Comparing introductory sections in city audio guides in Italian and English

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyse introductory sections in Italian, British/Irish and American city audio guides from a contrastive perspective, in order to identify possible differences in the type and distribution of content. Three main content types and their corresponding subtypes were identified in the introductions of fifty professional city audio guides and were both quantitatively and qualitatively compared across the three groups. Differences between audio guides in Italian and in English are identified and discussed in reference to Hall’s ‘contexting’ theory (1983, 1990), and the findings are then compared to existing guidelines for audio guides production provided by scholars and professionals in the field. Finally, on the basis of the results, translation issues are addressed by providing a list of aspects that could be taken into account when producing English versions of Italian audio guides.