The chapter opens with a definition of audio description (AD) – an accessible form of audiovisual translation for the blind and visually impaired people (VIPs). It describes the primary target audience of AD emphasizing its heterogeneity and diversified needs. It then tracks the history of AD both as a professional practice and as an academic discipline and focuses on AD guidelines in order to show the commonalities and the difference between the ones on the market, and to illustrate the change in perspective that took place over the last few years and that brought to the formulation of new user-centred and flexible recommendations in opposition to the former rigid norms that have governed the AD professional practice till recently. A brief overview of some of the most relevant aspects of the language of AD is offered based on corpus-based research, as well as an overview on the stylistic properties of AD and the unresolved debate on interpretation in AD. The chapter closes with an overview of the most relevant findings of reception research that has been carried out both on VIPs and on sighted viewers.
