SOPI**</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>Negative effects</th><th>Engagement</th><th>Spatial presence</th><th>Ecological validity</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Cronbach's α</td><td>0.612</td><td>0.685</td><td>0.766</td><td>0.655</td></tr></tbody></table>

As they do not reach the minimum level of 0.8, these four groupings of items cannot be considered scales and, therefore, they will be treated separately and the results will be presented in a non-aggregated manner.

Together with the final question on satisfaction with quality, all fourteen questions originally used a 5-point Likert scale (1=strongly disagree; 5=strongly agree). Considering Tor-Carroggio's (2020b) claim that Chinese users have difficulty understanding numeric scales, the 1-5 scale was substituted for a categorical one (from strongly disagree to strongly agree). The full questionnaire consisted of 25 questions and took about 10 minutes to complete. After a pilot experiment conducted by the author in Shanghai on 20 June, 2021, modifications were incorporated into the wording of seven questions. Four questions were about demographic information and were modified to make participants feel more comfortable. The remaining three, related to presence, were reworded to improve comprehension by using more direct and accessible language.

### 3.3. Experiment

The experiment used an asynchronous online user-based testing design for its temporal and spatial flexibility (Oncins, 2021) allowing for the time difference between Spain and China since the field work period had finished and the researcher could not travel to China again to conduct another face-to-face experiment due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, an online
The demographic information included age, gender, education level, sight condition, age of sight loss and interest in having more foreign-language films. The last question was incorporated to find out if this could be a niche of opportunity for AD translation or localisation. For the comprehension section, five multiple-choice questions on some details or overall understanding of the film were included.

Regarding presence, a reduced version of the ITC-SOPI (Lessiter et al., 2001), a questionnaire used to assess users' sense of presence experiences in virtual environments, was translated into Chinese and used in our study with copyright authorization from the authors. This cross-media presence questionnaire had already proved helpful for AD research by some scholars testing the entire experience of the AD user instead of the AD alone (Fryer & Freeman, 2012, 2013, 2014; Fryer & Walczak, 2017). The reasons for choosing a reduced version by extracting only 13 items from the original 44 were:

* To avoid fatigue for the audience with sight loss considering the ITC-SOPI questionnaire is not specific for this target group, and it may be more complex and tiring for them to answer all the questions after being exposed to a long movie;

* To encourage more informants to participate, because a very long questionnaire may discourage them from answering it after watching a full movie;

* The selected items were considered the most relevant for this study.

The short version of the questionnaire had four questions about Spatial Presence, five about Engagement, two about Ecological Validity and two about Negative Effect. As the ITC-SOPI is designed to be used in its entirety, it was necessary to analyse the reliability of our reduced version for the results to be valid. Internal reliability coefficients were computed for each of the four levels and the results of this analysis with the alpha threshold of 0.800 (Cronbach, 1951) are summarised in table 2:

<table><caption>**Table 2. Reliability of the four adapted scales of the ITC-SOPI**</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>Negative effects</th><th>Engagement</th><th>Spatial presence</th><th>Ecological validity</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Cronbach's α</td><td>0.612</td><td>0.685</td><td>0.766</td><td>0.655</td></tr></tbody></table>

As they do not reach the minimum level of 0.8, these four groupings of items cannot be considered scales and, therefore, they will be treated separately and the results will be presented in a non-aggregated manner.

Together with the final question on satisfaction with quality, all fourteen questions originally used a 5-point Likert scale (1=strongly disagree; 5=strongly agree). Considering Tor-Carroggio's (2020b) claim that Chinese users have difficulty understanding numeric scales, the 1-5 scale was substituted for a categorical one (from strongly disagree to strongly agree). The full questionnaire consisted of 25 questions and took about 10 minutes to complete. After a pilot experiment conducted by the author in Shanghai on 20 June, 2021, modifications were incorporated into the wording of seven questions. Four questions were about demographic information and were modified to make participants feel more comfortable. The remaining three, related to presence, were reworded to improve comprehension by using more direct and accessible language.

### 3.3. Experiment

The experiment used an asynchronous online user-based testing design for its temporal and spatial flexibility (Oncins, 2021) allowing for the time difference between Spain and China since the field work period had finished and the researcher could not travel to China again to conduct another face-to-face experiment due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, an online
setting turned out to be a good solution and helped reach a broader and more varied group of respondents in terms of sight characteristics, age and geographical origin. This benefit was also signalled by Mączyńska and Szarkowska (2011, cited in Chmiel & Mazur, 2012). One hundred and fifty-three participants were recruited through personal contacts and snowball sampling from July to October, 2021. They were randomly assigned to an AD version without being told the difference between the three ADs. The movie and the online questionnaire were shared with the participants individually. Blind participants were given the audio files, as this format was much easier to handle since the platform where we shared the video files was not sufficiently accessible for blind people. After listening to the AD, they answered the online questionnaire independently using the screen reader or orally via a voice call with the researcher. However, in the second case, the questionnaire could often not be administered right after the AD due to the time difference between China and Spain. Finally, we obtained three balanced groups for each AD version: 51 answers for each AD.

## 4. Quantitative results

This section presents the quantitative analysis of the data collected, divided into four parts corresponding to the questionnaire design. The AD version will be examined to see if it has a statistically significant effect on the participants' viewing experience. The demographic variables will also be examined to see if they have affected the other three aspects—comprehension, presence, and satisfaction with quality. A (standard) 0.05 significance level has been established for all statistical tests.

### 4.1. Sample characteristics

Table 3 presents the descriptive statistics for the two questions of an ordinal nature in the demographic information section of the questionnaire. Our study sample age is not very old with a mean of 44.9 years, and since the mean age of sight loss is 12.3 years old, it may suggest most participants have visual memory.

<table><caption>**Table 3.** Age and age of sight loss</caption><thead><tr><td></td><td>Age</td><td>Age at which started to lose sight</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>N</td><td>153</td><td>150</td></tr><tr><td>Missing</td><td>0</td><td>3*</td></tr><tr><td>Mean</td><td>44.9</td><td>12.3</td></tr><tr><td>Median</td><td>45</td><td>5.00</td></tr><tr><td>Standard deviation</td><td>13.0</td><td>14.3</td></tr><tr><td>Minimum</td><td>18</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>Maximum</td><td>71</td><td>60</td></tr></tbody></table>

* Three participants were excluded given that they provided an explanation and not a number for this question.

Table 4 provides the descriptive statistics for gender, which is nearly counterbalanced between men (45.8%) and women (54.2%).

<table><caption>**Table 4.** Gender</caption><thead><tr><td>Gender</td><td>Counts</td><td>% of total</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Male</td><td>70</td><td>45.8%</td></tr><tr><td>Female</td><td>83</td><td>54.2%</td></tr></tbody></table>
setting turned out to be a good solution and helped reach a broader and more varied group of respondents in terms of sight characteristics, age and geographical origin. This benefit was also signalled by Mączyńska and Szarkowska (2011, cited in Chmiel & Mazur, 2012). One hundred and fifty-three participants were recruited through personal contacts and snowball sampling from July to October, 2021. They were randomly assigned to an AD version without being told the difference between the three ADs. The movie and the online questionnaire were shared with the participants individually. Blind participants were given the audio files, as this format was much easier to handle since the platform where we shared the video files was not sufficiently accessible for blind people. After listening to the AD, they answered the online questionnaire independently using the screen reader or orally via a voice call with the researcher. However, in the second case, the questionnaire could often not be administered right after the AD due to the time difference between China and Spain. Finally, we obtained three balanced groups for each AD version: 51 answers for each AD.

## 4. Quantitative results

This section presents the quantitative analysis of the data collected, divided into four parts corresponding to the questionnaire design. The AD version will be examined to see if it has a statistically significant effect on the participants' viewing experience. The demographic variables will also be examined to see if they have affected the other three aspects—comprehension, presence, and satisfaction with quality. A (standard) 0.05 significance level has been established for all statistical tests.

### 4.1. Sample characteristics

Table 3 presents the descriptive statistics for the two questions of an ordinal nature in the demographic information section of the questionnaire. Our study sample age is not very old with a mean of 44.9 years, and since the mean age of sight loss is 12.3 years old, it may suggest most participants have visual memory.

<table><caption>**Table 3.** Age and age of sight loss</caption><thead><tr><td></td><td>Age</td><td>Age at which started to lose sight</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>N</td><td>153</td><td>150</td></tr><tr><td>Missing</td><td>0</td><td>3*</td></tr><tr><td>Mean</td><td>44.9</td><td>12.3</td></tr><tr><td>Median</td><td>45</td><td>5.00</td></tr><tr><td>Standard deviation</td><td>13.0</td><td>14.3</td></tr><tr><td>Minimum</td><td>18</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>Maximum</td><td>71</td><td>60</td></tr></tbody></table>

* Three participants were excluded given that they provided an explanation and not a number for this question.

Table 4 provides the descriptive statistics for gender, which is nearly counterbalanced between men (45.8%) and women (54.2%).

<table><caption>**Table 4.** Gender</caption><thead><tr><td>Gender</td><td>Counts</td><td>% of total</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Male</td><td>70</td><td>45.8%</td></tr><tr><td>Female</td><td>83</td><td>54.2%</td></tr></tbody></table>
Table 5 provides the descriptive statistics for education. The highest education level for the majority is vocational training (44.4%), followed by secondary school (28.1%).

<table><caption>**Table 5. Education<fnref n="6" />**</caption><thead><tr><td>Education</td><td>Counts</td><td>% of total</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Primary school</td><td>18</td><td>11.8%</td></tr><tr><td>Secondary school</td><td>43</td><td>28.1%</td></tr><tr><td>Vocational training</td><td>68</td><td>44.4%</td></tr><tr><td>University</td><td>20</td><td>13.1%</td></tr><tr><td>Master</td><td>4</td><td>2.6%</td></tr></tbody></table>

Table 6 provides the descriptive statistics for the participants' sight conditions. The great majority are blind (79.7%).

<table><caption>**Table 6. Sight condition**</caption><thead><tr><td>Condition</td><td>Counts</td><td>% of total</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Blind</td><td>122</td><td>79.7%</td></tr><tr><td>Partially sighted</td><td>31</td><td>20.3%</td></tr></tbody></table>

Table 7 provides the descriptive statistics for their interest in more AD for Western films. The great majority (75.2%) wants to have more AD for Western films, which supports our proposal.

<table><caption>**Table 7. Interest in more AD for Western films**</caption><thead><tr><td>Would like to have more AD for Western films</td><td>Counts</td><td>% of total</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Yes</td><td>115</td><td>75.2%</td></tr><tr><td>No</td><td>2</td><td>1.3%</td></tr><tr><td>NA</td><td>36</td><td>23.5%</td></tr></tbody></table>

Table 8 provides descriptive statistics for age and age at which the participants started to lose sight for each of the three levels of the AD version variable.

<table><thead><tr><th></th><th>AD version</th><th>Age</th><th>Age at which started to lose sight</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td rowspan="3">N</td><td>Chinese</td><td>51</td><td>51</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>51</td><td>48</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>51</td><td>51</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">Missing</td><td>Chinese</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>0</td><td>3</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">Mean</td><td>Chinese</td><td>45.0</td><td>15.9</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>45.4</td><td>10.0</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>44.3</td><td>10.8</td></tr></tbody></table>

<footnote n="6">⁶ In the Chinese education system, secondary education (中学, zhongxue) covers two phases on the International Standard Classification of Education scale: compulsory lower secondary education—middle school—and senior secondary education—high school. It is followed by higher education—universities—and vocational education (专科, zhuanke).</footnote>
Table 5 provides the descriptive statistics for education. The highest education level for the majority is vocational training (44.4%), followed by secondary school (28.1%).

<table><caption>**Table 5. Education<fnref n="6" />**</caption><thead><tr><td>Education</td><td>Counts</td><td>% of total</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Primary school</td><td>18</td><td>11.8%</td></tr><tr><td>Secondary school</td><td>43</td><td>28.1%</td></tr><tr><td>Vocational training</td><td>68</td><td>44.4%</td></tr><tr><td>University</td><td>20</td><td>13.1%</td></tr><tr><td>Master</td><td>4</td><td>2.6%</td></tr></tbody></table>

Table 6 provides the descriptive statistics for the participants' sight conditions. The great majority are blind (79.7%).

<table><caption>**Table 6. Sight condition**</caption><thead><tr><td>Condition</td><td>Counts</td><td>% of total</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Blind</td><td>122</td><td>79.7%</td></tr><tr><td>Partially sighted</td><td>31</td><td>20.3%</td></tr></tbody></table>

Table 7 provides the descriptive statistics for their interest in more AD for Western films. The great majority (75.2%) wants to have more AD for Western films, which supports our proposal.

<table><caption>**Table 7. Interest in more AD for Western films**</caption><thead><tr><td>Would like to have more AD for Western films</td><td>Counts</td><td>% of total</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Yes</td><td>115</td><td>75.2%</td></tr><tr><td>No</td><td>2</td><td>1.3%</td></tr><tr><td>NA</td><td>36</td><td>23.5%</td></tr></tbody></table>

Table 8 provides descriptive statistics for age and age at which the participants started to lose sight for each of the three levels of the AD version variable.

<table><thead><tr><th></th><th>AD version</th><th>Age</th><th>Age at which started to lose sight</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td rowspan="3">N</td><td>Chinese</td><td>51</td><td>51</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>51</td><td>48</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>51</td><td>51</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">Missing</td><td>Chinese</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>0</td><td>3</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">Mean</td><td>Chinese</td><td>45.0</td><td>15.9</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>45.4</td><td>10.0</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>44.3</td><td>10.8</td></tr></tbody></table>

<footnote n="6">⁶ In the Chinese education system, secondary education (中学, zhongxue) covers two phases on the International Standard Classification of Education scale: compulsory lower secondary education—middle school—and senior secondary education—high school. It is followed by higher education—universities—and vocational education (专科, zhuanke).</footnote>
<table><caption>**Table 8.** Age and age of sight loss by type of AD</caption><tbody><tr><td rowspan="3">Median</td><td>Chinese</td><td>45</td><td>15</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>47</td><td>2.50</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>43</td><td>3</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">Standard deviation</td><td>Chinese</td><td>12.9</td><td>16.4</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>13.5</td><td>13.4</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>12.9</td><td>12.4</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">Minimum</td><td>Chinese</td><td>21</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>18</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>20</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">Maximum</td><td>Chinese</td><td>66</td><td>60</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>70</td><td>50</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>71</td><td>44</td></tr></tbody></table>

All statistics (mean, median, SD, minimum, and maximum) in the case of age have a very low range, which indicates that all groups have similar characteristics. The range is much higher in the case of the age at which the participants started to lose sight, as can be seen in the median of the three groups (Chinese AD = 15 years; Translated AD = 2.5 years; Localised AD = 3 years). This could affect the results for comprehension and presence.

Figures 1-4 provide the counts for each category for the rest of the variables divided by AD version.

<figure><img src="image_62.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 1.** Gender by type of AD</figcaption></figure>
<table><caption>**Table 8.** Age and age of sight loss by type of AD</caption><tbody><tr><td rowspan="3">Median</td><td>Chinese</td><td>45</td><td>15</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>47</td><td>2.50</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>43</td><td>3</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">Standard deviation</td><td>Chinese</td><td>12.9</td><td>16.4</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>13.5</td><td>13.4</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>12.9</td><td>12.4</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">Minimum</td><td>Chinese</td><td>21</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>18</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>20</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">Maximum</td><td>Chinese</td><td>66</td><td>60</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>70</td><td>50</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>71</td><td>44</td></tr></tbody></table>

All statistics (mean, median, SD, minimum, and maximum) in the case of age have a very low range, which indicates that all groups have similar characteristics. The range is much higher in the case of the age at which the participants started to lose sight, as can be seen in the median of the three groups (Chinese AD = 15 years; Translated AD = 2.5 years; Localised AD = 3 years). This could affect the results for comprehension and presence.

Figures 1-4 provide the counts for each category for the rest of the variables divided by AD version.

<figure><img src="image_54.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 1.** Gender by type of AD</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_63.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 2.** Education by type of AD</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_64.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 3.** Sight condition by type of AD</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_65.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 4.** Interest in more AD for Western films by type of AD</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_55.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 2.** Education by type of AD</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_56.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 3.** Sight condition by type of AD</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_57.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 4.** Interest in more AD for Western films by type of AD</figcaption></figure>
Overall, the experimental groups are well-balanced. The only case in which there could be a relevant difference in the sample groups is education: secondary school and vocational training show opposing group composition.

## 4.2. Comprehension

This section of the questionnaire consisted of five questions. The number of correct answers was added up for each participant. The resulting variable ranged from 0 (no comprehension) to 5 (total comprehension). The Shapiro-Wilk test and Q-Q plots were computed to determine whether the data in the variable *Comprehension* were normally distributed. As shown in table 9 and figure 5, they were not.

<table><caption>**Table 9.** The Shapiro-Wilk test for comprehension by type of AD</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>AD version</th><th>Comprehension</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td rowspan="3">Shapiro-Wilk w</td><td>Chinese AD</td><td>0.915</td></tr><tr><td>Translated AD</td><td>0.929</td></tr><tr><td>Localised AD</td><td>0.929</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">Shapiro-Wilk p</td><td>Chinese AD</td><td>0.001</td></tr><tr><td>Translated AD</td><td>0.005</td></tr><tr><td>Localised AD</td><td>0.004</td></tr></tbody></table>

<figure><img src="image_66.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 5.** Q-Q plots for comprehension by type of AD</figcaption></figure>

Consequently, the Kruskal-Wallis as an omnibus test was selected to compare the three AD types. The result of the test, KW [df = 2] = 1.32, was non-significant (*p* = 0.518). Consequently, no post-hoc tests were performed. In short, there are no differences between types of AD when it comes to comprehension.

