| dc.description.abstract | Vallen and Falling belong to two distinctive genres - youth novel and film - which are in
interaction with different semiotic systems, and which can be investigated and described
integrated with the social context and its processes of communication. The rewriting or
'translation' of the novel to the film is a transformational process in which the reader/viewer
assigns a certain significance to the texts in terms of an analysis and interpretation. The
novel and the film, then, each has a distinct effect on the reader or viewer.
This study is focused on a number of questions arising from the process of transformation.
Firstly, a transformation-study requires/necessitates the delineation of a theoretical
framework for the structured and systematic analysis of the texts under consideration.
Secondly, the question arises: which procédés (variants and constants) are activated in the
different texts when analysed, and what might the effect be, of these procédés, on
interpretation?
The analysis is characterised by an interdisciplinary approach, which engages such
disciplines as film studies, sociology, psychology and philosophy, in order to interpret the
representation procédés in the novel and the film. Throughout, the analysis is based on the
reciprocal interaction of semiotic to wit, the syntactical, semantic, and pragmatic
components.
The variants and constants that can be identified in a comparison between the novel and the
film through the exploration of the transformation procédés, are reflected in the results of this
study. The various possibilities of interpretation of the variants and constants are
circumscribed and argued. Ultimately, the thematic relevance of this study emerges in terms
of the analysis and interpretation of the texts, and a consequent parallel drawn between the
South African and European contexts. | |
