Indonesian audio description of paralinguistic contexts in abstract and metaphorical movie scenes

Linguistic research on audio description (AD) in Indonesian remains very limited, especially on the relationship between AD and the representation of abstract and metaphorical paralinguistic elements in film. We aimed to identify which abstract and metaphorical paralinguistic elements are described by Indonesian AD and what paralinguistic descriptive strategies are used to convey abstract and metaphorical scenes. We obtained the data from four films with Indonesian subtitles. We collected all data using ELAN software, analyzed them using qualitative content analysis, then further examined them through domain, taxonomy, and componential analyses. The results suggest that Indonesian AD places heavy emphasis on visual paralinguistic elements. Contextual aspects such as the use of color and lighting (which signify a film’s identity or production house) appear quite often but do not directly contribute to the plot or the main meaning of the story. Description and naming emerged as the most prominent strategies for referring to visual, vocal, and contextual features. We believe that using these descriptive strategies can facilitate comprehensive explanations of abstract and metaphorical scenes while adapting to the time constraints between them.