Abstract:

The practice of audio description has been developing rapidly in China, with applications in different settings for people with visual impairments. Audio description is normally considered a type of audiovisual translation, but in terms of the cognitive process, competence composition and communication effects, it shares more similarities with interpreting. Audio description research from the perspective of transknowletology helps theoretically tackle the fuzziness of disciplinary identity to form a new research paradigm, and methodologically shape new research approaches to new topics, thus broadening the scope of translation studies. As a special form of communication, audio description may be the source of rich research topics, thus serving as an application and verification of the theoretical as well as methodological aspects of transknowletology.

Key words: transkowletology, audio description, paradigm, approaches, methods