def retrieve_captions(data_list):
    """
        Reads the captions from a list and returns them

        Args:
            data_list (list<dict>): List of image metadata

        Returns:
            merged_captions (list<str>): List of captions from the dataset
    """
    caption_list = []
    for data in data_list:
        for article in data['articles']:
            caption_list.append(article['caption'])
    return caption_list