The Kruskal-Wallis test was performed again with the age at which the participants started to lose their sight as a categorical variable to test whether the differences observed in the demographic section had an effect on their comprehension. The original quantitative variable was converted into a categorical one by dividing the participants' responses into three groups with a similar number of subjects in each one (percentiles 33 and 66). Consequently, group 1 comprised 56 participants with ages of sight loss from 0 to 1; group 2 had 48 participants with ages from >1 to 16; group 3 was formed by 46 participants with ages from >16 to 60. The Kruskal-Wallis test showed no differences among the three groups (*p* = 0.073).

The Mann-Whitney *U* test, a non-parametric test to compare two independent groups, was performed to compare comprehension between participants with secondary education (n = 43) and participants with vocational training (n = 68). The results were significant (*U* = 1040; *p* < 0.001; *r* = 0.289). The second group with vocational training had higher scores than the first
Overall, the experimental groups are well-balanced. The only case in which there could be a relevant difference in the sample groups is education: secondary school and vocational training show opposing group composition.

## 4.2. Comprehension

This section of the questionnaire consisted of five questions. The number of correct answers was added up for each participant. The resulting variable ranged from 0 (no comprehension) to 5 (total comprehension). The Shapiro-Wilk test and Q-Q plots were computed to determine whether the data in the variable *Comprehension* were normally distributed. As shown in table 9 and figure 5, they were not.

<table><caption>**Table 9.** The Shapiro-Wilk test for comprehension by type of AD</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>AD version</th><th>Comprehension</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td rowspan="3">Shapiro-Wilk w</td><td>Chinese AD</td><td>0.915</td></tr><tr><td>Translated AD</td><td>0.929</td></tr><tr><td>Localised AD</td><td>0.929</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">Shapiro-Wilk p</td><td>Chinese AD</td><td>0.001</td></tr><tr><td>Translated AD</td><td>0.005</td></tr><tr><td>Localised AD</td><td>0.004</td></tr></tbody></table>

<figure><img src="image_58.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 5.** Q-Q plots for comprehension by type of AD</figcaption></figure>

Consequently, the Kruskal-Wallis as an omnibus test was selected to compare the three AD types. The result of the test, KW [df = 2] = 1.32, was non-significant (*p* = 0.518). Consequently, no post-hoc tests were performed. In short, there are no differences between types of AD when it comes to comprehension.

The Kruskal-Wallis test was performed again with the age at which the participants started to lose their sight as a categorical variable to test whether the differences observed in the demographic section had an effect on their comprehension. The original quantitative variable was converted into a categorical one by dividing the participants' responses into three groups with a similar number of subjects in each one (percentiles 33 and 66). Consequently, group 1 comprised 56 participants with ages of sight loss from 0 to 1; group 2 had 48 participants with ages from >1 to 16; group 3 was formed by 46 participants with ages from >16 to 60. The Kruskal-Wallis test showed no differences among the three groups (*p* = 0.073).

The Mann-Whitney *U* test, a non-parametric test to compare two independent groups, was performed to compare comprehension between participants with secondary education (n = 43) and participants with vocational training (n = 68). The results were significant (*U* = 1040; *p* < 0.001; *r* = 0.289). The second group with vocational training had higher scores than the first
one indicating a better comprehension level, as seen in the mean of the two groups (secondary school = 2.07; vocational training = 2.81) and the median (secondary school = 2; vocational training = 3). The two groups also showed differences in the number of participants between types of AD (see figure 2).

## 4.3. Presence

The following analysis checked item by item whether there were any differences in the participants' perception according to the type of AD. The data, which consisted of items originally scored on a range from 1 to 5, were found to have a non-parametric distribution. To determine whether there were any differences among the three groups, the Kruskal-Wallis test was thus applied (see table 10), but no statistical difference was found. All participants seemed to have a good immersion experience with a mean score for all items above 3.30 for the three versions, except the two related to Negative Effect (< 2.60) and one item on Spatial Presence ("I had the sensation that I moved in response to parts of the movie") (Chinese AD: mean = 3.18; Translated AD: mean = 3.24). Some participants who answered the questionnaire orally clarified that they remained motionless while viewing the film due to their high concentration, which may be partly attributed to the availability of AD.

<table><caption>**Table 10.** Kruskal-Wallis test for presence by type of AD</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>AD version</th><th>Mean</th><th>SD</th><th>Difference?</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td colspan="5"><strong>Items related to Negative Effect</strong></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">I felt disorientated.</td><td>Chinese</td><td>2.39</td><td>1.097</td><td rowspan="3">KW [df = 2] = 1.368; p = 0.505</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>2.33</td><td>1.089</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>2.59</td><td>1.134</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">I felt tired.</td><td>Chinese</td><td>2.47</td><td>1.084</td><td rowspan="3">KW [df = 2] = 1.395; p = 0.498</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>2.35</td><td>1.074</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>2.57</td><td>1.044</td></tr><tr><td colspan="5"><strong>Items related to Engagement</strong></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">I would have liked the experience to continue.</td><td>Chinese</td><td>3.65</td><td>1.055</td><td rowspan="3">KW [df = 2] = 0.139; p = 0.933</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>3.75</td><td>0.956</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>3.73</td><td>0.827</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">I vividly remember some parts of the experience.</td><td>Chinese</td><td>4.20</td><td>0.566</td><td rowspan="3">KW [df = 2] = 3.455; p = 0.178</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>4.04</td><td>0.564</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>3.90</td><td>0.855</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">I paid more attention to the movie than I did to my own thoughts.</td><td>Chinese</td><td>4.14</td><td>0.566</td><td rowspan="3">KW [df = 2] = 1.195; p = 0.550</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>3.96</td><td>0.799</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>3.88</td><td>0.993</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">I lost track of time.</td><td>Chinese</td><td>3.67</td><td>0.952</td><td rowspan="3">KW [df = 2] = 3.610; p = 0.165</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>3.35</td><td>1.110</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>3.73</td><td>0.981</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">I responded emotionally.</td><td>Chinese</td><td>3.51</td><td>0.987</td><td rowspan="3">KW [df = 2] = 0.0648; p = 0.968</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>3.55</td><td>0.901</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>3.53</td><td>0.966</td></tr><tr><td colspan="5"><strong>Items related to Spatial Presence</strong></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">I felt that the characters and/or objects could almost touch me.</td><td>Chinese</td><td>3.31</td><td>1.068</td><td rowspan="3">KW [df = 2] = 0.673; p = 0.714</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>3.51</td><td>1.027</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>3.41</td><td>1.004</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">I felt I was visiting the places in the movie.</td><td>Chinese</td><td>3.71</td><td>0.832</td><td rowspan="3">KW [df = 2] = 0.915; p = 0.633</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>3.49</td><td>0.925</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>3.57</td><td>0.900</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">I had the sensation that I moved in response to parts of the movie.</td><td>Chinese</td><td>3.18</td><td>1.161</td><td rowspan="3">KW [df = 2] = 8.765; p = 0.645</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>3.24</td><td>1.124</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>3.39</td><td>1.021</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">I had a sense of being in the movie scenes.</td><td>Chinese</td><td>3.88</td><td>0.840</td><td rowspan="3">KW [df = 2] = 0.869; p = 0.648</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>3.88</td><td>0.816</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>3.73</td><td>0.896</td></tr><tr><td colspan="5"><strong>Items related to Ecological Validity</strong></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">The scenes depicted could really occur in the real world.</td><td>Chinese</td><td>3.49</td><td>0.946</td><td rowspan="3">KW [df = 2] = 0.0857; p = 0.958</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>3.49</td><td>0.967</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>3.55</td><td>0.879</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">The content seemed believable to me.</td><td>Chinese</td><td>3.43</td><td>1.044</td><td rowspan="3">KW [df = 2] = 0.999; p = 0.607</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>3.35</td><td>0.796</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>3.51</td><td>0.834</td></tr></tbody></table>
one indicating a better comprehension level, as seen in the mean of the two groups (secondary school = 2.07; vocational training = 2.81) and the median (secondary school = 2; vocational training = 3). The two groups also showed differences in the number of participants between types of AD (see figure 2).

## 4.3. Presence

The following analysis checked item by item whether there were any differences in the participants' perception according to the type of AD. The data, which consisted of items originally scored on a range from 1 to 5, were found to have a non-parametric distribution. To determine whether there were any differences among the three groups, the Kruskal-Wallis test was thus applied (see table 10), but no statistical difference was found. All participants seemed to have a good immersion experience with a mean score for all items above 3.30 for the three versions, except the two related to Negative Effect (< 2.60) and one item on Spatial Presence ("I had the sensation that I moved in response to parts of the movie") (Chinese AD: mean = 3.18; Translated AD: mean = 3.24). Some participants who answered the questionnaire orally clarified that they remained motionless while viewing the film due to their high concentration, which may be partly attributed to the availability of AD.

<table><caption>**Table 10.** Kruskal-Wallis test for presence by type of AD</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>AD version</th><th>Mean</th><th>SD</th><th>Difference?</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td colspan="5"><strong>Items related to Negative Effect</strong></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">I felt disorientated.</td><td>Chinese</td><td>2.39</td><td>1.097</td><td rowspan="3">KW [df = 2] = 1.368; p = 0.505</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>2.33</td><td>1.089</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>2.59</td><td>1.134</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">I felt tired.</td><td>Chinese</td><td>2.47</td><td>1.084</td><td rowspan="3">KW [df = 2] = 1.395; p = 0.498</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>2.35</td><td>1.074</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>2.57</td><td>1.044</td></tr><tr><td colspan="5"><strong>Items related to Engagement</strong></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">I would have liked the experience to continue.</td><td>Chinese</td><td>3.65</td><td>1.055</td><td rowspan="3">KW [df = 2] = 0.139; p = 0.933</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>3.75</td><td>0.956</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>3.73</td><td>0.827</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">I vividly remember some parts of the experience.</td><td>Chinese</td><td>4.20</td><td>0.566</td><td rowspan="3">KW [df = 2] = 3.455; p = 0.178</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>4.04</td><td>0.564</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>3.90</td><td>0.855</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">I paid more attention to the movie than I did to my own thoughts.</td><td>Chinese</td><td>4.14</td><td>0.566</td><td rowspan="3">KW [df = 2] = 1.195; p = 0.550</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>3.96</td><td>0.799</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>3.88</td><td>0.993</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">I lost track of time.</td><td>Chinese</td><td>3.67</td><td>0.952</td><td rowspan="3">KW [df = 2] = 3.610; p = 0.165</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>3.35</td><td>1.110</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>3.73</td><td>0.981</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">I responded emotionally.</td><td>Chinese</td><td>3.51</td><td>0.987</td><td rowspan="3">KW [df = 2] = 0.0648; p = 0.968</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>3.55</td><td>0.901</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>3.53</td><td>0.966</td></tr><tr><td colspan="5"><strong>Items related to Spatial Presence</strong></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">I felt that the characters and/or objects could almost touch me.</td><td>Chinese</td><td>3.31</td><td>1.068</td><td rowspan="3">KW [df = 2] = 0.673; p = 0.714</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>3.51</td><td>1.027</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>3.41</td><td>1.004</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">I felt I was visiting the places in the movie.</td><td>Chinese</td><td>3.71</td><td>0.832</td><td rowspan="3">KW [df = 2] = 0.915; p = 0.633</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>3.49</td><td>0.925</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>3.57</td><td>0.900</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">I had the sensation that I moved in response to parts of the movie.</td><td>Chinese</td><td>3.18</td><td>1.161</td><td rowspan="3">KW [df = 2] = 8.765; p = 0.645</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>3.24</td><td>1.124</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>3.39</td><td>1.021</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">I had a sense of being in the movie scenes.</td><td>Chinese</td><td>3.88</td><td>0.840</td><td rowspan="3">KW [df = 2] = 0.869; p = 0.648</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>3.88</td><td>0.816</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>3.73</td><td>0.896</td></tr><tr><td colspan="5"><strong>Items related to Ecological Validity</strong></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">The scenes depicted could really occur in the real world.</td><td>Chinese</td><td>3.49</td><td>0.946</td><td rowspan="3">KW [df = 2] = 0.0857; p = 0.958</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>3.49</td><td>0.967</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>3.55</td><td>0.879</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">The content seemed believable to me.</td><td>Chinese</td><td>3.43</td><td>1.044</td><td rowspan="3">KW [df = 2] = 0.999; p = 0.607</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>3.35</td><td>0.796</td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>3.51</td><td>0.834</td></tr></tbody></table>
The Kruskal-Wallis test was performed again with the age at which the participants started to lose sight as a categorical variable to test whether the differences observed in the demographic section had an effect on their perceptions of the different items of the ITC-SOPI. The result was only significant in a single item—the above-mentioned item on Spatial Presence (“I had the sensation that I moved in response to parts of the movie”) (p = 0.04). Given that for the rest of the items the age at which participants started to lose eyesight had no effect on their perception, descriptive statistics were not computed.

The Mann-Whitney U test, performed with participants with secondary education vs vocational training, yielded non-significant results.

## 4.4. Satisfaction with quality

Table 11 provides results of participants' satisfaction with the quality of the AD version they were assigned. The results show that the participants were very satisfied with the three AD versions in general, with mean > 4 for the three ADs. The data, which consisted of items originally scored on a range from 1 to 5, were found to have a non-parametric distribution. The Kruskal-Wallis test was thus applied to detect differences among the three groups.

<table><caption>**Table 11.** The Kruskal-Wallis test for satisfaction with quality by type of AD</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>AD version</th><th>Mean</th><th>Mdn.</th><th>SD</th><th>Min.</th><th>Max.</th><th>Difference?</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td rowspan="3">Satisfaction<br>with quality</td><td>Chinese</td><td>4.53</td><td>5</td><td>0.612</td><td>3</td><td>5</td><td>KW [df = 2] = 7.750;<br>p = 0.021; ε² = 0.051</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>4.12</td><td>4</td><td>0.816</td><td>2</td><td>5</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>4.39</td><td>4</td><td>0.723</td><td>2</td><td>5</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

The result of the test was significant. Therefore, post-hoc tests were performed. The Dwass-Steel Critchlow-Fligner post-hoc comparisons showed a significant difference (W = -3.79; p = 0.02) between the participants who received the Chinese AD (mean = 4.53) and those who received the Translated AD (mean = 4.12). No statistical differences were observed between the Chinese and Localised ADs (W = -1.32; p = 0.619) or between the Translated and Localised ADs (W = 2.61; p = 0.154), though the latter group (mean = 4.39) scored much higher than the former (mean = 4.12). From the descriptive point of view, the Chinese AD was received best (4.53), followed by the Localised AD (4.39) and the Translated AD (4.12). However, from the inferential perspective, the Chinese AD was perceived as being of higher quality than the Translated AD, while there was no clear gradation between the three AD versions. Therefore, our hypothesis was only partially confirmed.

The Kruskal-Wallis test was performed again with the age at which the participants started to lose sight as a categorical variable to test whether the differences observed in the demographic section had an effect on their satisfaction with quality. The result was non-significant (p = 0.068).

The Mann-Whitney U test performed with participants with secondary education vs vocational training (which also showed differences in the number of participants among types of AD) yielded non-significant results (p = 0.259).

To recapitulate, the only factor causing a relevant difference in comprehension in our study is the education level: the participants with vocational training seemed to understand the film better than those with secondary education. The AD versions did not show a relevant difference in comprehension or presence, indicating that AD translation could be a possible alternative for AD creation. The Chinese AD proved significantly more satisfying than the Translated AD, though the persons who were given the Localised AD scored higher than those who received the Translated AD. Therefore, from the descriptive point of view, the Chinese AD scored highest in acceptance, followed by the Localised AD and the Translated AD. However,
The Kruskal-Wallis test was performed again with the age at which the participants started to lose sight as a categorical variable to test whether the differences observed in the demographic section had an effect on their perceptions of the different items of the ITC-SOPI. The result was only significant in a single item—the above-mentioned item on Spatial Presence (“I had the sensation that I moved in response to parts of the movie”) (p = 0.04). Given that for the rest of the items the age at which participants started to lose eyesight had no effect on their perception, descriptive statistics were not computed.

The Mann-Whitney U test, performed with participants with secondary education vs vocational training, yielded non-significant results.

## 4.4. Satisfaction with quality

Table 11 provides results of participants' satisfaction with the quality of the AD version they were assigned. The results show that the participants were very satisfied with the three AD versions in general, with mean > 4 for the three ADs. The data, which consisted of items originally scored on a range from 1 to 5, were found to have a non-parametric distribution. The Kruskal-Wallis test was thus applied to detect differences among the three groups.

<table><caption>**Table 11.** The Kruskal-Wallis test for satisfaction with quality by type of AD</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>AD version</th><th>Mean</th><th>Mdn.</th><th>SD</th><th>Min.</th><th>Max.</th><th>Difference?</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td rowspan="3">Satisfaction with quality</td><td>Chinese</td><td>4.53</td><td>5</td><td>0.612</td><td>3</td><td>5</td><td>KW [df = 2] = 7.750;<br/>p = 0.021; ε<sup>2</sup> = 0.051</td></tr><tr><td>Translated</td><td>4.12</td><td>4</td><td>0.816</td><td>2</td><td>5</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Localised</td><td>4.39</td><td>4</td><td>0.723</td><td>2</td><td>5</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

The result of the test was significant. Therefore, post-hoc tests were performed. The Dwass-Steel Critchlow-Fligner post-hoc comparisons showed a significant difference (W = -3.79; p = 0.02) between the participants who received the Chinese AD (mean = 4.53) and those who received the Translated AD (mean = 4.12). No statistical differences were observed between the Chinese and Localised ADs (W = -1.32; p = 0.619) or between the Translated and Localised ADs (W = 2.61; p = 0.154), though the latter group (mean = 4.39) scored much higher than the former (mean = 4.12). From the descriptive point of view, the Chinese AD was received best (4.53), followed by the Localised AD (4.39) and the Translated AD (4.12). However, from the inferential perspective, the Chinese AD was perceived as being of higher quality than the Translated AD, while there was no clear gradation between the three AD versions. Therefore, our hypothesis was only partially confirmed.

