Explanation
A prose passage can evoke cinematic shots and cuts without containing a moving image. A reader supplies learned conventions associated with film. An actual filmed version is another case, requiring material choices of duration, framing and sound. Mere reference, actual combination and transformation should therefore be distinguished. The distinctions also prevent technological shortcuts. Displaying words and an image on one screen does not erase their different functions. Conversely, moving the same file between formats need not transform its entire meaning. Analysis must show a specific procedure and consequence rather than claim profound change from the existence of a new carrier.
Movement of thought
1. Identify the media and culturally learned expectations involved. 2. Distinguish combination, transformation and reference. 3. Describe the actual formal procedures. 4. Compare time, perspective and distribution of information. 5. Support the proposed relation with features of the work.
Scientific use case
Intermedial analysis can compare concrete operations across prose, film and image-text works. It must disclose its account of media boundaries instead of treating one typology as natural fact.
Example
Invented prose: 'Wide shot: an empty kitchen. Cut. Close-up: an unopened letter. Fade.' Only words are present, but filmic conventions organise attention. A filmed scene would materially determine duration and sound, while 'There is a letter in the kitchen' organises the similar subject differently.
Counterexample
Not every mention of a film enacts filmic procedures. Medium, mode and technical carrier are not identical. A possible change in reception is not a universal effect proved by the analyst's response.
Distinction
Multimodality concerns modes of meaning-making. Adaptation is one important transformational relation. Emblem and verbal montage are particular connections, not substitutes for the wider analytical question.
Effect on thought and perception
A subject is no longer imagined as a complete, unchanged content placed in arbitrary containers; presentation helps articulate what becomes accessible.
Resonance
A familiar subject may become newly perceptible through another timing or perspective. The new experience is possible, not guaranteed for every recipient.
Etymology
The term names relations between media but does not define by its components what qualifies as a medium.
Provenance
The inherited HWdR dossier compares several theoretical models. They are not merged into one universal taxonomy, and intermedia is not assumed equivalent in every historical context.
Cite this entry
Reich, Michael (Hrsg./ed.): „Intermediality“. Atlas der Sprache, AT-ADD-20261020-0045. ATLAS 261, data model 1.6.0. https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-ADD-20261020-0045The address remains stable; editorial content may evolve. Editorial reading state: 2026-10-20. Include your access date for precise references.
Guiding question
What happens to meaning when one medium takes up another's procedures?
Five coordinate questions
These descriptions explain the entry. They are not controlled register values and do not generate shared register results.
- Where can the process be observed?
Invented prose: 'Wide shot: an empty kitchen. Cut. Close-up: an unopened letter. Fade.' Only words are present, but filmic conventions organise attention. A filmed scene would materially determine duration and sound, while 'There is a letter in the kitchen' organises the similar subject differently.
- What happens to the material?
Identify the media and culturally learned expectations involved.
Distinguish combination, transformation and reference.
Describe the actual formal procedures.
Compare time, perspective and distribution of information.
Support the proposed relation with features of the work.
- At what level does a change occur?
A subject is no longer imagined as a complete, unchanged content placed in arbitrary containers; presentation helps articulate what becomes accessible.
- What temporal structure is explicitly described?
The steps offer an order of analysis, not an asserted real-time sequence of mental events. Read the particular example sequence separately from the historical development.
- How can the description be tested?
Not every mention of a film enacts filmic procedures. Medium, mode and technical carrier are not identical. A possible change in reception is not a universal effect proved by the analyst's response.
Historical context
The inherited HWdR dossier compares several theoretical models. They are not merged into one universal taxonomy, and intermedia is not assumed equivalent in every historical context.
Cross-language distinction and terminology
Intermediality is the English lead term. Multimedia, multimodality and adaptation overlap but cannot be used as automatic replacements.
Scholarly comparisons and distinctions
These entries are editorial comparison anchors for the distinctions made in this article. They are not new canonical relation edges or shared register results.
Proposed thought pathway
- Identify the media and culturally learned expectations involved.
- Distinguish combination, transformation and reference.
- Describe the actual formal procedures.
- Compare time, perspective and distribution of information.
- Support the proposed relation with features of the work.
An editorial exploration, not a necessary sequence of thought or experimental evidence of an effect.
Source scope and provenance
Both specialist versions are editorially accepted. The recorded scope of the reference-work research is retained; this is not a fresh full verification of every primary source. Examples and analytical steps are Atlas applications.