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Film & Television vocabulary · Sound and Music

Non-diegetic sound

Meaning in film & television, with examples

nounAdvanced term

In film & television, non-diegetic sound means: Sound added for the audience that the characters in the story world do not hear, such as score or narration.

In Turkish: öykü dışı ses

How it is used

Used in film analysis, editing, and sound design. It helps distinguish background score, commentary, or other audience-only audio from sounds inside the scene.

Example sentences

  1. The editor added non-diegetic sound under the final montage, so the audience feels tension before the verdict is announced.

    Here, the term refers to audio created for viewer impact rather than a sound source that exists within the filmed scene itself.

  2. In her essay, she argues that the voice-over functions as non-diegetic sound because the characters never respond to it.

    This example uses the term analytically to classify a voice-over as separate from the characters’ audible world.

Common collocations

  • non-diegetic music
  • non-diegetic narration
  • non-diegetic score
  • scoreThe original music composed specially for a film or series to support its emotions, rhythm and story.
  • soundtrackThe music used in a film or series, often released as an album. Technically it also means the whole recorded audio of a film: dialogue, effects and music.

More terms: Sound and Music

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