Inference and narrative processing in fiction and film: (Where) (does) narrative reading part(s) ways with its viewing and vice versa (?)

摘要

Narrative analysis in Fiction and Film has attracted narratologists’ research interest since the last part of the twentieth century. It has focused on the renderability of narrative in these two different media and established features of similarity and difference for the rendition of the same narrative. From that perspective, this paper aims to compare the degree of demand for inference in narrative processing between fiction narrative and film narrative. The analysis of an excerpt from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is compared to its equivalent film part and demonstrates that the film narrative requires more inferential processes on the part of the viewer, compared to the reader whose interpretive task is facilitated by the narrator’s descriptions, reports and any other techniques.