Kinematics in physical science is the study of the motion of objects independently of the causes that produce that motion. In sign language, cinematic is a combination of two concepts: the ability of Sign Language to create the sensation of motion and visual rhythm in a narrative
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| Example of cinematics (photo: American Sign Language Classes) |
In order to do this, Sign Language makes use of its visual and spatial
features, using sign space, classifiers, role reversals, etc. This is quite
difficult to achieve in spoken languages, as the Deaf artist Cobi Sewell shows
us in the following video with the film
Transformers
(in American Sign Language and English subtitles that are activated by turning
off the audio):
As can be seen, in an spoken language it would take a lot of words to
narrate the film at the same speed as Cobi does. For a person who does not
know Sign Language, it may be difficult to understand, but Cobi is very
skilfully using a large number of cinematographic techniques in sign
language: zooms, cuts, angles, shots, etc.
In this other
Unusualverse post
there are also two more examples of the cinematic use of Sign Language, and
in the following video, another Sign Language expert does something similar
with the film
The Matrix
(in American Sign Language):
These cinematic techniques are also widely used in Sign Language narration and poetry, often with visual effects as in the following video (in American Sign Language):
In short, the cinematic capacity of Sign Language is truly amazing, although in many countries it has not yet been sufficiently explored. This link explains some of these cinematic techniques (in English and American Sign Language).
