Cross-Media Translation of Inner Narrative from the Perspective of Narratology—A Comparative Study of the Original and Movie of the Girl with a Pearl Earring

Abstract

Using narratology as a theoretical framework, this study makes a comparative analysis of the textual differences in inner narrative presentation between the original book “Girl with a Pearl Earring” and its film adaptation in 2003. From the analysis results, the original work is based on the first-person limited-knowledge perspective, and with the help of inner monologue and free indirect quotation, it realizes the multi-layer juxtaposition of the psychological level and the flexible adjustment of the narrative distance; When it comes to movies, video text methods such as behavior design, dialogue blank space, and scene narrative are used to build a psychological expression system, and the expression has changed from “direct narration” to “hint”. The essential reason for these differences, in the final analysis, is the difference in media characteristics between language symbols and image symbols; The core of cross-media translation does not lie in anything else, but in reconstructing that psychological expression with the language of the new media itself. This study makes a systematic comparison from the five dimensions of narrative perspective, expression form, narrative level, narrative distance, and interpretation space, and provides a pure text research path for the cross-media adaptation of psychological narrative literature works.