Critical Review of Subtitles for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (SDH): Representing Emotional Meaning through Interjections

Abstract

for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (SDH) are an indispensable

accessibility service in contemporary audiovisual media, providing Deaf

and Hard of Hearing (DHH) people access to materials that may otherwise

be conveyed by sound. Standard SDH guidelines have evolved sufficiently

to establish a coherent body of conventions governing the representation

of dialogue, speaker identification, sound effects, music, and other nonverbal

auditory elements. Despite improvements in audiovisual provision,

the construction of emotional meaning in audiovisual works remains

sparsely engaged. This limitation is especially relevant to the treatment of

interjections, which often constitute spontaneous expressions of emotion,

attitude, and psychological reaction. This study critically examines whether

present-day SDH theories and instructions sufficiently convey emotional

substance through interjections. Using a qualitative approach through a

Critical Literature Review (CLR), this study draws on scholarly literature,

institutional directives, and theoretical writings related to SDH, audiovisual

translation, pragmatics, emotion studies, and accessibility research. This

review also covers the main SDH frameworks developed by the BBC, Ofcom,

and Netflix, as well as recent studies on emotional accessibility and

multimodal communication. It shows that current SDH practices are largely

built on an informational accessibility model that focuses on transferring

auditory information rather than representing emotional experience.

Conventions, on their face, communicate sounds and paralinguistic

information, but the latter provides little guidance for conveying the

emotional and pragmatic meanings embedded in interjections. Not to

mention, today's Ortho typographical conventions fail to accommodate the 

complexity of emotional expression. This research contends that emotional

accessibility should be recognized as a fundamental dimension of SDH. The

article recommends a more context-sensitive and emotion-oriented model

that can enable DHH audiences to benefit from both informational and

affective equivalence.