The Kruskal-Wallis test was performed again with the age at which the participants started to lose sight as a categorical variable to test whether the differences observed in the demographic section had an effect on their satisfaction with quality. The result was non-significant (p = 0.068).

The Mann-Whitney U test performed with participants with secondary education vs vocational training (which also showed differences in the number of participants among types of AD) yielded non-significant results (p = 0.259).

To recapitulate, the only factor causing a relevant difference in comprehension in our study is the education level: the participants with vocational training seemed to understand the film better than those with secondary education. The AD versions did not show a relevant difference in comprehension or presence, indicating that AD translation could be a possible alternative for AD creation. The Chinese AD proved significantly more satisfying than the Translated AD, though the persons who were given the Localised AD scored higher than those who received the Translated AD. Therefore, from the descriptive point of view, the Chinese AD scored highest in acceptance, followed by the Localised AD and the Translated AD. However,
from the inferential perspective, the Chinese AD was perceived to be of higher quality than the
Translated AD, and there was no clear gradation between the three AD versions. Overall, our
hypothesis was only partially confirmed.

5. Qualitative results

The quantitative results demonstrated a favourable response to the three AD versions, perhaps
due to the generally positive attitude of participants to the availability of AD products, in line
with Tor-Carroggio (2020a). Furthermore, the comments of some informants also provided
meaningful insights. Some users provided opinions regarding our proposed AD translation,
which was directly relevant to our research goal of testing the feasibility of translating AD
from Spanish into Chinese. Additionally, they expressed their views on AD in general, which
although not directly related to the study objective, aided in gaining a better understanding
of AD in China from the user's point of view and shed light on possible future research lines
based on their needs. Therefore, we think this part of the users' feedback is also valuable. This
section will first present some advice from the participants for our proposal of AD translation
or AD localisation, followed by other feedback from them concerning AD in general. The AD
version will be indicated in case the comment is specific to the difference between the three
ADs.

5.1. Comments on AD translation

Two participants expressed that the film genre preferred or more suitable for AD translation
should be drama with straightforward plots. This is in line with previous findings from an
interview-based study with several Chinese AD providers (Liu, in press), suggesting a preference
for heavily story-oriented feature movies.

One participant (Translated AD) said that the credits could be omitted. Both the Chinese and
the Localised AD did not include credits. Another (Translated AD) said it was disruptive when
credits were inserted between dialogues at the beginning of the film.

Many participants mentioned the difficulty of remembering foreign names. This was also
pointed out by a skilled AD script writer explaining some AD strategies for naming characters.
For example, in interpersonal relationships, a Western name translated into Chinese is usually
longer than common Chinese names and can be difficult to pronounce.

Several participants, including the voice talent for the three ADs, commented on the translation
of the Spanish singular third person pronouns (*ella* and *él*) as being problematic. As for the
Translated AD, the translator pointed out she translated the Spanish pronouns *ella* 'she' and
*él* 'he' as *nüren* (女人) 'woman' and *nanren* (男人) 'man', respectively, to avoid confusion
among the audience, since they are both pronounced *ta* (她/他) in Chinese. In the case of
the Localised AD, the same strategy was adopted on some occasions, while on others, the
characters were referred to by their names. Nevertheless, saying *nüren* (女人) 'woman' and
*nanren* (男人) still caused some confusion as far as the identification of the characters is
concerned. One participant (Translated AD) with experience in revising AD scripts said it was
difficult to know who the AD was referring to with scene changes, and it might be better
to name characters directly. This opinion was also shared by another participant (Translated
AD). He also recommended avoiding overlapping between AD and dialogues and suggested
localisation when translating AD into Chinese, given linguistic and cultural differences. Other
participants also highlighted the need for localisation, although none provided further details
about how to do it.
from the inferential perspective, the Chinese AD was perceived to be of higher quality than the
Translated AD, and there was no clear gradation between the three AD versions. Overall, our
hypothesis was only partially confirmed.

5. Qualitative results

The quantitative results demonstrated a favourable response to the three AD versions, perhaps
due to the generally positive attitude of participants to the availability of AD products, in line
with Tor-Carroggio (2020a). Furthermore, the comments of some informants also provided
meaningful insights. Some users provided opinions regarding our proposed AD translation,
which was directly relevant to our research goal of testing the feasibility of translating AD
from Spanish into Chinese. Additionally, they expressed their views on AD in general, which
although not directly related to the study objective, aided in gaining a better understanding
of AD in China from the user's point of view and shed light on possible future research lines
based on their needs. Therefore, we think this part of the users' feedback is also valuable. This
section will first present some advice from the participants for our proposal of AD translation
or AD localisation, followed by other feedback from them concerning AD in general. The AD
version will be indicated in case the comment is specific to the difference between the three
ADs.

5.1. Comments on AD translation

Two participants expressed that the film genre preferred or more suitable for AD translation
should be drama with straightforward plots. This is in line with previous findings from an
interview-based study with several Chinese AD providers (Liu, in press), suggesting a preference
for heavily story-oriented feature movies.

One participant (Translated AD) said that the credits could be omitted. Both the Chinese and
the Localised AD did not include credits. Another (Translated AD) said it was disruptive when
credits were inserted between dialogues at the beginning of the film.

Many participants mentioned the difficulty of remembering foreign names. This was also
pointed out by a skilled AD script writer explaining some AD strategies for naming characters.
For example, in interpersonal relationships, a Western name translated into Chinese is usually
longer than common Chinese names and can be difficult to pronounce.

Several participants, including the voice talent for the three ADs, commented on the translation
of the Spanish singular third person pronouns (*ella* and *él*) as being problematic. As for the
Translated AD, the translator pointed out she translated the Spanish pronouns *ella* 'she' and
*él* 'he' as *nüren* (女人) 'woman' and *nanren* (男人) 'man', respectively, to avoid confusion
among the audience, since they are both pronounced *ta* (她/他) in Chinese. In the case of
the Localised AD, the same strategy was adopted on some occasions, while on others, the
characters were referred to by their names. Nevertheless, saying *nüren* (女人) 'woman' and
*nanren* (男人) still caused some confusion as far as the identification of the characters is
concerned. One participant (Translated AD) with experience in revising AD scripts said it was
difficult to know who the AD was referring to with scene changes, and it might be better
to name characters directly. This opinion was also shared by another participant (Translated
AD). He also recommended avoiding overlapping between AD and dialogues and suggested
localisation when translating AD into Chinese, given linguistic and cultural differences. Other
participants also highlighted the need for localisation, although none provided further details
about how to do it.
Finally, one participant (Translated AD) thought the initial silence gap in the film was too long, and suggested adding a short synopsis of the film, followed by information about the cast and crew. This is in line with the opinion of some of China's key AD providers on the need to fill the silences to provide as much information as possible to the users (Liu *et al.*, under review).

## 5.2. Comments on AD in general

Many participants underlined the importance of sound in AD, including AD prosody and the sound mix of the original soundtrack and the AD. One informant stated that AD's effects could be enhanced by adjusting the sound level of both the soundtrack and the AD. He also thought more visual information should be described for persons with sight loss to construct their mental imagery. Another participant indicated that too fast a speed of AD would hinder comprehension. He was also in favour of making explicit crucial elements for a correct understanding of the film, such as revealing suspense, considering the limited education level and the advanced age of most persons with sight loss.

Regarding the sound mix of the three ADs in our study, some participants said it was difficult to hear the AD when the original soundtrack was too loud, while sometimes the AD was much louder, covering the original soundtrack. Along a similar line, two participants said they would like the volume of AD to be lower than that of the original soundtrack to distinguish between the two. One participant stressed that AD should not cover all the sound effects, as they are also essential for immersion. Concerning AD prosody, a regular AD user claimed that a voice consistent with the movie atmosphere without too much personal intervention would better engage the audience.

Some participants distinguished two viewing settings: live AD in a group session and recorded AD enjoyed individually. They highlighted the benefit of live AD for enhancing emotional response and facilitating interactions between AD providers, mostly the AD voice talent, and the audience.

One participant indicated that most attendees of live AD sessions in his district were persons with low vision. Several participants suggested that AD should provide limited information to reduce cognitive load for blind individuals. One of them thought that the amount of information required might vary depending on the individual's sight conditions. It might justify the acceptance of our proposal among Chinese AD users again, considering Spanish AD tends to be much shorter than Chinese AD. However, the preference for shorter AD was only reflected by the feedback from a few participants, compared with higher satisfaction with quality with the longer Chinese and Localised AD among the majority of the participants. Two participants with low vision (Localised AD) highlighted that anticipating information for only a few seconds could be confusing due to non-synchronization between the scene and the AD.

Finally, while one participant expressed the importance of including persons with sight loss in AD creation, another thought they were inadequate to write or deliver AD. This participant had attended a training course given by an AD group in Shanghai for AD delivery by persons with sight loss. His observation was that it would take them, particularly the elderly, more time than sighted people to voice an AD script, and the quality would not be ideal. The justification for this perspective was that they had to listen to their screen readers before repeating the AD, which might therefore not sound fluent enough.

To sum up, the participants' different and sometimes conflicting opinions endorse the view that persons with sight loss are diverse and heterogeneous, thus needing more varied AD styles according to their profiles and expectations, as mentioned in Section 2, which calls for more research with a user-centred approach (Greco, 2018, 2019; Greco & Jankowska, 2019).
Finally, one participant (Translated AD) thought the initial silence gap in the film was too long, and suggested adding a short synopsis of the film, followed by information about the cast and crew. This is in line with the opinion of some of China's key AD providers on the need to fill the silences to provide as much information as possible to the users (Liu *et al.*, under review).

## 5.2. Comments on AD in general

Many participants underlined the importance of sound in AD, including AD prosody and the sound mix of the original soundtrack and the AD. One informant stated that AD's effects could be enhanced by adjusting the sound level of both the soundtrack and the AD. He also thought more visual information should be described for persons with sight loss to construct their mental imagery. Another participant indicated that too fast a speed of AD would hinder comprehension. He was also in favour of making explicit crucial elements for a correct understanding of the film, such as revealing suspense, considering the limited education level and the advanced age of most persons with sight loss.

Regarding the sound mix of the three ADs in our study, some participants said it was difficult to hear the AD when the original soundtrack was too loud, while sometimes the AD was much louder, covering the original soundtrack. Along a similar line, two participants said they would like the volume of AD to be lower than that of the original soundtrack to distinguish between the two. One participant stressed that AD should not cover all the sound effects, as they are also essential for immersion. Concerning AD prosody, a regular AD user claimed that a voice consistent with the movie atmosphere without too much personal intervention would better engage the audience.

Some participants distinguished two viewing settings: live AD in a group session and recorded AD enjoyed individually. They highlighted the benefit of live AD for enhancing emotional response and facilitating interactions between AD providers, mostly the AD voice talent, and the audience.

One participant indicated that most attendees of live AD sessions in his district were persons with low vision. Several participants suggested that AD should provide limited information to reduce cognitive load for blind individuals. One of them thought that the amount of information required might vary depending on the individual's sight conditions. It might justify the acceptance of our proposal among Chinese AD users again, considering Spanish AD tends to be much shorter than Chinese AD. However, the preference for shorter AD was only reflected by the feedback from a few participants, compared with higher satisfaction with quality with the longer Chinese and Localised AD among the majority of the participants. Two participants with low vision (Localised AD) highlighted that anticipating information for only a few seconds could be confusing due to non-synchronization between the scene and the AD.

Finally, while one participant expressed the importance of including persons with sight loss in AD creation, another thought they were inadequate to write or deliver AD. This participant had attended a training course given by an AD group in Shanghai for AD delivery by persons with sight loss. His observation was that it would take them, particularly the elderly, more time than sighted people to voice an AD script, and the quality would not be ideal. The justification for this perspective was that they had to listen to their screen readers before repeating the AD, which might therefore not sound fluent enough.

To sum up, the participants' different and sometimes conflicting opinions endorse the view that persons with sight loss are diverse and heterogeneous, thus needing more varied AD styles according to their profiles and expectations, as mentioned in Section 2, which calls for more research with a user-centred approach (Greco, 2018, 2019; Greco & Jankowska, 2019).
6. Conclusions

This article has presented a reception study on AD translation by testing three AD versions with Chinese AD users: a Chinese AD, a Translated AD and a Localised AD. Results showed that both AD translation and AD localisation take far less time than creating AD in Chinese from scratch. However, it should be mentioned that the actual time for AD creation varies among different AD groups (Liu, in press). Moreover, though creating an AD script in Chinese is much cheaper, it is not easy to compare costs across different countries. AD in China is currently performed on a volunteer basis and AD translation has not yet become a career opportunity, so there are no reference prices available for either of them at this stage. In terms of user reception, our hypothesis was only partially confirmed. From the inferential perspective, the Chinese AD was perceived to be of higher quality than the Translated AD. However, there was no clear gradation between the three AD versions. This study supports AD translation as a viable alternative to AD creation in China, as all three AD versions provided a similarly immersive experience and enabled viewers to understand the narrative content.

The feedback given by our participants has also been an inspiring information source for our
study. Their general positive attitude towards the three versions and advice on AD localisation
contribute to validating our proposal of AD translation and the necessity of AD localisation. Their
views on AD in general help us to better understand their needs for developing possible future
studies. The importance of sounds emphasized by some of them has already been underlined
by some scholars (Ramos, 2015) to facilitate comprehension, to contribute to coherence and
meaning construction, and to enhance immersion, which is linked with emotion elicitation
(Salway & Graham, 2003). Besides, studies such as Fryer (2013) and Fryer et al. (2013) have
examined the relationship between words and sound effects with AD users. These researchers
support the linguistic compensation model, which indicates that words are just as effective as
non-verbal sounds in creating Spatial Presence and Ecological Validity. The advantages of live
AD in a group setting for improving emotional response and fostering interactions between AD
providers and users can be attributed to the concept of Social Presence. This is consistent with
Fryer and Freeman (2014), who found that AD could actively enhance presence and emotion
elicitation when delivered by a human voice instead of text-to-speech, possibly due to an
increase in Social Presence.

Our study goes beyond previous research on AD translation (Jankowska et al., 2017; López Vera, 2006; Remael & Vercauteren, 2010) in that AD localisation was tested in an under-researched and distant language pair: Chinese and Spanish. Furthermore, a complete film was used as the basic stimulus instead of short video clips, and a large sample of 153 participants was obtained. Moreover, the methodology applied was very consistent internally, in that the Localised AD was created based on a preliminary version of localisation guidelines for translating AD from Spanish into Chinese that were drafted after triangulating three data sources: interviews with Chinese AD key agents, a corpus study comparing Chinese and Spanish ADs, and participant observation (Liu et al., under review). Nonetheless, our study also has its limitations, which should be borne in mind for future research in this field. First, although compared with other reception studies on AD, our sample is relatively big, it is still small and not sufficiently representative considering the complexity and diversity of the group under study, especially in a country as large as China. The recruitment of participants is one of the greatest challenges of reception research with persons with sight loss (Bardini, 2017; Chmiel & Mazur, 2012, 2016; Mazur, 2020; Ramos, 2015). Blind people (79.7%) are over-represented in our study when in fact most people with sight loss in China are partially sighted. Second, familiarity with AD was not taken into account in our study although previous studies suggested expectation may play a role in presence, and those used to AD might be less likely to prefer new AD
6. Conclusions

This article has presented a reception study on AD translation by testing three AD versions with Chinese AD users: a Chinese AD, a Translated AD and a Localised AD. Results showed that both AD translation and AD localisation take far less time than creating AD in Chinese from scratch. However, it should be mentioned that the actual time for AD creation varies among different AD groups (Liu, in press). Moreover, though creating an AD script in Chinese is much cheaper, it is not easy to compare costs across different countries. AD in China is currently performed on a volunteer basis and AD translation has not yet become a career opportunity, so there are no reference prices available for either of them at this stage. In terms of user reception, our hypothesis was only partially confirmed. From the inferential perspective, the Chinese AD was perceived to be of higher quality than the Translated AD. However, there was no clear gradation between the three AD versions. This study supports AD translation as a viable alternative to AD creation in China, as all three AD versions provided a similarly immersive experience and enabled viewers to understand the narrative content.

The feedback given by our participants has also been an inspiring information source for our study. Their general positive attitude towards the three versions and advice on AD localisation contribute to validating our proposal of AD translation and the necessity of AD localisation. Their views on AD in general help us to better understand their needs for developing possible future studies. The importance of sounds emphasized by some of them has already been underlined by some scholars (Ramos, 2015) to facilitate comprehension, to contribute to coherence and meaning construction, and to enhance immersion, which is linked with emotion elicitation (Salway & Graham, 2003). Besides, studies such as Fryer (2013) and Fryer et al. (2013) have examined the relationship between words and sound effects with AD users. These researchers support the linguistic compensation model, which indicates that words are just as effective as non-verbal sounds in creating Spatial Presence and Ecological Validity. The advantages of live AD in a group setting for improving emotional response and fostering interactions between AD providers and users can be attributed to the concept of Social Presence. This is consistent with Fryer and Freeman (2014), who found that AD could actively enhance presence and emotion elicitation when delivered by a human voice instead of text-to-speech, possibly due to an increase in Social Presence.

