HUMANITARIAN RESEARCHES

Journal of fundamental and applied researches

Film adaptation of a literary work as a context-dependent communicative act

2022. №2, pp. 56-63

Dukhovnaya Tatiana V. - Candidate of Philology Sciences, Kuban State University, Krasnodar, Russia

The ubiquity of film adaptations of literary works makes it topical to study the nature of the process, as well as to conduct its systematic analysis. This article aims to give a comprehensive account of theoretical views and ideas on the phenomenon of film adaptation. The main objectives of the study are: to analyze similarities between film adaptation and translation; to study the contextual factors essential for this process; to discover how the discourses surrounding film adaptation affect its perception and interpretation. The results of the analysis suggest that adaption of literary works for the screen includes taking the text out of its original context, making intrasemiotic and intersemiotic transfer of verbal content, and placing it in a new context (historical, political, social, cultural, etc.). Thus, the original text is translated into a film text and recontextualized. We find contextual factors that play a crucial role in how film adaptations materialize, such as economic, artistic, and social. The process of film adaptation initiates a two-way act of communication between the source text and the film text, as well as between their contexts. Particular emphasis is placed on paratexts that can be used as a guide to explain the changes made to the semantic content, in terms of its conceptualization by the adapter, along with its perception by the audience. Based on the results of the research it is possible to conclude that film adaptation is an act of communication between texts and contexts it consists of and surrounded by.

Key words: film adaptation, literary work, translation, context, recontextualisation, paratext

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