Reading Sounds

The Ultimate Guide to Closed Captioning

Cripping closed captioning: Experiments with type, icons, and dynamic effects

Written by Sean Zdenek on August 6th, 2016August 16th, 2018.

Can we open closed captioning up to greater experimentation through the use of color, icons, typography, and basic animations to convey meaning?

Read the full article at DigitalRhetoricCollaborative.org.

Chirp! Captioning BB-8 in The Force Awakens

Positioning and styling captions when speakers overlap and interrupt each other

Winner: 2017 Best Book in Technical and Scientific Communication, Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC)

"There’s no book like this; plain and simple, it is one of the most original new books I’ve ever read." -- Brenda Brueggemann, author of Deaf Subjects

Supplemental website

Preface
1. A rhetorical view of captioning
2. Reading and writing captions
3. Context and subjectivity in sound effects captioning
4. Logocentrism
5. Captioned irony
6. Captioned silences and ambient sounds
7. Cultural literacy, sonic allusions, and series awareness
8. In a manner of speaking
9. The future of closed captioning
Fair Use notice
Accessibility statement

Recent blog posts

Caption every screen. March 22, 2020
Positioning and styling captions when speakers overlap and interrupt each other March 20, 2020
Cripping closed captioning: Experiments with type, icons, and dynamic effects August 6, 2016
Chirp! Captioning BB-8 in The Force Awakens April 14, 2016
Do sirens always wail? January 7, 2016
When a yellow subtitle meets a character from The Simpsons December 18, 2015
Tracking sonic timelines in closed captioning October 18, 2015

Buy the Book

Reading Sounds is published in hardcover, paperback, and e-book by The University of Chicago Press (2015). This supplemental website includes all of the media clips discussed in the book.

Purchase your copy today.

About the Author

Dr. Sean Zdenek is associate professor of technical and professional writing at the University of Delaware. He has been keenly interested in closed captioning for over a decade and writing about it since 2009. Send him an email (zdenek@udel.edu) or follow him on Twitter (seanzdenek).