Image superimposition in signed language discourse and in motion pictures

Abstract

Both film and signed languages are media that make use of iconicity and employ motion images for communicative and narrative purposes. This paper focuses on simultaneously presented images that occur in film for example as double exposures and in signed languages as simultaneous constructions. While film and signed languages differ in many ways with respect to iconicity, they can be compared with respect to the way simultaneously presented motion images relate to each other. Superimpositions are defined as a simultaneous view on two or more scenes or as giving two different simultaneous representations of one scene. They serve as a means of dense information packaging. While superimpositions strongly differ in their appearance in film and signed discourse, they exhibit some similarities of structure and functions. They exploit the iconicity of spatial relations emerging in the graphic spatial dimension. Their function is to express a spatial, intentional or temporal connection between two scenes or aspects of one scene, for example the intentional relation between a cognitive activity as seen in the face of a person and the object or content of that cognitive activity.