Research on Availability and Reception of Intralingual Subtitles by the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in China

After offering an overview of the deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) communities and the availability of subtitles in China, the present article explores questionnaire-based empirical research on the reception of intralingual subtitles by DHH audiences in China. The empirical research (1) has a survey on DHH users’ awareness, habits, needs, and preferences of intralingual subtitles to assess gaps between these needs and current subtitle offerings in China; (2) studies the effects of subtitle presentation rate, character identification, paralanguage information, degree of hearing loss and educational level on comprehension to improve subtitle provision and accessibility for DHH in China; (3) examines the caption speeds with which audiences are most comfortable to establish the most effective subtitle presentation speeds for enhancing viewer comfort and comprehension. It is concluded that although subtitled programs have been available on public TV in China since the 1980s, their provision is still inadequate. Nearly all the available intralingual subtitles are verbatim, which is too difficult for the poorly educated DHH to comprehend. The DHH audiences are quite unsatisfied with the existing subtitle services. Based on our empirical research, we strongly recommend that TV stations, cinemas, and online video providers should provide DHH edited subtitles with character identification and paralanguage information displayed with a lower presentation rate (about 129 Chinese characters per minute).