Our study goes beyond previous research on AD translation (Jankowska et al., 2017; López Vera, 2006; Remael & Vercauteren, 2010) in that AD localisation was tested in an under-researched and distant language pair: Chinese and Spanish. Furthermore, a complete film was used as the basic stimulus instead of short video clips, and a large sample of 153 participants was obtained. Moreover, the methodology applied was very consistent internally, in that the Localised AD was created based on a preliminary version of localisation guidelines for translating AD from Spanish into Chinese that were drafted after triangulating three data sources: interviews with Chinese AD key agents, a corpus study comparing Chinese and Spanish ADs, and participant observation (Liu et al., under review). Nonetheless, our study also has its limitations, which should be borne in mind for future research in this field. First, although compared with other reception studies on AD, our sample is relatively big, it is still small and not sufficiently representative considering the complexity and diversity of the group under study, especially in a country as large as China. The recruitment of participants is one of the greatest challenges of reception research with persons with sight loss (Bardini, 2017; Chmiel & Mazur, 2012, 2016; Mazur, 2020; Ramos, 2015). Blind people (79.7%) are over-represented in our study when in fact most people with sight loss in China are partially sighted. Second, familiarity with AD was not taken into account in our study although previous studies suggested expectation may play a role in presence, and those used to AD might be less likely to prefer new AD
approaches (Fryer & Freeman, 2012). Third, due to the online experiment setting, there were
many factors affecting the viewing experience that were out of the researcher's control. Such
factors include, but are not limited to, the device used to enjoy the AD, background noises,
interruption from others, time difference between countries, and technical issues. As it was
impossible to administer the questionnaire immediately after the enjoyment of AD orally due
to the time difference between the researcher and the participants, memory questions were
not included in our questionnaire. In addition, the online setting also excluded technologically
illiterate persons, who may constitute a significant portion of our target audience. Fourth,
since we measured the overall viewing experience, the answers may be influenced by the
movie itself instead of the AD: the multimodal nature of audio-visual work and the complexity
of control over variables make it difficult to determine the reasons behind every comment. For
the same reason, we have not been able to explain which differences between Chinese AD and
Translated AD could be responsible for the differences found in our reception study since we
tested the whole AD experience with the users, where many differences between Chinese and
Spanish AD found in our previous corpus study (Liu et al., 2022) were included.

Another limitation of our study is the questionnaire used: it was not specifically designed for measuring the overall AD experience, and we had to analyse presence-related items individually. Chmiel and Mazur (2012), who revised their questionnaire six times, also indicated the methodological complexity of questionnaire design. More research is needed on designing a more adequate questionnaire for AD and validating it among persons with sight loss in a specific context, considering their culture, language, and media type, among other factors.

Other avenues for future research include the replication of the present study with other
language combinations or film genres. Another possible direction is to explore the differences
in immersion and emotion elicitation focusing on Social Presence between live AD in a group
session and a recorded AD enjoyed individually, as proposed by Fryer and Freeman (2014).
Furthermore, regarding comprehension, future studies could also include memory questions,
which is an important confounding variable (Chmiel & Mazur, 2012; Mazur, 2020), together
with concentration (Fresno et al., 2014). The results from this reception study can also be
considered when refining the final version of our localisation guidelines. This study can
contribute to the AD development in China both inside and outside academia. Furthermore,
the methodology used might serve as a starting point for more empirical and experimental
studies on AD reception in China.

7. Acknowledgements

This study is part of the RAD project (PGC2018-096566-B-I00) funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades. Yuchen Liu is also a beneficiary of the scholarship FI co-funded by the Generalitat de Catalunya and the European Social Fund. The researcher would like to thank all the users, volunteers, and AD providers involved in this study. She also would also like to thank Dr Olalla-Soler for his generous help with the statistical analysis corresponding to the data offered in section 4 (Results) and his reading of the final version of this manuscript.

8. References

Arma, S. (2012). Why can't you wear black shoes like the other mothers? Preliminary investigation on the Italian language of audio description. In E. Perego (Ed.), *Emerging topics in translation: Audio description* (pp. 37-55). Edizioni Università di Trieste.

Bardini, F. (2017). Audio description style and the film experience of blind spectators: Design of a reception study. *Rivista internazionale di tecnica della traduzione, 19*, 49-73.
approaches (Fryer & Freeman, 2012). Third, due to the online experiment setting, there were
many factors affecting the viewing experience that were out of the researcher's control. Such
factors include, but are not limited to, the device used to enjoy the AD, background noises,
interruption from others, time difference between countries, and technical issues. As it was
impossible to administer the questionnaire immediately after the enjoyment of AD orally due
to the time difference between the researcher and the participants, memory questions were
not included in our questionnaire. In addition, the online setting also excluded technologically
illiterate persons, who may constitute a significant portion of our target audience. Fourth,
since we measured the overall viewing experience, the answers may be influenced by the
movie itself instead of the AD: the multimodal nature of audio-visual work and the complexity
of control over variables make it difficult to determine the reasons behind every comment. For
the same reason, we have not been able to explain which differences between Chinese AD and
Translated AD could be responsible for the differences found in our reception study since we
tested the whole AD experience with the users, where many differences between Chinese and
Spanish AD found in our previous corpus study (Liu et al., 2022) were included.

Another limitation of our study is the questionnaire used: it was not specifically designed for measuring the overall AD experience, and we had to analyse presence-related items individually. Chmiel and Mazur (2012), who revised their questionnaire six times, also indicated the methodological complexity of questionnaire design. More research is needed on designing a more adequate questionnaire for AD and validating it among persons with sight loss in a specific context, considering their culture, language, and media type, among other factors.

Other avenues for future research include the replication of the present study with other
language combinations or film genres. Another possible direction is to explore the differences
in immersion and emotion elicitation focusing on Social Presence between live AD in a group
session and a recorded AD enjoyed individually, as proposed by Fryer and Freeman (2014).
Furthermore, regarding comprehension, future studies could also include memory questions,
which is an important confounding variable (Chmiel & Mazur, 2012; Mazur, 2020), together
with concentration (Fresno et al., 2014). The results from this reception study can also be
considered when refining the final version of our localisation guidelines. This study can
contribute to the AD development in China both inside and outside academia. Furthermore,
the methodology used might serve as a starting point for more empirical and experimental
studies on AD reception in China.

7. Acknowledgements

This study is part of the RAD project (PGC2018-096566-B-I00) funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades. Yuchen Liu is also a beneficiary of the scholarship FI co-funded by the Generalitat de Catalunya and the European Social Fund. The researcher would like to thank all the users, volunteers, and AD providers involved in this study. She also would also like to thank Dr Olalla-Soler for his generous help with the statistical analysis corresponding to the data offered in section 4 (Results) and his reading of the final version of this manuscript.

8. References

Arma, S. (2012). Why can’t you wear black shoes like the other mothers? Preliminary investigation on the Italian language of audio description. In E. Perego (Ed.), *Emerging topics in translation: Audio description* (pp. 37–55). Edizioni Università di Trieste.

Bardini, F. (2017). Audio description style and the film experience of blind spectators: Design of a reception study. *Rivista internazionale di tecnica della traduzione, 19*, 49-73.
Bardini, F. (2020). Film language, film emotions and the experience of blind and partially sighted viewers: A reception study. *JosTrans—The journal of specialised translation*, **33**, 259–280.

Bourne, J. & Jiménez-Hurtado, C. (2007). From the visual to the verbal in two languages: A contrastive analysis of the audio description of The Hours in English and Spanish. In J. Díaz-Cintas, P. Orero, & A. Remael (Eds.), *Media for all. Subtitling for the Deaf, audio description, and sign language* (pp. 175–188). Rodopi.

Chmiel, A. & Mazur, I. (2012). AD reception research: Some methodological considerations. In E. Perego (Ed.), *Emerging topics in translation: Audio description* (pp. 57–80). Edizioni Università di Trieste.

Chmiel, A. & Mazur, I. (2016). Researching preferences of audio description users—Limitations and solutions. *Across languages and cultures, 17*(2), 271–288.

Cronbach, Lee J. (1951). Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests. *Psychometrika*, **16**(3), 297–334.

Di Giovanni, E. (2020). Reception studies and audiovisual translation. In L. Bogucki & M. Deckert (Eds.), *The Palgrave handbook of audiovisual translation and media accessibility* (pp. 397–413). Palgrave MacMillan.

Fels, D. I., Udo, J. P., Diamond, J. E., & Diamond, J. I. (2006). A comparison of alternative narrative approaches to video description for animated comedy. *Journal of visual impairment and blindness, 100*(5), 295–305.

Fresno, N., Castellà, J., & Soler-Vilageliu, O. (2014). Less is more. Effects of the amount of information and its presentation in the recall and reception of audio described characters. *International journal of sciences: Basic and applied research, 14*(2), 169–196.

Fryer, L. (2013). *Putting it into words: The impact of visual impairment on perception, experience and presence* (Doctoral dissertation). University of London.

Fryer, L. & Freeman, J. (2012). Presence in those with and without sight: Audio description and its potential for virtual reality applications. *Journal of cybertherapy and rehabilitation, 5*(1), 15–23.

Fryer, L. & Freeman, J. (2013). Cinematic language and the description of film: Keeping AD users in the frame. *Perspectives: Studies in translatology, 21*(3), 412–426.

Fryer, L. & Freeman, J. (2014). Can you feel what I'm saying? The impact of verbal information on emotion elicitation and presence in people with a visual impairment. In A. Felnhofer & O. D. Kothgassner (Eds.), *Challenging presence. Proceedings of the 15th international conference on presence* (pp. 99–107). WUV Universität Wien.

Fryer, L., Pring, L., & Freeman, J. (2013). Audio drama and the imagination: the influence of sound effects on presence in people with and without sight. *Journal of media psychology: Theories, methods, and applications, 25*(2), 65–71.

Fryer, L. & Walczak, A. (2017). Creative description: The impact of audio description style on presence in visually impaired audiences. *British journal of visual impairment, 35*(1), 6–17.

Greco, G. M. (2018). The nature of accessibility studies. *Journal of audiovisual translation*, 1(1), 205–232.

Greco, G. M. (2019). Accessibility Studies: Abuses, Misuses and the Method of Poietic Design. *Lecture notes in computer science (Including subseries lecture notes in artificial intelligence and lecture notes in bioinformatics)*, 11786 LNCS, 15–27.

Greco, G. M. & Jankowska, A. (2019). Framing media accessibility quality. *Journal of audiovisual translation, 2*(2), 1–10.

Iglesias Fernández, E., Martínez, S., & Chica, A. (2011). *Cross-fertilization between reception studies in audio description and interpreting quality assessment: The role of the narrator's voice*. Paper presented at the Media for all international conference, London.

Jankowska, A. (2015). *Translating audio description scripts. Translation as a new strategy of creating audio description*. Peter Lang.

Jankowska, A., Milc, M., & Fryer, L. (2017). Translating audio description scripts... into English. *Skase. Journal of translation and interpretation, 10*(2), 2–16.

Lessiter, J., Freeman, J., Keogh, E., & Davidoff, J.D. (2001). A cross-media presence questionnaire: The ITC sense of presence inventory. *Presence: Teleoperators and virtual environments, 10*(3), 282–297.

Leung, D. (2018). *Audio description of audiovisual programmes for the visually impaired in Hong Kong* (Doctoral dissertation). University College London.

Limbach, C. (2012). La neutralidad en la audiodescripción fílmica desde un punto de vista traductológico [Neutrality in filmic audio description from a translation point of view] (Doctoral dissertation). Universidad de Granada.

Liu, Y. (刘禹辰). (in press). Journey to the East. What is happening in the Chinese AD world? An interview-based study. *Hermēneus*.

Liu, Y. (刘禹辰), Casas-Tost, H., & Rovira-Esteva, S. (2022). Made in China versus Made in Spain. A corpus-based study comparing AD in Chinese and Spanish. *JosTrans—The journal of specialised translation, 38*, 180–207.

Liu, Y. (刘禹辰), Casas-Tost, H., & Rovira-Esteva, S. (under review). AD in China at the crossroads. A set of guidelines for localising AD scripts from Spanish into Chinese.
Bardini, F. (2020). Film language, film emotions and the experience of blind and partially sighted viewers: A reception study. *JosTrans—The journal of specialised translation*, **33**, 259–280.

Bourne, J. & Jiménez-Hurtado, C. (2007). From the visual to the verbal in two languages: A contrastive analysis of the audio description of The Hours in English and Spanish. In J. Díaz-Cintas, P. Orero, & A. Remael (Eds.), *Media for all. Subtitling for the Deaf, audio description, and sign language* (pp. 175–188). Rodopi.

Chmiel, A. & Mazur, I. (2012). AD reception research: Some methodological considerations. In E. Perego (Ed.), *Emerging topics in translation: Audio description* (pp. 57–80). Edizioni Università di Trieste.

Chmiel, A. & Mazur, I. (2016). Researching preferences of audio description users—Limitations and solutions. *Across languages and cultures, 17*(2), 271–288.

Cronbach, Lee J. (1951). Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests. *Psychometrika*, **16**(3), 297–334.

Di Giovanni, E. (2020). Reception studies and audiovisual translation. In L. Bogucki & M. Deckert (Eds.), *The Palgrave handbook of audiovisual translation and media accessibility* (pp. 397–413). Palgrave MacMillan.

Fels, D. I., Udo, J. P., Diamond, J. E., & Diamond, J. I. (2006). A comparison of alternative narrative approaches to video description for animated comedy. *Journal of visual impairment and blindness, 100*(5), 295–305.

Fresno, N., Castellà, J., & Soler-Vilageliu, O. (2014). Less is more. Effects of the amount of information and its presentation in the recall and reception of audio described characters. *International journal of sciences: Basic and applied research, 14*(2), 169–196.

Fryer, L. (2013). *Putting it into words: The impact of visual impairment on perception, experience and presence* (Doctoral dissertation). University of London.

Fryer, L. & Freeman, J. (2012). Presence in those with and without sight: Audio description and its potential for virtual reality applications. *Journal of cybertherapy and rehabilitation, 5*(1), 15–23.

Fryer, L. & Freeman, J. (2013). Cinematic language and the description of film: Keeping AD users in the frame. *Perspectives: Studies in translatology, 21*(3), 412–426.

Fryer, L. & Freeman, J. (2014). Can you feel what I'm saying? The impact of verbal information on emotion elicitation and presence in people with a visual impairment. In A. Felnhofer & O. D. Kothgassner (Eds.), *Challenging presence. Proceedings of the 15th international conference on presence* (pp. 99–107). WUV Universität Wien.

Fryer, L., Pring, L., & Freeman, J. (2013). Audio drama and the imagination: the influence of sound effects on presence in people with and without sight. *Journal of media psychology: Theories, methods, and applications, 25*(2), 65–71.

Fryer, L. & Walczak, A. (2017). Creative description: The impact of audio description style on presence in visually impaired audiences. *British journal of visual impairment, 35*(1), 6–17.

Greco, G. M. (2018). The nature of accessibility studies. *Journal of audiovisual translation, 1*(1), 205–232.

Greco, G. M. (2019). Accessibility Studies: Abuses, Misuses and the Method of Poietic Design. *Lecture notes in computer science (Including subseries lecture notes in artificial intelligence and lecture notes in bioinformatics)*, 11786 LNCS, 15–27.

Greco, G. M. & Jankowska, A. (2019). Framing media accessibility quality. *Journal of audiovisual translation, 2*(2), 1–10.

Iglesias Fernández, E., Martínez, S., & Chica, A. (2011). *Cross-fertilization between reception studies in audio description and interpreting quality assessment: The role of the narrator's voice*. Paper presented at the Media for all international conference, London.

Jankowska, A. (2015). *Translating audio description scripts. Translation as a new strategy of creating audio description*. Peter Lang.

Jankowska, A., Milc, M., & Fryer, L. (2017). Translating audio description scripts... into English. *Skase. Journal of translation and interpretation, 10*(2), 2–16.

Lessiter, J., Freeman, J., Keogh, E., & Davidoff, J.D. (2001). A cross-media presence questionnaire: The ITC sense of presence inventory. *Presence: Teleoperators and virtual environments, 10*(3), 282–297.

Leung, D. (2018). *Audio description of audiovisual programmes for the visually impaired in Hong Kong* (Doctoral dissertation). University College London.

Limbach, C. (2012). La neutralidad en la audiodescripción fílmica desde un punto de vista traductológico [Neutrality in filmic audio description from a translation point of view] (Doctoral dissertation). Universidad de Granada.

Liu, Y. (刘禹辰). (in press). Journey to the East. What is happening in the Chinese AD world? An interview-based study. *Hermêneus*.

Liu, Y. (刘禹辰), Casas-Tost, H., & Rovira-Esteva, S. (2022). Made in China versus Made in Spain. A corpus-based study comparing AD in Chinese and Spanish. *JosTrans—The journal of specialised translation, 38*, 180–207.

Liu, Y. (刘禹辰), Casas-Tost, H., & Rovira-Esteva, S. (under review). AD in China at the crossroads. A set of guidelines for localising AD scripts from Spanish into Chinese.
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Paulo, O. (2017). *The Invisible Guest*. Spain: Think Studio, Atresmedia Cine, Colosé Producciones, and Nostromo Pictures.

Perego, E. (2016). Gains and losses of watching audio described films for sighted viewers. *Target*. *International journal of translation studies*, 28(3), 424–444.

Ramos, M. (2013). *El impacto emocional de la audiodescripción* [The emotional impact of audio description]. PhD thesis. Universidad de Murcia.

