From creating to translating: Chinese students’ audio description processes for film

Audio description (AD), an assistive form of audiovisual translation, is essential for enabling people with visual impairments to participate equally in audiovisual and cultural experiences, yet scripting AD from scratch is costly and time-consuming. AD translation has been proposed as a more economical alternative, but comparative evidence on the production process between direct AD and AD translation remains scarce, especially in the Chinese context. This study therefore conducts a process-level comparison of the two production modes for films. Drawing on keystroke logging, screen recordings, and post-task questionnaires, it investigates participants’ phase-level cognitive management (planning, drafting, and revising) and multidimensional perceived task difficulty across the two AD production methods. Findings revealed that overall duration was shorter for AD translation, though not significantly. Planning time was significantly longer in AD translation than in direct AD, whereas drafting and revision showed no significant differences. Questionnaire data indicated significantly higher overall perceived difficulty for direct AD, with only non-significant dimension-level trends. These patterns suggest that AD translation scaffolds script production by drawing on students’ familiar interlingual routines, while the additional source-language AD script increases early multimodal integration demands and prolongs planning duration. Cross-linguistic adaptation, tight timing, and multimodal coordination appear to blur dimension-specific effects across the two modes. This study provides empirical evidence on AD production in the Chinese context, moving beyond existing product-oriented and largely conceptual analyses. It offers practical implications for cost-effective AD production and training and demonstrate the benefits of an interdisciplinary perspective that connects audiovisual translation scholarship with media accessibility research.