T he present volume contains eight diverse approaches, by eight scholars from various European
countries, to the analysis of a single audiovisual text entitled In Excelsis Deo. T he text is in fact
Episode T en of the highly successful American television series The West Wing and while it contains
inevitable intertextual connections with preceding and subsequent episodes (the chief of staff’s drug
problems, Christmas preparations at the White House, the tragic murder of a gay schoolboy, some
barely hatched love stories), it also features a self-contained story of a Korean War veteran who is
given an unofficial military funeral through the machinations of a member of the White House
staff. T he analysis of this text, which is particularly rich in the kind of linguistic, semantic,
pragmatic, cultural and technical challenges found in audiovisual translation (AVT ), will also
embrace the important area of audiovisual access for the sensorially disabled, namely the deaf and
hard of hearing and the blind and sight-impaired. T hrough a process of careful re-examination and
coordinated analysis, it is hoped that the similar or diverse methodologies, priorities or perceptions
that emerge from the various contributions will provide stimuli for anyone working in the AVT
sector, especially those in the media industry and in higher education.