Ramos, M. (2015). The emotional experience of films: Does audio description make a difference? *The Translator*, 21(1), 68–94.

Ramos, M. (2016). Testing audio narration: The emotional impact of language in audio description. *Perspectives: Studies in translatology*, 24(4), 606–634.

Remael, A. (2012). For the use of sound. Film sound analysis for audio-description: Some key issues. *MonTI. Monografías de traducción e interpretación*, 4, 255–276.

Remael, A., & Vercauteren, G. (2010). The translation of recorded audio description from English into Dutch. *Perspectives: Studies in translatology*, 18(3), 155–171.

Salway, A. & Graham, M. (2003). Extracting information about emotions in films. *Proceedings of the 11th ACM international conference on multimedia*, 299–301.

Sanz-Moreno, R. (2017). *Audiodescripción de referentes culturales: Estudio descriptivo-comparativo y de recepción* [Audio description of cultural references: Descriptive-comparative and reception study]. PhD thesis. Universitat de València.

Szarkowska, A. & Jankowska, A. (2012). Text-to-speech audio description of voiced-over films. A case study of audio described *Volver* in Polish. In E. Perego (Ed.), *Emerging topics in translation: Audio description* (pp. 81–94). Edizioni Università di Trieste.

Szarkowska, A. (2011). Text-to-speech audio description: Towards wider availability of AD. *JosTrans—The journal of specialised translation*, 15, 142–162.

The National People's Congress. (2020 amendment). *Copyright law of the People's Republic of China*. https://flk.npc.gov.cn/detail2.html?ZmY4MDgwODE3NTJiN2Q0MzAxNzVINDc2NmJhYjE1NTc%3D

Tor-Carroggio, I. (2020a). The customer is always right: Study on Chinese persons with sight loss' opinion on audio description. *Disability and society*, 36(2), 306–325.

Tor-Carroggio, I. (2020b). T(ime) T(o) S(tart) synthesising AD in China? Results of a reception study. *JosTrans—The journal of specialised translation*, 34, 171–191.

Tor-Carroggio, I. & Casas-Tost, H. (2020). Who is currently audio describing in China? A study of Chinese audio describer profiles. *MonTI. Monografías de traducción e interpretación*, 12, 78–107.

Walczak, A. (2017). Measuring immersion in audio description with Polish blind and visually impaired audiences. *Rivista internazionale di tecnica della traduzione*, 19, 33–48.

WIPO. (2013). Marrakesh treaty to facilitate access to published works for persons who are blind, visually impaired or otherwise print disabled (VIP). https://wipolex.wipo.int/en/text/301019
Liu, Y. (刘禹辰) & Tor-Carroggio, I. (2022a). A contrastive analysis of audio description scripts in Chinese and Spanish: A pilot dtudy. In C. Taylor & E. Perego (Eds.), *The Routledge handbook of audio description* (pp.460–475). Routledge.

Liu Y. (刘禹辰), & Tor-Carroggio, I. (2022b). Comer, beber, amar...y comparar. Análisis contrastivo de la audiodescripción en chino y español: un estudio de caso [Eat Drink Man Woman...and compare. Contrastive analysis of audio description in Chinese and Spanish: A case study]. *Onomázein*, 57, 84-101.

López Vera, J. F. (2006). Translating audio description scripts: The way forward? – Tentative first stage project results. *MuTra 2006 - Audiovisual translation scenarios*, 1–10.

Machuca, M. J., Matamala, A., & Ríos Mestre, A. (2020). Los audiodescriptores: voces neutras y voces agradables. *Loquens*, 7(2), e076.

Matamala, A. & Rami, N. (2009). Análisis comparativo de la audiodescripción española y alemana de "GoodBye, Lenin" [Comparative analysis of the Spanish and German audio descriptions of "GoodBye, Lenin"). *Hermēneus*, 11, 249–266.

Mazur, I. (2020). Audio description: Concepts, theories and research approaches. In L. Bogucki & M. Deckert (Eds.), *The Palgrave handbook of audiovisual translation and media accessibility* (pp. 227–247). Palgrave MacMillan.

Oncins, E. (2021). Accessibility in online user-testing. *Journal of audiovisual translation*, 4(2), 6–22.

Paulo, O. (2017). *The Invisible Guest*. Spain: Think Studio, Atresmedia Cine, Colosé Producciones, and Nostromo Pictures.

Perego, E. (2016). Gains and losses of watching audio described films for sighted viewers. *Target*. *International journal of translation studies*, 28(3), 424–444.

Ramos, M. (2013). *El impacto emocional de la audiodescripción* [The emotional impact of audio description]. PhD thesis. Universidad de Murcia.

Ramos, M. (2015). The emotional experience of films: Does audio description make a difference? *The Translator*, 21(1), 68–94.

Ramos, M. (2016). Testing audio narration: The emotional impact of language in audio description. *Perspectives: Studies in translatology*, 24(4), 606–634.

Remael, A. (2012). For the use of sound. Film sound analysis for audio-description: Some key issues. *MonTI. Monografías de traducción e interpretación*, 4, 255–276.

Remael, A., & Vercauteren, G. (2010). The translation of recorded audio description from English into Dutch. *Perspectives: Studies in translatology*, 18(3), 155–171.

Salway, A. & Graham, M. (2003). Extracting information about emotions in films. *Proceedings of the 11th ACM international conference on multimedia*, 299–301.

Sanz-Moreno, R. (2017). *Audiodescripción de referentes culturales: Estudio descriptivo-comparativo y de recepción* [Audio description of cultural references: Descriptive-comparative and reception study]. PhD thesis. Universitat de València.

Szarkowska, A. & Jankowska, A. (2012). Text-to-speech audio description of voiced-over films. A case study of audio described *Volver* in Polish. In E. Perego (Ed.), *Emerging topics in translation: Audio description* (pp. 81–94). Edizioni Università di Trieste.

Szarkowska, A. (2011). Text-to-speech audio description: Towards wider availability of AD. *JosTrans—The journal of specialised translation*, 15, 142–162.

The National People's Congress. (2020 amendment). *Copyright law of the People's Republic of China*. https://flk.npc.gov.cn/detail2.html?ZmY4MDgwODE3NTJiN2Q0MzAxNzVINDc2NmJhYjE1NTc%3D

Tor-Carroggio, I. (2020a). The customer is always right: Study on Chinese persons with sight loss' opinion on audio description. *Disability and society*, 36(2), 306–325.

Tor-Carroggio, I. (2020b). T(ime) T(o) S(tart) synthesising AD in China? Results of a reception study. *JosTrans—The journal of specialised translation*, 34, 171–191.

Tor-Carroggio, I. & Casas-Tost, H. (2020). Who is currently audio describing in China? A study of Chinese audio describer profiles. *MonTI. Monografías de traducción e interpretación*, 12, 78–107.

Walczak, A. (2017). Measuring immersion in audio description with Polish blind and visually impaired audiences. *Rivista internazionale di tecnica della traduzione*, 19, 33–48.

WIPO. (2013). Marrakesh treaty to facilitate access to published works for persons who are blind, visually impaired or otherwise print disabled (VIP). https://wipolex.wipo.int/en/text/301019
<figure><img src="image_67.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_68.png" /><figcaption>Yuchen Liu</figcaption></figure>

Departament de Traducció i d'Interpretació i d'Estudis de l'Àsia Oriental
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Edificio K, Plaça del Coneixement
08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona
Spain
Yuchen.liu@uab.cat

**Biography:** Yuchen Liu is a predoctoral researcher in Translation and Intercultural Studies at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and a member of the research group GELEA2LT (2021SGR00722). She holds a B.A. in Spanish Philology from Jilin University (2018) and an M.A. in Translatology and Intercultural Studies from the UAB (2019). Her research interests include audiovisual translation and media accessibility.

<figure><img src="image_69.png" /></figure>

This work is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
<figure><img src="image_59.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_60.png" /><figcaption>Yuchen Liu</figcaption></figure>

Departament de Traducció i d'Interpretació i d'Estudis de l'Àsia Oriental
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Edificio K, Plaça del Coneixement
08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona
Spain
Yuchen.liu@uab.cat

**Biography:** Yuchen Liu is a predoctoral researcher in Translation and Intercultural Studies at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and a member of the research group GELEA2LT (2021SGR00722). She holds a B.A. in Spanish Philology from Jilin University (2018) and an M.A. in Translatology and Intercultural Studies from the UAB (2019). Her research interests include audiovisual translation and media accessibility.

<figure><img src="image_61.png" /></figure>

This work is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
La « tradufiction » et le pouvoir de l'autoreprésentation. *Assommons les pauvres, de Shina Shumona et Vengeance du traducteur, de Brice Matthieussent*

This article focuses on transfictions written by translators, which are considered as a means of self-representation that increases their power and visibility, enables them to take control over the narratives about their professional activity and to challenge preconceived ideas about the translator's work. Examining the novels *Assommons les pauvres* (2011), by Shina Shumona, and *Vengeance du traducteur* (2009), by Brice Matthieussent, will allow us to pinpoint the themes and writing strategies that these authors have selected to represent translators. Despite their differences, both authors build their stories around the ideas of fidelity, visibility, ethics and identity, forcing their readers to confront their own stereotypes about translators and translation. Ultimately, taking advantage of the benefits of fiction, they both opt for a more complex and nuanced representation of translators, when compared to more theoretical approaches.
La « tradufiction » et le pouvoir de l'autoreprésentation. *Assommons les pauvres, de Shina Shumona et Vengeance du traducteur, de Brice Matthieussent*

Transfiction and the power of self-representation. *Assommons les pauvres, by Shina Shumona, and Vengeance du traducteur, by Brice Matthieussent – Abstract*

This article focuses on transfictions written by translators, which are considered as a means of self-representation that increases their power and visibility, enables them to take control over the narratives about their professional activity and to challenge preconceived ideas about the translator's work. Examining the novels *Assommons les pauvres* (2011), by Shina Shumona, and *Vengeance du traducteur* (2009), by Brice Matthieussent, will allow us to pinpoint the themes and writing strategies that these authors have selected to represent translators. Despite their differences, both authors build their stories around the ideas of fidelity, visibility, ethics and identity, forcing their readers to confront their own stereotypes about translators and translation. Ultimately, taking advantage of the benefits of fiction, they both opt for a more complex and nuanced representation of translators, when compared to more theoretical approaches.

Keywords

translation, transfiction, translators, Shina Shumona, Brice Matthieussent
# 1. Les fictions de traducteurs ou tradufictions : passer par la littérature pour mieux comprendre la traduction

L'étude des représentations fictionnelles de la traduction et des traducteurs fait l'objet d'une attention croissante de la part des chercheurs. Selon Delabastita (2020, pp. 193-194) l'intérêt pour les représentations fictionnelles de la traduction illustre une tendance de la recherche postmoderne à valoriser « la créativité artistique et l'expérience singulière racontée », « plus fiables que les constructions sans vie et les généralités de la recherche empirique »<fnref n="1" />. Ces recherches font écho à l'appel lancé par Chesterman (2009) à adhérer à ce qu'il appelle les études sur le traducteur, une recherche plus attentive à la dimension humaine de l'activité.

Dans le monde francophone, on connaissait déjà le travail de Delisle (2012), sur la mise en scène de traducteurs fictifs dans les œuvres d'écrivains d'expression française au Canada. Delisle y repère la représentation des traducteurs et conclut, pour son corpus de fictions canadiennes, que l'on y « dénombre deux fois plus de traducteurs fictifs que de traductrices fictives, leur âge moyen est d'environ 35 ans, la majorité d'entre eux vivent seuls (...) et ceux qui vivent en couple n'ont jamais plus de deux enfants » (s.p.). Plus récemment, le courant de recherches sur les FASP (Fictions à substrat professionnel), plus ciblé sur le potentiel de la fiction pour la formation d'étudiants, s'est aussi intéressé aux fictions portant sur la traduction (Plassard, 2022).

Dans le monde anglophone, les tentatives de théorisation ont abouti à deux dénominations, celle de « transmesis », mot-valise à partir de « translation » et de « mimesis », et celle de « transfiction » créée à partir de « translation » et de « fiction ». La première a été proposée par Beebee en 2012, qui la définit comme « l'usage que les auteurs font de la fiction pour représenter des actes de traduction » (p. 3). La seconde, « transfiction » proposée par Kaindl en 2014, est définie comme « l'introduction (...) dans les fictions de phénomènes liés à la traduction » (p. 4). Personnellement, je préfère « transfiction », que je traduirai par tradufiction, car elle met l'accent sur l'aspect fictionnel des récits plutôt que sur la problématique de la mimesis<fnref n="2" />. Kaindl explique l'intensification de l'intérêt pour la tradufiction par les « caractéristiques ambivalentes qui (...) sont attribuées [aux traducteurs], et à leur travail, au cours de l'histoire » (p. 9), ainsi qu'à la nature fuyante de la traduction, qui « semble échapper à toute tentative de la cerner » (p. 1).

Ces fictions constituent des corpus d'une très grande richesse pour l'étude de la traduction, pouvant « offrir de nouvelles perspectives et une nouvelle compréhension des subtilités du processus de traduction » (Woodsworth & Lane-Mercier, 2018, p. 1). L'attention qu'elles ont suscitée et la richesse des débats ont d'ailleurs conduit certains chercheurs à annoncer un tournant fictionnel de l'étude de la traduction (Delabastita & Grutman, 2005).

Comme Arrojo (2018, p. 34), je pense qu'il ne faut pas lire les fictions sur la traduction à la recherche de la confirmation de ce que disent les théoriciens. Mais plutôt pour étudier des aspects qui ne sont pas souvent traités dans les études plus traditionnelles, comme les relations de pouvoir et leur impact psychologique et émotionnel sur les traducteurs, ainsi que le contexte social, historique et culturel dans lequel ils ou elles exercent leur métier. Ces fictions sont souvent l'écho de ce que la société contemporaine des écrivains pense sur la traduction, des stéréotypes et préjugés qui circulent et que les auteurs tendent à dénoncer. En

<footnote n="1">¹ Toutes les citations en anglais seront traduites par mes soins.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² Bien que cet article porte spécifiquement sur des œuvres littéraires, la tradufiction ne se limite pas au texte. Le cinéma a aussi un intérêt pour les figures de traducteurs, comme l'attestent les nombreux films qui y sont dédiés (à ce sujet, voir Cronin, 2008), notamment *Les Traducteurs*, le film à suspense de Régis Roinsard, paru en 2020.</footnote>
# 1. Les fictions de traducteurs ou tradufictions : passer par la littérature pour mieux comprendre la traduction

L'étude des représentations fictionnelles de la traduction et des traducteurs fait l'objet d'une attention croissante de la part des chercheurs. Selon Delabastita (2020, pp. 193-194) l'intérêt pour les représentations fictionnelles de la traduction illustre une tendance de la recherche postmoderne à valoriser « la créativité artistique et l'expérience singulière racontée », « plus fiables que les constructions sans vie et les généralités de la recherche empirique »<fnref n="1" />. Ces recherches font écho à l'appel lancé par Chesterman (2009) à adhérer à ce qu'il appelle les études sur le traducteur, une recherche plus attentive à la dimension humaine de l'activité.

Dans le monde francophone, on connaissait déjà le travail de Delisle (2012), sur la mise en scène de traducteurs fictifs dans les œuvres d'écrivains d'expression française au Canada. Delisle y repère la représentation des traducteurs et conclut, pour son corpus de fictions canadiennes, que l'on y « dénombre deux fois plus de traducteurs fictifs que de traductrices fictives, leur âge moyen est d'environ 35 ans, la majorité d'entre eux vivent seuls (...) et ceux qui vivent en couple n'ont jamais plus de deux enfants » (s.p.). Plus récemment, le courant de recherches sur les FASP (Fictions à substrat professionnel), plus ciblé sur le potentiel de la fiction pour la formation d'étudiants, s'est aussi intéressé aux fictions portant sur la traduction (Plassard, 2022).

Dans le monde anglophone, les tentatives de théorisation ont abouti à deux dénominations, celle de « transmesis », mot-valise à partir de « translation » et de « mimesis », et celle de « transfiction » créée à partir de « translation » et de « fiction ». La première a été proposée par Beebee en 2012, qui la définit comme « l'usage que les auteurs font de la fiction pour représenter des actes de traduction » (p. 3). La seconde, « transfiction » proposée par Kaindl en 2014, est définie comme « l'introduction (...) dans les fictions de phénomènes liés à la traduction » (p. 4). Personnellement, je préfère « transfiction », que je traduirai par tradufiction, car elle met l'accent sur l'aspect fictionnel des récits plutôt que sur la problématique de la mimesis<fnref n="2" />. Kaindl explique l'intensification de l'intérêt pour la tradufiction par les « caractéristiques ambivalentes qui (...) sont attribuées [aux traducteurs], et à leur travail, au cours de l'histoire » (p. 9), ainsi qu'à la nature fuyante de la traduction, qui « semble échapper à toute tentative de la cerner » (p. 1).

Ces fictions constituent des corpus d'une très grande richesse pour l'étude de la traduction, pouvant « offrir de nouvelles perspectives et une nouvelle compréhension des subtilités du processus de traduction » (Woodsworth & Lane-Mercier, 2018, p. 1). L'attention qu'elles ont suscitée et la richesse des débats ont d'ailleurs conduit certains chercheurs à annoncer un tournant fictionnel de l'étude de la traduction (Delabastita & Grutman, 2005).

