What is non-speech information (NSI) and how do we caption it effectively? While we already have a pretty good idea of what the major categories of NSI are – paralanguage [grunts, sighs, etc.], speaker IDs, sound effects, language IDs, manner of speaking, music, and mediated by [e.g. over radio] – we don’t have a good understanding of the number, function, and range of non-speech captions across a wide terrain of professionally-captioned major motion pictures. Captioning style guides are limited when it comes to helping us identify which non-speech sounds are significant and how to caption them effectively. NSI is notoriously difficult to caption and requires a high level of creativity and sensitivity. This presentation will also offer a set of best practices for making non-speech sounds accessible to deaf, hearing, and hard-of-hearing caption readers. |