A Semiological Reassessment of the Fidelity Debate

Adaptations, currently the best-known example of intersemiotic translation, more often than not are addressed in the disingenuous terms of 'fidelity,' 'parasitism,' or 'solipsism.' Although it seems a truism that adaptations adapt a 'text' from one discursive field to another, such a straightforward causality conflicts with the notion of 'discursive field' in which it is wont to occur. Moreover, the adaptation presented as adaptation loses its referential effect when the receiver is unacquainted with the material transposed. Together both issues - i.e. linearity and referentiality - in fact account for most of the misconceptions about the paradoxical phenomenon that is adaptation. This essay therefore proposes a semiological argument aimed at providing a better understanding of the discursive mechanisms at work in adaptational practice.