Comme Arrojo (2018, p. 34), je pense qu'il ne faut pas lire les fictions sur la traduction à la recherche de la confirmation de ce que disent les théoriciens. Mais plutôt pour étudier des aspects qui ne sont pas souvent traités dans les études plus traditionnelles, comme les relations de pouvoir et leur impact psychologique et émotionnel sur les traducteurs, ainsi que le contexte social, historique et culturel dans lequel ils ou elles exercent leur métier. Ces fictions sont souvent l'écho de ce que la société contemporaine des écrivains pense sur la traduction, des stéréotypes et préjugés qui circulent et que les auteurs tendent à dénoncer. En

<footnote n="1">¹ Toutes les citations en anglais seront traduites par mes soins.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² Bien que cet article porte spécifiquement sur des œuvres littéraires, la tradufiction ne se limite pas au texte. Le cinéma a aussi un intérêt pour les figures de traducteurs, comme l'attestent les nombreux films qui y sont dédiés (à ce sujet, voir Cronin, 2008), notamment *Les Traducteurs*, le film à suspense de Régis Roinsard, paru en 2020.</footnote>
ce sens, elles offrent une perspective sur la manière dont les traducteurs et leurs traductions ont été perçus à différentes époques et dans différents pays.

Les tradufictions nous permettent également d'avoir accès aux perceptions des auteurs eux-mêmes. Ceux-ci étant (ou ayant été) souvent des traducteurs, leurs représentations de la profession, bien que fictionnelles, constituent une source d'information à ne pas négliger. Les tradufictions deviennent un moyen pour eux de s'approprier leur propre récit, de façonner la figure du traducteur et de contrer l'image sociale historiquement construite par les autres, qu'il s'agisse de l'opinion publique, des chercheurs, des autres professionnels du secteur ou des clients. Désormais, les traducteurs « s'affichent au grand jour et revendiquent crânement leur rôle sur la grande scène de la représentation. On est bien loin du vœu de modestie, de discrétion confinant à la mutité, de fidélité soumise, jadis attachée à la fonction-traducteur. » (Simeoni, 2004, p. 24) La fiction donne aux traducteurs le pouvoir de s'autoreprésenter, leur offre la possibilité de se raconter avec l'impunité et la liberté que leur accorde l'univers fictionnel.

La tradufiction n'est toutefois pas lue exclusivement par des chercheurs. Sa portée va bien au-delà. Par sa capacité à toucher un public plus large et plus hétérogène que celui des spécialistes, elle contribue activement à façonner les représentations collectives des traducteurs et de la traduction. Du point de vue du lecteur non-spécialiste, la fiction présente un avantage supplémentaire, elle lui permet de se mettre à la place du personnage et, « en s'immergeant dans la situation au lieu de l'analyser (...) [il] la revit sur le plan émotionnel (se rapprochant, même infinitésimalement, de ce qu'aurait été une expérience réelle) » (Jouve, 2019, pp. 132-133) La tradufiction incite le lecteur à s'identifier au traducteur, à ne plus l'envisager comme l'Autre, à adhérer à son point de vue, effet que le discours théorique ne produit pas.

Cet article porte sur deux romans publiés au cours de la première décennie du XXe siècle, écrits par des auteurs qui sont aussi des traducteurs, et qui jouent précisément sur l'image collective du traducteur et de l'interprète : *Assommons les pauvres*, de Shina Shumona (2011) et *Vengeance du traducteur*, de Brice Matthieussent (2009). L'analyse de ces textes vise à identifier les thèmes et les stratégies sélectionnés par les auteurs pour représenter la figure du traducteur.

## 2. La figure de l'interprète dans *Assommons les pauvres*, de Shina Shumona

Shina Shumona, écrivaine française d'origine indienne, travaillait comme interprète à l'Ofpra, l'Office français de protection des réfugiés et apatrides, lorsqu'elle a décidé d'écrire ce roman. Son travail consistait à traduire les récits des demandeurs d'asile venant de son pays d'origine. C'est à partir de ces expériences réelles qu'elle a écrit *Assommons les pauvres* (2011), qui lui a valu le Prix Valery-Larbaud, en 2012, et le Prix Populiste en 2011, mais qui a également été à l'origine de son licenciement de l'Ofpra (bien que le nom de l'institution ne soit jamais explicitement mentionné dans son texte). Cette coïncidence entre l'expérience professionnelle de l'auteur et celle de la narratrice encourage le lecteur à établir des liens entre fiction et réalité.

Ce roman traite de l'interprétation dans un contexte multilingue, cosmopolite et postcolonial, l'accent y étant mis, pour reprendre Delabastita (2020, p. 192) à propos de ce genre de fiction, sur l'expérience personnelle et les questions identitaires, avec une préférence pour des thèmes liés à la confiance, la loyauté, l'invisibilité, l'intraduisible et le trauma. Le récit est l'occasion, pour Shumona, de dégager les enjeux éthiques qui sous-tendent l'activité de l'interprète et son rôle dans la vie des migrants dans le contexte de la mondialisation. Mehta (2020), qui classe le roman dans la littérature de la migritude, souligne la tension que ressent la narratrice, entre son envie de s'adapter à « l'idéal normatif » français et sa situation privilégiée et son
ce sens, elles offrent une perspective sur la manière dont les traducteurs et leurs traductions ont été perçus à différentes époques et dans différents pays.

Les tradufictions nous permettent également d'avoir accès aux perceptions des auteurs eux-mêmes. Ceux-ci étant (ou ayant été) souvent des traducteurs, leurs représentations de la profession, bien que fictionnelles, constituent une source d'information à ne pas négliger. Les tradufictions deviennent un moyen pour eux de s'approprier leur propre récit, de façonner la figure du traducteur et de contrer l'image sociale historiquement construite par les autres, qu'il s'agisse de l'opinion publique, des chercheurs, des autres professionnels du secteur ou des clients. Désormais, les traducteurs « s'affichent au grand jour et revendiquent crânement leur rôle sur la grande scène de la représentation. On est bien loin du vœu de modestie, de discrétion confinant à la mutité, de fidélité soumise, jadis attachée à la fonction-traducteur. » (Simeoni, 2004, p. 24) La fiction donne aux traducteurs le pouvoir de s'autoreprésenter, leur offre la possibilité de se raconter avec l'impunité et la liberté que leur accorde l'univers fictionnel.

La tradufiction n'est toutefois pas lue exclusivement par des chercheurs. Sa portée va bien au-delà. Par sa capacité à toucher un public plus large et plus hétérogène que celui des spécialistes, elle contribue activement à façonner les représentations collectives des traducteurs et de la traduction. Du point de vue du lecteur non-spécialiste, la fiction présente un avantage supplémentaire, elle lui permet de se mettre à la place du personnage et, « en s'immergeant dans la situation au lieu de l'analyser (...) [il] la revit sur le plan émotionnel (se rapprochant, même infinitésimalement, de ce qu'aurait été une expérience réelle) » (Jouve, 2019, pp. 132-133) La tradufiction incite le lecteur à s'identifier au traducteur, à ne plus l'envisager comme l'Autre, à adhérer à son point de vue, effet que le discours théorique ne produit pas.

Cet article porte sur deux romans publiés au cours de la première décennie du XXe siècle, écrits par des auteurs qui sont aussi des traducteurs, et qui jouent précisément sur l'image collective du traducteur et de l'interprète : *Assommons les pauvres*, de Shina Shumona (2011) et *Vengeance du traducteur*, de Brice Matthieussent (2009). L'analyse de ces textes vise à identifier les thèmes et les stratégies sélectionnés par les auteurs pour représenter la figure du traducteur.

## 2. La figure de l'interprète dans *Assommons les pauvres*, de Shina Shumona

Shina Shumona, écrivaine française d'origine indienne, travaillait comme interprète à l'Ofpra, l'Office français de protection des réfugiés et apatrides, lorsqu'elle a décidé d'écrire ce roman. Son travail consistait à traduire les récits des demandeurs d'asile venant de son pays d'origine. C'est à partir de ces expériences réelles qu'elle a écrit *Assommons les pauvres* (2011), qui lui a valu le Prix Valery-Larbaud, en 2012, et le Prix Populiste en 2011, mais qui a également été à l'origine de son licenciement de l'Ofpra (bien que le nom de l'institution ne soit jamais explicitement mentionné dans son texte). Cette coïncidence entre l'expérience professionnelle de l'auteur et celle de la narratrice encourage le lecteur à établir des liens entre fiction et réalité.

Ce roman traite de l'interprétation dans un contexte multilingue, cosmopolite et postcolonial, l'accent y étant mis, pour reprendre Delabastita (2020, p. 192) à propos de ce genre de fiction, sur l'expérience personnelle et les questions identitaires, avec une préférence pour des thèmes liés à la confiance, la loyauté, l'invisibilité, l'intraduisible et le trauma. Le récit est l'occasion, pour Shumona, de dégager les enjeux éthiques qui sous-tendent l'activité de l'interprète et son rôle dans la vie des migrants dans le contexte de la mondialisation. Mehta (2020), qui classe le roman dans la littérature de la migritude, souligne la tension que ressent la narratrice, entre son envie de s'adapter à « l'idéal normatif » français et sa situation privilégiée et son
« ambivalence par rapport aux migrants » (p. 85). En effet, la narratrice est tiraillée entre attraction et répulsion, identification et altérité. Attraction et identification car elle partage avec les immigrés le pays d'origine et la peau « couleur d'argile » (Shumona, 2011, p. 13). Répulsion et sentiment d'altérité par tout ce qui la sépare de ces gens qui ont été contraints d'émigrer par des circonstances de vie difficiles, qui ont vécu des situations extrêmes pour atteindre la France, qui mentent par désespoir.

Le texte inclut des métaphores aux connotations positives pour caractériser la traduction, « la gymnastique des langues » (Shumona, 2011, p. 10), et les interprètes, les « gymnastes, les trapézistes des langues » (p. 136), dont le rôle est de servir de « trait d'union » (p. 25) entre les demandeurs d'asile et l'administration française. Pour la narratrice, jouer avec les langues procure du plaisir, elle a choisi la profession par « amour de la langue » (p. 15) et son travail d'interprète est satisfaisant dans la mesure où il a un impact sur le monde. Sa fonction ne consiste pas seulement à restituer un discours dans une autre langue nationale. Elle doit raccourcir les distances, traduire entre « la langue du pays d'accueil, la langue des bureaux vitrés » et la « langue de suppliant, la langue des clandestins, la langue du ghetto », à partir de « phrases démembrées, disloquées » (p. 26). Elle s'installe dans cet entre-deux, cette hybridité, que Chevrier (2004, p. 96) associe aux écrivains de la migritude et que Shumona (2011) caractérise comme « le métissage des civilisations » (p. 23).

C'est cependant l'écœurement de la narratrice qui l'emporte dans le récit. Sans cesse confrontée à la réalité éprouvante de la misère de ses compatriotes et aux pressions de son milieu professionnel, son malaise s'intensifie et explose lorsqu'elle assomme un immigré avec une bouteille de vin. Dans l'incipit du roman, elle se trouve précisément au commissariat de police et le récit se construit à partir de ce point d'ancrage temporel, reculant et avançant, à la recherche d'une explication à son geste inattendu. Le choix du titre – « Assommons les pauvres » est le titre d'un poème de Baudelaire, dont le message principal est qu'il faut agresser les « pauvres » pour qu'ils réagissent – attribue à cet acte démesuré et inopiné de la narratrice un rôle central dans le récit et attire l'attention du lecteur sur les angoisses de l'interprète.

L'une des sources du malaise de la narratrice advient du fait que les demandeurs d'asile adoptent le régime symbolique traditionnel de leur pays, basé sur la hiérarchie et le patriarcat. Étant majoritairement des hommes et des musulmans, ils ne respectent pas les femmes, surtout lorsqu'elles ont la même couleur de peau qu'eux, et qu'elles se trouvent en position de pouvoir. Comme le montrent Hertrampf, Nohe et von Hagen (2021, p. 16) bien que les migrations touchent presque autant les femmes que les hommes, les débats sur le sujet se concentrent souvent sur la dimension masculine des situations. Ce qui rend d'autant plus pertinents les textes qui, comme celui de Shumona, font entendre une voix féminine. Pour cette narratrice, la problématique identitaire est indissociable du genre, et elle organise mentalement son lieu de travail entre nous, les femmes et eux, les hommes :

> Tous ces hommes me faisaient honte. Et sans le savoir je m'inclinais de plus en plus vers ces officiers femmes qui représentaient la loi, la droiture, l'autorité. J'étais passée de l'autre côté. (...) Peut-être que j'ai agressé l'homme car devant Lucia et d'autres officiers, devant nous les femmes, l'homme et ses semblables étaient presque une injure, une erreur, un accident. À mes yeux, leur misère ne justifiait pas leur maladresse et leurs mensonges, leur agressivité et leur mesquinerie. (Shumona, 2011, p. 51)

Cet extrait montre que ce n'est pas un hasard si la narratrice a agressé un homme et non une femme. Les hommes sont associés au mensonge et à la violence, ils induisent chez elle un sentiment d'abjection, alors que les femmes sont associées à la vérité et à la rectitude. Ce passage établit une autre distinction importante : les processus de demande d'asyle se passant
« ambivalence par rapport aux migrants » (p. 85). En effet, la narratrice est tiraillée entre attraction et répulsion, identification et altérité. Attraction et identification car elle partage avec les immigrés le pays d'origine et la peau « couleur d'argile » (Shumona, 2011, p. 13). Répulsion et sentiment d'altérité par tout ce qui la sépare de ces gens qui ont été contraints d'émigrer par des circonstances de vie difficiles, qui ont vécu des situations extrêmes pour atteindre la France, qui mentent par désespoir.

Le texte inclut des métaphores aux connotations positives pour caractériser la traduction, « la gymnastique des langues » (Shumona, 2011, p. 10), et les interprètes, les « gymnastes, les trapézistes des langues » (p. 136), dont le rôle est de servir de « trait d'union » (p. 25) entre les demandeurs d'asile et l'administration française. Pour la narratrice, jouer avec les langues procure du plaisir, elle a choisi la profession par « amour de la langue » (p. 15) et son travail d'interprète est satisfaisant dans la mesure où il a un impact sur le monde. Sa fonction ne consiste pas seulement à restituer un discours dans une autre langue nationale. Elle doit raccourcir les distances, traduire entre « la langue du pays d'accueil, la langue des bureaux vitrés » et la « langue de suppliant, la langue des clandestins, la langue du ghetto », à partir de « phrases démembrées, disloquées » (p. 26). Elle s'installe dans cet entre-deux, cette hybridité, que Chevrier (2004, p. 96) associe aux écrivains de la migritude et que Shumona (2011) caractérise comme « le métissage des civilisations » (p. 23).

C'est cependant l'écœurement de la narratrice qui l'emporte dans le récit. Sans cesse confrontée à la réalité éprouvante de la misère de ses compatriotes et aux pressions de son milieu professionnel, son malaise s'intensifie et explose lorsqu'elle assomme un immigré avec une bouteille de vin. Dans l'incipit du roman, elle se trouve précisément au commissariat de police et le récit se construit à partir de ce point d'ancrage temporel, reculant et avançant, à la recherche d'une explication à son geste inattendu. Le choix du titre – « Assommons les pauvres » est le titre d'un poème de Baudelaire, dont le message principal est qu'il faut agresser les « pauvres » pour qu'ils réagissent – attribue à cet acte démesuré et inopiné de la narratrice un rôle central dans le récit et attire l'attention du lecteur sur les angoisses de l'interprète.

L'une des sources du malaise de la narratrice advient du fait que les demandeurs d'asile adoptent le régime symbolique traditionnel de leur pays, basé sur la hiérarchie et le patriarcat. Étant majoritairement des hommes et des musulmans, ils ne respectent pas les femmes, surtout lorsqu'elles ont la même couleur de peau qu'eux, et qu'elles se trouvent en position de pouvoir. Comme le montrent Hertrampf, Nohe et von Hagen (2021, p. 16) bien que les migrations touchent presque autant les femmes que les hommes, les débats sur le sujet se concentrent souvent sur la dimension masculine des situations. Ce qui rend d'autant plus pertinents les textes qui, comme celui de Shumona, font entendre une voix féminine. Pour cette narratrice, la problématique identitaire est indissociable du genre, et elle organise mentalement son lieu de travail entre nous, les femmes et eux, les hommes :

> Tous ces hommes me faisaient honte. Et sans le savoir je m'inclinais de plus en plus vers ces officiers femmes qui représentaient la loi, la droiture, l'autorité. J'étais passée de l'autre côté. (...) Peut-être que j'ai agressé l'homme car devant Lucia et d'autres officiers, devant nous les femmes, l'homme et ses semblables étaient presque une injure, une erreur, un accident. À mes yeux, leur misère ne justifiait pas leur maladresse et leurs mensonges, leur agressivité et leur mesquinerie. (Shumona, 2011, p. 51)

Cet extrait montre que ce n'est pas un hasard si la narratrice a agressé un homme et non une femme. Les hommes sont associés au mensonge et à la violence, ils induisent chez elle un sentiment d'abjection, alors que les femmes sont associées à la vérité et à la rectitude. Ce passage établit une autre distinction importante : les processus de demande d'asyle se passant
entre « demandeur, officier et traducteur » (p. 25), la narratrice suggère qu'elle tend à adopter une position plus proche de celle de l'officier, valorisant la loi au détriment des intérêts des demandeurs. La déontologie de l'interprète et ses dilemmes éthiques occupent ainsi une place centrale dans le récit. La narratrice part du principe qu'il est de son devoir de traduire avec exactitude ce qu'elle entend. Il s'agit toutefois de propos qu'elle sait défavorables à l'aboutissement de la requête des migrants. Traduire avec exactitude signifie, par conséquent, trahir ses compatriotes. Ceux-ci sont des gens humbles, peu scolarisés, qui rencontrent des difficultés à s'exprimer, qui hésitent, font des récits maladroits, souvent mémorisés à partir des instructions des passeurs. L'option est d'embellir leurs propos, trahissant son serment d'interprète, son éthique, ainsi que son employeur (qui lui demande de détecter les mensonges) et son pays d'accueil.

