Media accessibility training for translation and interpreting students through an alternative SDH guideline

MA has gained attention as a research topic within TS especially in the last 20 years. Despite the increasing attention given to MA in Türkiye, its pedagogical aspect remains under-explored. The present study contributes to the pedagogical research on MA in Türkiye with a special focus on SDH. This study investigates whether and how T&I students can be trained to produce interlingual and intralingual SDH that would both meet the needs of d/Deaf and hard of hearing ("end-users") and enhance their viewing experience, while simultaneously raising students' overall awareness of MA. To this end, a training model is proposed grounded in Pablo Romero-Fresco's CMA approach and Donald Kiraly's social-constructivist approach towards translation education. During the training, students collaborated to produce creative SDH content guided by an alternative SDH guideline that improved upon standard SDH guidelines. Two sets of questionnaires were administered to both groups. The first set of questionnaires was conducted prior to the training to identify students' initial level of MA awareness and to learn about the end-users' needs. The second set was administered at the end of the training to assess possible changes in awareness levels and to gather the end-users' opinions on the student-produced content. Results indicated a marked increase in students' MA awareness and a strong preference among end-users for the SDH content produced by the students.