Inside Noise: A Case of Intersemiotic Translation and Metatheatre in Radio Drama

Although a number of discussions, analyses and interpretations of radio drama attempt to make effective use of semiotics, semiotic vocabulary tends to be employed mainly for the purposes of theoretical explications on the relationship between radio productions and their listeners. This seems to be an obvious direction, as intersemiotic translation is an inherent part of radio drama which is essentially based on the written script interpreted via the sound medium. In other words, radio drama may be said to exist thanks to intersemiotic translation between the written word and its acoustic realization. Taking the above as the starting point, this paper aims to show how intersemiotic translation works within a produced radio play. I want to focus specifically on one BBC radio production entitled Noise (2012) and on its basis present the ways in which various semiotic systems (in spite of the apparent limitations of radio drama as a purely sound medium) interact on various levels. This reveals intersemiotic translation within radio plays as conducive to emphasizing its dramatic form, which further results in uncovering radio drama"s metatheatrical elements