Le rôle de l'interprète dans les processus des demandes d'asyle est décrit comme une contribution « à la construction de versions des récits des demandeurs qui correspondent aux besoins et aux attentes des bureaucraties dans lesquelles ils sont situés et évalués » (Inghilleri, 2009, p. 11) C'est cette opération qui pose des difficultés éthiques à la narratrice. Son débat intime débouche sur une réflexion à propos du rôle de l'esthétique dans la transmission de la vérité : « [l]a vérité a quelque chose à voir avec l'esthétique. Ce qui est vilain et vulgaire, gauche et grossier, n'a pas l'allure du vrai. » (Shumona, 2011, p. 99). Sa conception de sa fonction d'interprète ne coïncide pas avec celle de ses collègues. Ava, que la narratrice caractérise comme « [c]elle qui a des idées tout opposées aux miennes. » (p. 97) décide que son rôle est de protéger ses compatriotes :

> De ses mots, comme avec un vernis à ongles, elle couvre et polit leurs vérités crues, aiguës, cabossées. Ici, tout est dans la langue, dans les mots, entre les lignes. Le nom d'une rivière mal placé auprès d'un nom de village, un adjectif flou pour un incident planté comme un couteau dans la chair, des bribes de phrases prononcées à mi-voix, à voix éteinte, de peur, d'attente, de désespoir. » (p. 98)

C'est cette conception de la traduction comme vernis à ongles, embellissant, cachant la vérité, que la narratrice refuse, et c'est parce qu'elle sait qu'un choix d'adjectif a des répercussions réelles pour les migrants qu'elle souffre.

Sa position crée des tensions. Elle subit des pressions de la part des immigrés : « lorsqu'ils bafouillaient et qu'ils avaient honte de bafouiller, lorsqu'ils mentaient et savaient qu'ils mentaient, ils piquaient alors une colère sournoise et hurlaient qu'on ne comprenait pas leur langue. Ils hurlaient que moi je ne traduisais pas ce qu'ils disaient. » (Shumona, 2011, pp. 26-27) Mais aussi de la part de ses collègues. C'est précisément le cas d'Ava, qu'elle qualifie de romancière engagée, une critique de la superposition des intérêts personnels à ce que la narratrice considère comme le devoir de l'interprète :

> Vomir, souffrir, être malade durant des semaines, tout cela n'est sûrement rien quand il s'agit de protéger les siens, d'aider son peuple, d'utiliser ce système d'asile politique pour améliorer la condition humaine. Détournement du récit. Pour l'acte charitable. C'est elle, la romancière. Et engagée. (p. 98)

Malgré leurs approches différentes, la narratrice, comme Ava, réagit à la lourdeur de ses journées de travail : « Le temps de rentrer chez moi, j'étais devenue une cage vide que le moindre vent secouait comme il voulait. Le cerveau réclamait une pause. » (pp. 36-37) Cet épuisement mental contribue certainement à lui faire commettre l'impensable, l'acte de rage qui la conduit au commissariat.

Le roman dénonce également la pression des avocats, auprès desquels l'interprète n'est que
entre « demandeur, officier et traducteur » (p. 25), la narratrice suggère qu'elle tend à adopter une position plus proche de celle de l'officier, valorisant la loi au détriment des intérêts des demandeurs. La déontologie de l'interprète et ses dilemmes éthiques occupent ainsi une place centrale dans le récit. La narratrice part du principe qu'il est de son devoir de traduire avec exactitude ce qu'elle entend. Il s'agit toutefois de propos qu'elle sait défavorables à l'aboutissement de la requête des migrants. Traduire avec exactitude signifie, par conséquent, trahir ses compatriotes. Ceux-ci sont des gens humbles, peu scolarisés, qui rencontrent des difficultés à s'exprimer, qui hésitent, font des récits maladroits, souvent mémorisés à partir des instructions des passeurs. L'option est d'embellir leurs propos, trahissant son serment d'interprète, son éthique, ainsi que son employeur (qui lui demande de détecter les mensonges) et son pays d'accueil.

Le rôle de l'interprète dans les processus des demandes d'asyle est décrit comme une contribution « à la construction de versions des récits des demandeurs qui correspondent aux besoins et aux attentes des bureaucraties dans lesquelles ils sont situés et évalués » (Inghilleri, 2009, p. 11) C'est cette opération qui pose des difficultés éthiques à la narratrice. Son débat intime débouche sur une réflexion à propos du rôle de l'esthétique dans la transmission de la vérité : « [l]a vérité a quelque chose à voir avec l'esthétique. Ce qui est vilain et vulgaire, gauche et grossier, n'a pas l'allure du vrai. » (Shumona, 2011, p. 99). Sa conception de sa fonction d'interprète ne coïncide pas avec celle de ses collègues. Ava, que la narratrice caractérise comme « [c]elle qui a des idées tout opposées aux miennes. » (p. 97) décide que son rôle est de protéger ses compatriotes :

> De ses mots, comme avec un vernis à ongles, elle couvre et polit leurs vérités crues, aiguës, cabossées. Ici, tout est dans la langue, dans les mots, entre les lignes. Le nom d'une rivière mal placé auprès d'un nom de village, un adjectif flou pour un incident planté comme un couteau dans la chair, des bribes de phrases prononcées à mi-voix, à voix éteinte, de peur, d'attente, de désespoir. » (p. 98)

C'est cette conception de la traduction comme vernis à ongles, embellissant, cachant la vérité, que la narratrice refuse, et c'est parce qu'elle sait qu'un choix d'adjectif a des répercussions réelles pour les migrants qu'elle souffre.

Sa position crée des tensions. Elle subit des pressions de la part des immigrés : « lorsqu'ils bafouillaient et qu'ils avaient honte de bafouiller, lorsqu'ils mentaient et savaient qu'ils mentaient, ils piquaient alors une colère sournoise et hurlaient qu'on ne comprenait pas leur langue. Ils hurlaient que moi je ne traduisais pas ce qu'ils disaient. » (Shumona, 2011, pp. 26-27) Mais aussi de la part de ses collègues. C'est précisément le cas d'Ava, qu'elle qualifie de romancière engagée, une critique de la superposition des intérêts personnels à ce que la narratrice considère comme le devoir de l'interprète :

> Vomir, souffrir, être malade durant des semaines, tout cela n'est sûrement rien quand il s'agit de protéger les siens, d'aider son peuple, d'utiliser ce système d'asile politique pour améliorer la condition humaine. Détournement du récit. Pour l'acte charitable. C'est elle, la romancière. Et engagée. (p. 98)

Malgré leurs approches différentes, la narratrice, comme Ava, réagit à la lourdeur de ses journées de travail : « Le temps de rentrer chez moi, j'étais devenue une cage vide que le moindre vent secouait comme il voulait. Le cerveau réclamait une pause. » (pp. 36-37) Cet épuisement mental contribue certainement à lui faire commettre l'impensable, l'acte de rage qui la conduit au commissariat.

Le roman dénonce également la pression des avocats, auprès desquels l'interprète n'est que
« l’outil le plus fragile, le moins protégé de cette usine à mensonges » (Shumona, 2011, pp. 117-118). Une avocate va jusqu’à menacer directement l’interprète :

> En gros, elle voulait que je traduise de telle sorte que les choses s’arragent pour ses clients, que le sort des requérants ne dépende pas trop des avis de la cour. En gros, elle voulait que je ne traduise pas les hésitations et les bafouillages, les propos contradictoires de ses clients, mais seulement l’essentiel, conforme à sa plaidoirie à elle, les phrases lisses, brillantes comme la vérité. Puis elle a fini par arracher son masque, hurlant comme un fauve : « Vous allez voir ! Tous les avocats seront contre vous ! Je vous ferai savoir ce que c’est... » (p. 136)

Ce qui est au cœur de la dispute entre l’avocate et l’interprète (et ce qui distingue celle-ci de certains de ses collègues), c’est la question du choix de la stratégie de traduction et de l’éthique. La description détaillée a l’avantage de rendre plus palpable pour le lecteur la manière dont les autres médiateurs font pression sur les traducteurs et pourquoi.

La narratrice décrit aussi les relations entre les interprètes, soulignant leur isolement. L’institution sélectionne toujours des traducteurs issus des pays d’origine des immigrants qui, ensemble, représentent un « monde en désordre » : « Ici les interprètes des continents et des pays divers se côtoient mais ce n’est qu’une fausse proximité, déroutante, divergente. Les fils barbelés entre nous. Les no man’s land entre nous. » (Shumona, 2011, p. 21) Cette narratrice vit dans un contexte de déracinement et de perte d’identité, entre deux langues, deux cultures, deux peuples, comme c’est souvent le cas pour les interprètes. Le manque de solidarité entre les interprètes, l’impossibilité d’une entente entre eux, renforce la caractérisation de ce contexte professionnel multilinguistique et multiculturel. L’interprète doit lutter pour survivre à une telle atmosphère si idéologiquement chargée, pour garder son intégrité intacte.

Le roman de Shumona se concentre sur les questions éthiques, sur le rôle des circonstances dans lesquelles le traducteur exerce son activité, sur les tensions de son contexte professionnel et sur sa relation aux autres. Le portrait de l’interprète dénonce ses fragilités et son instabilité.

### 3. La figure du traducteur littéraire dans *Vengeance du traducteur*, de Brice Matthieussent

*Vengeance du traducteur* (2009) est la première de huit fictions publiées par Brice Matthieussent, un traducteur expérimenté de romans américains. Ce roman représente le moment où le traducteur Matthieussent a eu l’audace de devenir auteur, ce qui n’est pas sans rapport avec l’histoire racontée. *Vengeance du traducteur* pourrait être classé dans ce groupe de fictions que Delabastita (2020, p. 193) associe à la métafiction et qui reprend une longue tradition littéraire sur la traduction fictive (songeons au *Pierre Ménard* de Jorge Luis Borges).

Il s’agit d’un texte complexe et polyphonique, qui demande un effort de reconstruction de la part du lecteur. Son propos est de stimuler la réflexion et le questionnement, plutôt que d’apporter des certitudes. Synthétiser le récit n’est pas facile : le narrateur de *Vengeance du traducteur* traduit en français un roman américain à auteur inconnu, intitulé *Translator’s revenge*, dans lequel on retrouve un récit enchâssé, intitulé *N.d.T*. (Note du traducteur). Le narrateur de *N.d.T.* est un auteur, Abel Prote, qui raconte l’histoire d’un traducteur, David Grey, qui traduit un roman américain en français et qui se venge de l’auteur, notamment en modifiant le roman qu’il aurait dû simplement traduire. Le lecteur est confronté à une structure de mise en abyme imbriquée : il lit un roman français sur une traduction française d’un roman américain, qui, à son tour, porte sur une traduction américaine d’un roman français<fnref n="3" />.

<footnote n="3">³ Sur le rôle de la pseudo-traduction dans *Vengeance du traducteur*, voir Jenn (2016, pp. 169-180).</footnote>
« l’outil le plus fragile, le moins protégé de cette usine à mensonges » (Shumona, 2011, pp. 117-118). Une avocate va jusqu’à menacer directement l’interprète :

> En gros, elle voulait que je traduise de telle sorte que les choses s’arragent pour ses clients, que le sort des requérants ne dépende pas trop des avis de la cour. En gros, elle voulait que je ne traduise pas les hésitations et les bafouillages, les propos contradictoires de ses clients, mais seulement l’essentiel, conforme à sa plaidoirie à elle, les phrases lisses, brillantes comme la vérité. Puis elle a fini par arracher son masque, hurlant comme un fauve : « Vous allez voir ! Tous les avocats seront contre vous ! Je vous ferai savoir ce que c’est... » (p. 136)

Ce qui est au cœur de la dispute entre l’avocate et l’interprète (et ce qui distingue celle-ci de certains de ses collègues), c’est la question du choix de la stratégie de traduction et de l’éthique. La description détaillée a l’avantage de rendre plus palpable pour le lecteur la manière dont les autres médiateurs font pression sur les traducteurs et pourquoi.

La narratrice décrit aussi les relations entre les interprètes, soulignant leur isolement. L’institution sélectionne toujours des traducteurs issus des pays d’origine des immigrants qui, ensemble, représentent un « monde en désordre » : « Ici les interprètes des continents et des pays divers se côtoient mais ce n’est qu’une fausse proximité, déroutante, divergente. Les fils barbelés entre nous. Les no man’s land entre nous. » (Shumona, 2011, p. 21) Cette narratrice vit dans un contexte de déracinement et de perte d’identité, entre deux langues, deux cultures, deux peuples, comme c’est souvent le cas pour les interprètes. Le manque de solidarité entre les interprètes, l’impossibilité d’une entente entre eux, renforce la caractérisation de ce contexte professionnel multilinguistique et multiculturel. L’interprète doit lutter pour survivre à une telle atmosphère si idéologiquement chargée, pour garder son intégrité intacte.

Le roman de Shumona se concentre sur les questions éthiques, sur le rôle des circonstances dans lesquelles le traducteur exerce son activité, sur les tensions de son contexte professionnel et sur sa relation aux autres. Le portrait de l’interprète dénonce ses fragilités et son instabilité.

### 3. La figure du traducteur littéraire dans *Vengeance du traducteur*, de Brice Matthieussent

*Vengeance du traducteur* (2009) est la première de huit fictions publiées par Brice Matthieussent, un traducteur expérimenté de romans américains. Ce roman représente le moment où le traducteur Matthieussent a eu l’audace de devenir auteur, ce qui n’est pas sans rapport avec l’histoire racontée. *Vengeance du traducteur* pourrait être classé dans ce groupe de fictions que Delabastita (2020, p. 193) associe à la métafiction et qui reprend une longue tradition littéraire sur la traduction fictive (songeons au *Pierre Ménard* de Jorge Luis Borges).

Il s’agit d’un texte complexe et polyphonique, qui demande un effort de reconstruction de la part du lecteur. Son propos est de stimuler la réflexion et le questionnement, plutôt que d’apporter des certitudes. Synthétiser le récit n’est pas facile : le narrateur de *Vengeance du traducteur* traduit en français un roman américain à auteur inconnu, intitulé *Translator’s revenge*, dans lequel on retrouve un récit enchâssé, intitulé *N.d.T*. (Note du traducteur). Le narrateur de *N.d.T.* est un auteur, Abel Prote, qui raconte l’histoire d’un traducteur, David Grey, qui traduit un roman américain en français et qui se venge de l’auteur, notamment en modifiant le roman qu’il aurait dû simplement traduire. Le lecteur est confronté à une structure de mise en abyme imbriquée : il lit un roman français sur une traduction française d’un roman américain, qui, à son tour, porte sur une traduction américaine d’un roman français<fnref n="3" />.

<footnote n="3">³ Sur le rôle de la pseudo-traduction dans *Vengeance du traducteur*, voir Jenn (2016, pp. 169-180).</footnote>
Il s'agit de ce que Kaindl (2022) appelle la « transfictional footnote novel », des romans traductionnels à notes de bas de page, « des textes littéraires dans lesquels des traducteurs fictifs créent leur propre espace narratif, séparé du texte principal, souvent aussi en termes de typographie. » (p. 27) Le point de départ du récit de *Vengeance du traducteur* est un traducteur qui décide de franchir la frontière qui le sépare de l'auteur, représentée graphiquement et symboliquement par la mise en page. Il s'agit d'un roman écrit exclusivement en notes de bas de page, autour d'un texte central auquel nous n'avons pas accès : la page est blanche au-dessus de la note de traducteur. La page devient ainsi un espace tangible, mais aussi symbolique. La ligne qui sépare les notes de bas de page du texte principal marque typographiquement la hiérarchie entre ce qui est légitime et noble (l'auteur et le texte original) et ce qui est secondaire et subordonné (le traducteur et la traduction). Le traducteur, habituellement relégué à la périphérie de l'œuvre « originale », va s'approprier l'espace symbolique de l'auteur.

Tout au long du roman, la note de bas de page prend de l'ampleur, le traducteur occupant progressivement le devant de la scène, tandis que l'auteur est chassé de son espace. Vers la fin du roman, presque toute la page est occupée par la note de traducteur, ce qui produit une inversion du protagonisme, de l'autorité et de l'identité (le traducteur devient l'auteur, comme Matthieussent dans la vie réelle).

L'incipit du roman est programmatique, annonçant, dès les premières phrases, les présupposés sur lesquels le récit se construit : « Je loge ici sous cette fine barre noire. (...) Bienvenue à toi, cher lecteur, franchis donc le seuil de mon antre. Ce n'est pas aussi spacieux que chez mon voisin d'au-dessus (...) Je sais que c'est lui que tu venais voir, et tu tombes sur moi. » (Matthieussent, 2009, p. 13) La dichotomie en haut / en bas marque la différence de statut entre l'auteur, que le lecteur veut lire, et le traducteur relégué au bas de la page, que le lecteur est obligé d'accepter. L'incipit invite ainsi à entrer dans le monde du traducteur, auquel le lecteur n'a généralement pas accès.

