Maria Andreea Deleanu

Maria Andreea Deleanu


Postgraduate Research Student

Academic and research departments

Centre for Translation Studies.

About

My research project

Research

Research interests

Under the supervision of Professor Elisa Perego (University of Trieste) and Professor Anna Matamala (Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona) she has collaborated with stakeholders in the realm of Media Accessibility and Social Inclusion to create content for the EU project EASIT (Easy Access for Social Inclusion Training). Andreea has focused on Unit 3, regarding the application of Easy to Understand (E2U) language in Audio Description to improve access for users with visual impairment.

https://transmediacatalonia.uab.cat/easit/

Publications

Maria Andreea Deleanu, Constantin Orasan, Sabine Braun (2024)Accessible Communication: a systematic review and comparative analysis of official English Easy-to-Understand (E2U) language guidelines, In: Proceedings of the 3rd Workshop on Tools and Resources for People with REAding DIfficulties (READI) pp. 70-92 ELRA and ICCL

Easy-to-Understand (E2U) language varieties have been recognized by the United Nation's Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006) as a means to guarantee the fundamental right to Accessible Communication. Increased awareness has driven changes in European (European Commission, 2015, 2021; European Parliament, 2016) and International legislation (ODI, 2010), prompting public-sector and other institutions to offer domain-specific content into E2U language to prevent communicative exclusion of those facing cognitive barriers (COGA, 2017; Maaß, 2020; Perego, 2020). However, guidance on what it is that makes language actually 'easier to understand' is still fragmented and vague. For this reason, we carried out a systematic review of official guidelines for English Plain Language and Easy Language to identify the most effective lexical, syntactic and adaptation strategies that can reduce complexity in verbal discourse according to official bodies. This article will present the methods and preliminary results of the guidelines analysis.