Introduction

We normally tend to think of cinema as essentially a visual medium in which language plays only a subsidiary and inconsequential role, lending support to the ambitions of the visual images displayed on the screen. However, as modern film scholars, through their carefully conceived and nuanced analyses, have demonstrated, language and the soundtrack fulfill far more significant roles in film diegesis than such common assumptions would have us believe. A work like The Voice in Cinema by Michel Chion (1999) underscores the fact that the human voice is of pivotal importance in the experience of cinema and that the relationship that exists between the voice and the image is complex and many sided, and serves to foreground the complex ontology of this technology-based medium of entertainment. Thus, various aspects of language are increasingly attracting the attention of film scholars with commendable results.

Language fulfills many important functions in cinema, which are significantly linked to questions of narrative discourse, content, form, and styles of presentation. It facilitates the forward movement of the narrative, reinforces the intent of the image, opens up psychological depths in characters, and guides the viewer through the cinematic diegesis. These can be termed the positive functions of language in cinema. One has only to examine any popular Hollywood film to realize the positive ways in which language functions in cinema.