Closed captioning – commonly known as subtitling for the Deaf or hearing impaired people – constitutes a fairly complex issue. If the movement from a direct system to a substitute system (i.e., spoken language/written language) is problematic in itself, the difficulty increases when you take into account that the switch of linguistic mode is a rather difficult process for a vast majority of the members of the Deaf community (whose main communicative language is acquired through the visual-gestural channel). Solving specific translation problems is even more complex because there seems to be no general agreement on which language constitutes the recipients’ main language or mother tongue. The lack is an established practice when writing this particular kind of subtitling does not justify a further delay in offering a final result that meets the quality standards required by such a task. Thus, the following article intends to revise the manifold features that characterise subtitle recipients (i.e., Deaf readers of closed-captions/subtitles) who present deep deafness or suffer from a partial loss of hearing (i.e., hypoacusis). The linguistic peculiarities of Deaf people, regardless of their degree of any loss of hearing are also discussed in an attempt to establish a taxonomy of specifically targeted subtitle recipient groups that may benefit from the many technological advantages offered by digital broadcasting systems.