Mimetiskt syskonskap : En representationsteoretisk undersökning av relationen fiktionsprosa-fiktionsfilm

The dissertation deals with two different subjects: on the one hand the interrelations of narrative prose fiction and narrative fiction film, on the other hand fictional narration and intermediality as such. The first part discusses the concepts of medium and intermediality, and presents some general theoretical models. Of special importance is the three level structure of fictional representations: sign vehicle, meaning and fictional content. The second part focuses on the qualities of the sign vehicle, and on different kinds of meaning and fictional content. The sign vehicle of language and literature is digital, and consists of replicas of types. The film medium is analogue, the cinematic sign is a copy. The conventionality of literary fictions is primary, i. e. literary meaning depends on the conventions of language. The conventionality of film narratives is secondary, mediated by non-conventional meaning. The second part also deals with specific, general, generic, concrete and abstract meaning, and discusses the concepts of metaphor, symbol and expression. Part three focuses on iconic and index relations, i. e. relations of similarity and contiguity, of the fictional representation. Cinematic narratives are characterized by primary iconicity, i. e. all meaning and fictional content are dependent on the iconic relation between the poles of the representation. The iconicity of prose fiction is, by contrast, secondary, mediated by conventional sign relations. Also abductive and performative, fictional and non-fictional indexical signs, and different kinds of implications and lacunas are discussed. Part four deals with the concepts of fictionality and narrative perspective, such as the fictional stance, the narrator and focalization. Four different notions of fictionality are scrutinized and brought together, and narrative perspective is described and analyzed in terms of two different game fictions: epic games and perceptual games. Depending on the semiotic resources, the possibilities and limits of prose fiction and fiction film described in the first three parts of the dissertation, fictional games are shown to be more or less rich and realistic