Le lecteur découvre, par la suite, que cet accès n'est pas immédiat. Il commence par être confronté aux images reçues sur les traducteurs qui circulent depuis des siècles en Occident. Ainsi en est-il dans l'extrait suivant, où l'auteur s'attaque à l'idée de l'invisibilité du traducteur :

> D'habitude je ne reçois personne, je reste invisible et muet, assigné à résidence exiguë, relégué sous terre. Là-haut, à l'air libre, au-dessus de cette barre, de ce couvercle étanche pour moi infranchissable, je suis certes partout présent, mais sur un mode que je ne comprends pas très bien moi-même, sous une forme bizarre, ectoplasmique et contrainte. J'évolue incognito, désincarné, fantôme obéissant et fidèle comme l'ombre demeure rivée au corps, coulé depuis toujours dans le moule de l'autre, de ce voisin bruyant qui s'exhibe en pleine lumière (...) (Matthieussent, 2009, pp. 13-14)

Cette première caractérisation du traducteur rassemble quelques stéréotypes (que le texte s'efforcera d'inverser par la suite) : l'invisibilité du traducteur (Venuti, 1995), par le choix des adjectifs « invisible », « incognito », mais aussi par l'image du traducteur comme un être qui n'est pas de chair et de sang : « ectoplasmique », « désincarné », « fantôme », « ombre ». Et finalement, l'idée de soumission à l'auteur, de fidélité, véhiculée par d'autres choix lexicaux : « muet », « contraint(e) », « obéissant » et « fidèle ». On y retrouve aussi l'insinuation que l'activité du traducteur est plutôt instinctive, qu'il n'a pas de raisonnement théorique (« je ne comprends pas très bien moi-même »), alors que le roman ressemble souvent à un traité de théorie de la traduction.

Le texte reprend aussi régulièrement quelques métaphores sur les traducteurs, dont certaines renvoient à l'idée d'obéissance : le traducteur est « une comète (...) en laisse », un « astre domestique », voire un « chien », qui n'existe que dans son rapport à son maître
Il s'agit de ce que Kaindl (2022) appelle la « transfictional footnote novel », des romans traductionnels à notes de bas de page, « des textes littéraires dans lesquels des traducteurs fictifs créent leur propre espace narratif, séparé du texte principal, souvent aussi en termes de typographie. » (p. 27) Le point de départ du récit de *Vengeance du traducteur* est un traducteur qui décide de franchir la frontière qui le sépare de l'auteur, représentée graphiquement et symboliquement par la mise en page. Il s'agit d'un roman écrit exclusivement en notes de bas de page, autour d'un texte central auquel nous n'avons pas accès : la page est blanche au-dessus de la note de traducteur. La page devient ainsi un espace tangible, mais aussi symbolique. La ligne qui sépare les notes de bas de page du texte principal marque typographiquement la hiérarchie entre ce qui est légitime et noble (l'auteur et le texte original) et ce qui est secondaire et subordonné (le traducteur et la traduction). Le traducteur, habituellement relégué à la périphérie de l'œuvre « originale », va s'approprier l'espace symbolique de l'auteur.

Tout au long du roman, la note de bas de page prend de l'ampleur, le traducteur occupant progressivement le devant de la scène, tandis que l'auteur est chassé de son espace. Vers la fin du roman, presque toute la page est occupée par la note de traducteur, ce qui produit une inversion du protagonisme, de l'autorité et de l'identité (le traducteur devient l'auteur, comme Matthieussent dans la vie réelle).

L'incipit du roman est programmatique, annonçant, dès les premières phrases, les présupposés sur lesquels le récit se construit : « Je loge ici sous cette fine barre noire. (...) Bienvenue à toi, cher lecteur, franchis donc le seuil de mon antre. Ce n'est pas aussi spacieux que chez mon voisin d'au-dessus (...) Je sais que c'est lui que tu venais voir, et tu tombes sur moi. » (Matthieussent, 2009, p. 13) La dichotomie en haut / en bas marque la différence de statut entre l'auteur, que le lecteur veut lire, et le traducteur relégué au bas de la page, que le lecteur est obligé d'accepter. L'incipit invite ainsi à entrer dans le monde du traducteur, auquel le lecteur n'a généralement pas accès.

Le lecteur découvre, par la suite, que cet accès n'est pas immédiat. Il commence par être confronté aux images reçues sur les traducteurs qui circulent depuis des siècles en Occident. Ainsi en est-il dans l'extrait suivant, où l'auteur s'attaque à l'idée de l'invisibilité du traducteur :

> D'habitude je ne reçois personne, je reste invisible et muet, assigné à résidence exiguë, relégué sous terre. Là-haut, à l'air libre, au-dessus de cette barre, de ce couvercle étanche pour moi infranchissable, je suis certes partout présent, mais sur un mode que je ne comprends pas très bien moi-même, sous une forme bizarre, ectoplasmique et contrainte. J'évolue incognito, désincarné, fantôme obéissant et fidèle comme l'ombre demeure rivée au corps, coulé depuis toujours dans le moule de l'autre, de ce voisin bruyant qui s'exhibe en pleine lumière (...) (Matthieussent, 2009, pp. 13-14)

Cette première caractérisation du traducteur rassemble quelques stéréotypes (que le texte s'efforcera d'inverser par la suite) : l'invisibilité du traducteur (Venuti, 1995), par le choix des adjectifs « invisible », « incognito », mais aussi par l'image du traducteur comme un être qui n'est pas de chair et de sang : « ectoplasmique », « désincarné », « fantôme », « ombre ». Et finalement, l'idée de soumission à l'auteur, de fidélité, véhiculée par d'autres choix lexicaux : « muet », « contraint(e) », « obéissant » et « fidèle ». On y retrouve aussi l'insinuation que l'activité du traducteur est plutôt instinctive, qu'il n'a pas de raisonnement théorique (« je ne comprends pas très bien moi-même »), alors que le roman ressemble souvent à un traité de théorie de la traduction.

Le texte reprend aussi régulièrement quelques métaphores sur les traducteurs, dont certaines renvoient à l'idée d'obéissance : le traducteur est « une comète (...) en laisse », un « astre domestique », voire un « chien », qui n'existe que dans son rapport à son maître
(Matthieussent, 2009, p. 15). D'autres évoquent plutôt l'idée d'un travail manuel, secondaire et peu visible (moins digne, selon les stéréotypes, que le travail intellectuel d'un créateur tel que l'auteur) : le traducteur est « l'humble artisan, le travailleur de l'ombre » (p. 20) D'autres métaphores évoquent plus explicitement l'idée que les traducteurs sont de simples messagers : « moi l'humble monte-charge, passeplat, plateau tournant, etc. » (p. 22)

D'autres encore concentrent tous les défauts traditionnellement attribués aux traducteurs : « transporteur indélicat, « déménageur maladroit », « trafiquant louche » qui « abîme », « écorne », « raie », « érafle », qui démolit malgré lui (Matthieussent, 2009, p. 35). Ainsi qu'à la traduction, un « résidu dérisoire du trésor originel », une « pauvre scorie » « baudruche », « déception », « débandade », « désolation générale », « étui privé de vie », « moule sans le bronze » (p. 36).

Cette concentration d'idée préconçues et péjoratives sur la traduction et les traducteurs force le lecteur à affronter ses préjugés, à en prendre conscience. Au lieu de les contredire, le texte, poursuivant une veine ironique, les affiche de manière hyperbolique, dans une attitude ludique que Kaindl (2022, p. 37) associe précisément aux romans traductionnels à notes de bas de page.

Le titre du roman nous avertit que nous aurons affaire à la vengeance d'un traducteur. En effet, une deuxième stratégie est adoptée pour bouleverser le lecteur. « Animé d'un désir (...) meurtrier » (Plassard, 2012, p. 172), ce « traducteur » (Wecksteen, 2013, p. 58) affirme ne pas respecter les interdits, notamment celui qui impose de ne pas transformer le texte de l'auteur, surtout en supprimer des parties : « Après les adjectifs, les adverbes et les indications scéniques, j'ai décidé de supprimer à partir d'ici toutes les comparaisons et les métaphores. » (Matthieussent, 2009, p. 39) Ainsi, pour se venger de l'auteur, le traducteur, cet « être hybride, mi-copiste, mi-auteur » (Jakubowska-Cichon, 2012, p. 48), « modifie, corrige, ampute, augmente, subver[t], détourne, maquille » (Matthieussent, 2009, p. 39) au lieu de traduire.

On retrouve aussi dans ce texte une définition de la traduction qui n'est pas péjorative, car elle n'est pas construite à partir de stéréotypes, elle est présentée comme l'alternative à la traduction-acte-de-vengeance ; il s'agit de la position éthique de ce traducteur fictionnel, qui représente le traducteur réel, Brice Matthieussent : une activité qui est décrite comme « possession magique », « souveraine et délicate » comparable à un « acte d'amour » (Matthieussent, 2009, p. 70). Il y a donc un contraste entre ce que les autres (notamment les écrivains) pensent de la traduction et ce que le traducteur en pense.

S'il est vrai que le lecteur a affaire à un « je » protéiforme (Fülöp, 2014, p. 56), il est également vrai que le récit comporte des éléments vraisemblables sur ce narrateur-traducteur. On nous y fournit des descriptions du corps du traducteur (car, après tout, il n'est pas un fantôme, un ectoplasme), y compris la souffrance mentale après chaque session de travail : « C'est parfois dans cet état guère reluisant que je sors moi aussi d'une séance de traduction ; hébété, sujet à un dépaysement (...). » (Matthieussent, 2009, p. 137) On retrouve ici la même sensation d'hébétude décrite par Shumona.

Brice Matthieussent (2009) caractérise également la relation du traducteur avec les professionnels de sa maison d'édition :

> Dans le roman que je traduis, *Translator's Revenge* (en français ça devrait donner, si l'éditeur est d'accord, *Vengeance du traducteur*, mais les éditeurs consultent volontiers les contrôleurs de gestion ainsi que les représentants qui à leur tour consultent les libraires qui eux-mêmes... Bref, pour le titre français rien n'est joué, ça peut tout à fait devenir *Panique à New York* ou *La Séductrice de Saint-Germain-des-Prés*, voire pire encore.) (p. 18)
(Matthieussent, 2009, p. 15). D'autres évoquent plutôt l'idée d'un travail manuel, secondaire et peu visible (moins digne, selon les stéréotypes, que le travail intellectuel d'un créateur tel que l'auteur) : le traducteur est « l'humble artisan, le travailleur de l'ombre » (p. 20) D'autres métaphores évoquent plus explicitement l'idée que les traducteurs sont de simples messagers : « moi l'humble monte-charge, passeplat, plateau tournant, etc. » (p. 22)

D'autres encore concentrent tous les défauts traditionnellement attribués aux traducteurs : « transporteur indélicat, « déménageur maladroit », « trafiquant louche » qui « abîme », « écorne », « raie », « érafle », qui démolit malgré lui (Matthieussent, 2009, p. 35). Ainsi qu'à la traduction, un « résidu dérisoire du trésor originel », une « pauvre scorie » « baudruche », « déception », « débandade », « désolation générale », « étui privé de vie », « moule sans le bronze » (p. 36).

Cette concentration d'idée préconçues et péjoratives sur la traduction et les traducteurs force le lecteur à affronter ses préjugés, à en prendre conscience. Au lieu de les contredire, le texte, poursuivant une veine ironique, les affiche de manière hyperbolique, dans une attitude ludique que Kaindl (2022, p. 37) associe précisément aux romans tradufictionnels à notes de bas de page.

Le titre du roman nous avertit que nous aurons affaire à la vengeance d'un traducteur. En effet, une deuxième stratégie est adoptée pour bouleverser le lecteur. « Animé d'un désir (...) meurtrier » (Plassard, 2012, p. 172), ce « traducteur » (Wecksteen, 2013, p. 58) affirme ne pas respecter les interdits, notamment celui qui impose de ne pas transformer le texte de l'auteur, surtout en supprimer des parties : « Après les adjectifs, les adverbes et les indications scéniques, j'ai décidé de supprimer à partir d'ici toutes les comparaisons et les métaphores. » (Matthieussent, 2009, p. 39) Ainsi, pour se venger de l'auteur, le traducteur, cet « être hybride, mi-copiste, mi-auteur » (Jakubowska-Cichon, 2012, p. 48), « modifie, corrige, ampute, augmente, subver[t], détourne, maquille » (Matthieussent, 2009, p. 39) au lieu de traduire.

On retrouve aussi dans ce texte une définition de la traduction qui n'est pas péjorative, car elle n'est pas construite à partir de stéréotypes, elle est présentée comme l'alternative à la traduction-acte-de-vengeance ; il s'agit de la position éthique de ce traducteur fictionnel, qui représente le traducteur réel, Brice Matthieussent : une activité qui est décrite comme « possession magique », « souveraine et délicate » comparable à un « acte d'amour » (Matthieussent, 2009, p. 70). Il y a donc un contraste entre ce que les autres (notamment les écrivains) pensent de la traduction et ce que le traducteur en pense.

S'il est vrai que le lecteur a affaire à un « je » protéiforme (Fülöp, 2014, p. 56), il est également vrai que le récit comporte des éléments vraisemblables sur ce narrateur-traducteur. On nous y fournit des descriptions du corps du traducteur (car, après tout, il n'est pas un fantôme, un ectoplasme), y compris la souffrance mentale après chaque session de travail : « C'est parfois dans cet état guère reluisant que je sors moi aussi d'une séance de traduction ; hébété, sujet à un dépaysement (...). » (Matthieussent, 2009, p. 137) On retrouve ici la même sensation d'hébétude décrite par Shumona.

Brice Matthieussent (2009) caractérise également la relation du traducteur avec les professionnels de sa maison d'édition :

> Dans le roman que je traduis, *Translator's Revenge* (en français ça devrait donner, si l'éditeur est d'accord, *Vengeance du traducteur*, mais les éditeurs consultent volontiers les contrôleurs de gestion ainsi que les représentants qui à leur tour consultent les libraires qui eux-mêmes... Bref, pour le titre français rien n'est joué, ça peut tout à fait devenir *Panique à New York* ou *La Séductrice de Saint-Germain-des-Prés*, voire pire encore.) (p. 18)
Ce passage met en relief, comme *Assommons les pauvres*, la manière dont les employeurs délimitent les choix des traducteurs. Dans ce cas, il s'agit du choix des titres des ouvrages traduits, sur lesquels les lecteurs manifestent souvent leur opinion.

L'idée de l'infidélité sert de toile de fond à la représentation du traducteur chez Matthieussent, afin de mieux cerner les enjeux de l'identité et du statut du traducteur.

## 4. La traduction : un pacte de lecture double

Les deux textes ont en commun d'avoir été écrits par des traducteurs/interprètes expérimentés, leurs narrateurs sont des traducteurs/interprètes qui partagent certains éléments biographiques avec les écrivains, et la traduction y joue un rôle central. En outre, les deux écrivains établissent des liens, lors d'entretiens, entre leurs activités de traducteurs et leurs textes. Ainsi, dans un entretien avec Sylvain Bourmeau, en 2009, Matthieussent raconte une partie de son histoire et une situation qu'il a vécue qui coïncident : dans les deux cas, un traducteur est poussé par l'auteur à adapter le roman à traduire à son nouveau contexte, en remplaçant toutes les références culturelles, spatiales, etc. par celles du contexte cible<fnref n="4" />. Shumona (2022), pour sa part, non seulement identifie son activité d'interprète à l'Ofpra comme point de départ pour son récit, mais elle dit avoir ressenti des sentiments qui sont aussi présents chez son personnage, la révolte, l'impuissance, la colère triste, car les migrants sont obligés d'inventer des histoires de persécutions religieuses et politiques pour demander l'asyle, alors qu'ils ont quitté leur pays pour des raisons économiques ou écologiques<fnref n="5" />.

Cela pourrait suggérer qu'il s'agit de récits factuels, une hypothèse que contrarient d'autres indices. Ainsi, *Vengeance du traducteur* est présenté par le paratexte comme un roman, bien que la page de titre annonce que l'auteur est également le traducteur de « deux cents fictions américaines ». Dans *Assommons les pauvres*, le classement n'est pas explicitement indiqué dans le paratexte, bien que le livre soit partout annoncé comme un roman.

Les titres aussi renvoient à la fiction. Dans le cas de Shumona, le titre a un double poids fictionnel, puisqu'il s'agit d'un renvoi intertextuel au poème en prose éponyme de Baudelaire. Le troisième indice qui situe ces textes dans le domaine de la fiction ce sont les situations extrêmes de vengeance et révolte qu'ils racontent. En effet, le pacte de lecture que pourrait suggérer la véracité de certains faits racontés est faussé par des situations absurdes et invraisemblables, qui servent à mettre en garde le lecteur contre une adhésion naïve à la véracité de ce qui lui est raconté, à atténuer l'illusion référentielle. La narratrice de Shumona agresse un migrant, tandis que celui de Matthieussent séduit Doris, qui avait eu une relation avec l'auteur, projette d'installer un virus dans l'ordinateur de l'auteur qui aurait effacé tout son texte, et enfin traduit son texte en faisant tout ce qu'un traducteur n'est pas censé faire, faisant de *Vengeance du traducteur* une « parodie poussée à l'extrême. » (Plassard, 2010, p. 63) Le thème de la vengeance devient pour les deux auteurs un outil métaphorique qui leur permet d'examiner la relation entre traducteur et auteur.

Cette description montre aussi la part d'humour que l'on ressent à la lecture de ces textes. En accordant une touche irréelle aux récits, en ayant recours à l'humour, en les construisant sur une base intertextuelle, les auteurs désamorcent la fonction documentaire et brouillent les pistes entre fiction et réalité.

Lorsqu'ils soulignent le caractère fictionnel et construit du récit, ces auteurs attirent l'attention de leurs lecteurs sur l'arbitraire de la fiction, qui sélectionne les événements, les organise

<footnote n="4">⁴ Voir : https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9zqzs</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵ Voir : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7oqqj97_xU</footnote>