According to Karen Kline, the "first and perhaps oldest paradigm applied by critics in their evaluations of film adaptations might be called the "translation" paradigm" (70). The translation model seems to mirror formalism and structuralism in that it focuses on differences between texts and presupposes the existence of a hierarchical relationship. This paradigm evaluates a film's "faithfulness" to the "letter of the text" in which it is based upon (Andrew, 1984, 12). Critical discourse revolves around fidelity to narrative elements such as character, setting, and theme as a viable basis for evaluation (see Bluestone 1957), while the film is understood to be a reproduction of the novel.

A translation perspective tends to produce evaluations in which the film becomes a betrayal of the novel, illuminating the principle assumption "that the novel is privileged artistic work and that film exists to serve its literary precursor" (Kline, 71). The goal of adaptation becomes a literal reproduction of the original text, where similarities are valued over differences and the assumption is that language and film signs are equivalent (Boyum 1985, Kline 1996, Griffith 1997). According to Kline, "The translation paradigm represents the most internally oriented approach, focusing exclusively on the privileged literary text and the film's ability to reproduce it faithfully"(75). As such, the translation approach acts as a "lens which shapes the critic's perspective" (Kline, 81).

Each of the following review's provide an example of the translation paradigm, critiquing the film adaptation of JaneSmiley's novel A Thousand Acres in its lack of "faithfulness" to the character development found in the novel:

Robert Konop states:
"…A Thousand Acres falls a bit flat and unfulfilled. The problem, the male characters here exist as near characatures. The robust characterizations from Jane Smiley's novel were apparently low priorities for the production team. It's too bad. This one could have been truly great..."the book will always be better than the movie for stories like this one."

Joan Ellis appears to agree:
"The Cook sisters themselves are supposed to carry the movie, and they give it their best, but Jessica Lange, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Jennifer Jason Leigh stretch credibility as Iowa farm women.
Jason Robards plays patriarch Larry Cook in various tones of alcoholic rage that seem to be entirely isolated within the film... We watch Robards acting in monologue and then watch as it is cut and pasted into the picture without any relation to anyone else. As written, this man may have destroyed his daughters, but on screen, he seems not even to know them."