a system and associated method of converting audio data from a television signal into textual data for display as a closed caption on an display device is provided . the audio data is decoded and audio speech signals are filtered from the audio data . the audio speech signals are parsed into phonemes in accordance by a speech recognition module . the parsed phonemes are grouped into words and sentences responsive to a database of words corresponding to the grouped phonemes . the words are converted into text data which is formatted for presentation on the display device as closed captioned textual data .