Defamiliarization theory exerts influences over different art levels like literature, drama, film and so on. This would be a great first book for someone partaking a literature or writing course, and would benefit any reader. The opojaz group, the society for the study of poetic language pomorska. Defamiliarization is an old concept, stemming from russian formalism which can be placed in the period between 1915 and 1930 approximately. As writer anais nin discussed in her 1968 book the novel of the future. Readers were shocked to discover that the protagonist and principal narrator of kholstomer was an old horse. Russian formalism the johns hopkins guide to literary. Miall a, don kuiken b department of english, university of alberta, edmonton. Defamiliarization is one of the crucial ways in which literary language distinguishes itself from ordinary, communicative language, and is a feature of how art in general works, namely by presenting the world in a strange and new way that allows us to see things differently. Yet some translations of film titles decrease the defamiliarization. The word defamiliarization was coined by the early 20thcentury russian literary critic viktor shklovsky in his essay art as technique.
Charles baxters defamiliarization this one wild life. This does not mean that literature has no communicative function, as mukafov slj is at pains to point out e. Only when this idea is employed does a piece of fiction become interesting. I am a 7thgrade teacher and often use it for language arts and world history. College of foreign language, nanjing university of chinese medicine. Style and foregrounding geoffrey leech over a period of over forty years, geoffrey leech has made notable contributions to the field of literary stylistics, using the interplay between linguistic form and literary function as a key to the mystery of how a text comes to be invested with artistic potential. Defamiliarization also includes the use of foreign languages within a work. In the early twentieth century, a new and independent. Conrad is acknowledged as one of the greatest novelists in english language and one of the originators of modernist literature. Ordinary speech and literary language have thereby changed places see the work of vyacheslav ivanov and many others shklovsky 1920. Defamiliarization the art and popular culture encyclopedia. Language in literature style and foregrounding taylor. Defamiliarization revisited published on 01 jan 2009 by brill. It is exactly what it sounds like the process of making the familiar unfamiliar in order to reveal something about it.
Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree 3. But i will not discuss rhythm in more detail since i intend to write a book. Understand the reasons for using defamiliarization. Through practical and insightful examination of how poems, plays and prose works produce special meaning, he counteracts the flight from the text that has characterized thinking about language and literature in the last thirty years, when the response of the reader, rather than the characteristics and meaning potential of the text itself. Nevertheless, the defamiliarized language, as a defining property. He argued that defamiliarization is, more or less, the point of all art. Understanding language and literature asghar ali ansari university college, ummalquara university, makkah, saudi arabia. Defamiliarization seems a way to get the brain abducing and hence exploring and discovering. Understanding readers response to literary texts article pdf available in language and literature 162. It is a basic property of literary texts to provoke schematic challenge throughout the. At the same time, it also exerts influences over translation of art language during which many translators. Literary language, defamiliarization, redundancy, wordorder. Defamiliarization by nasrullah mambrol on march 17, 2016 4. Other articles where defamiliarization is discussed.
Through practical and insightful examination of how poems, plays and prose works produce special meaning, he counteracts the flight from the text that has characterized thinking about language and. Defamiliarization and science fiction, or, it all makes sense. In burning down the house, baxter addresses the issues of stale character and meaning in fiction. Opoyaz, an acronym for russian words meaning society for the study of poetic language, founded in 1916 at st. In chaucers the book of the duchess, a narrators dream vision brings him face to face with. The book under analysis is son of woman by charles mangua. Immersion has been conceived of as transparently directing attention toward what marielaure ryan referred to as the languageindependent reality presented by a fictional text, while uri margolin has conceived of defamiliarization as directing the readers attention to the artificial nature. Defamiliarization in language and literature robert h. Application of the concept of defamiliarization in. Literature could be said to be a sort of disciplined technique for. Ordinary speech and literary language have thereby changed places see the work of vyacheslav ivanov and many others. Ariful islam laskar abstract robert frost 18741963, a true representative of american literature, deals with the idyllic pastoral landscape of america and traces the transition of american life and society of his time in a lucid way.
Miall a, don kuiken b department of english, university of alberta, edmonton, alberta, canada, t6g 2e5 b department of psychology, university of alberta, edmonton, alberta, canada, t6g 2e5 abstract the notion that stylistic features of literary texts deautomatize. Style and foregrounding geoffrey leech over a period of over forty years, geoffrey leech has made notable contributions to the field of literary stylistics, using the interplay. Defamiliarization or ostranenie is the artistic technique of presenting to audiences common. Given this, we can argue that tools for helping creativity need not be secondclass participants but essential. At the present day, the novel hasnt lost its significance and can also be regarded as one of the outstanding novels in world literature treasurehouse. Defamiliarization is one of the achievements of the russian school of formalism that implies the alienation of the ordinary norm of the language. Defamiliarization is a literary device whose purpose is to force readers to see the. According to formalist literary theorists, the subject accepts familiar matters in. The art of defamiliarization in gullivers travels masters. Pl901998 korean language and literature pl901949 korean language pl950998 korean literature pl950. At the time that shklovsky was writing, there was a change in the use of language in both literature and. This is usually made to focus on certain features of the language, the poetic.
Foregrounding, defamiliarization, and affect cogprints. What is the significance of defamiliarization in william. In brief, literary language or poetry is strange, and the reality it expresses may feel equally strange or removed from the everyday. C o f1 1 elsevier poetics 22 1994 389407 foregrounding, defamiliarization, and affect. Literature, culture and language learning article pdf available in journal of literary theory 31. Oct 16, 2010 examples of defamiliarization october 16, 2010 in interaction design weve been exploring the idea of defamiliarization as a means of making the familiar seem strange and jeff requested examples so heres the first one that popped into my mind tiltshift photography.
Given this, we can argue that tools for helping creativity need not be secondclass participants but essential partners to making the new really and radically new. Immersion and defamiliarization poetics today duke. The description above makes sense of this phenomenon in everyday language, but true to literary experience, recent literary theory has expressed this concept as defamiliarization. Defamiliarization in language and literature 9780815621843. Defamiliarization is one of the crucial ways in which literary language distinguishes itself from ordinary, communicative language, and is a feature of how art in general works, namely by presenting the world. Ariful islam laskar abstract robert frost 18741963, a true representative of american literature, deals with the idyllic. Russian literary language, which was originally foreign to russia, has so permeated the language of the. Pdf cognitive foregrounding through schematic knowledge. The literary work as stranger the disrupting ethics of. Defamiliarization and syntactic and rhetoric highlighting in. A survey of recent empirical studies of literary comprehension shows that little attention has been paid to the. Language is a mandatory component of literature, and one cannot imagine literature in the absence of language. A survey of recent empirical studies of literary comprehension shows that little attention has been paid to the effects of literary style, often known as foregrounding.
Literature could be said to be a sort of disciplined technique for arousing certain emotions 2. Brooks bases his position on the contradictions that are inherent in. Art as technique 1917 viktor shklovsky art is thinking in images. Formalism, also called russian formalism, russian russky formalism, innovative 20thcentury russian school of literary criticism. Feb 25, 2014 defamiliarization or, in the original russian, ostranenie was a concept first theorized about by a russian formalist critic named shklotsky. Poetic imagery is but one of the devices of poetic language. Yet some translations of film titles decrease the defamiliarization effect and present audience with more familiar content. Defamiliarization in the history of literary criticism. In the language of paradox cleanth brooks takes on the language of poetry, stating that at its core poetry is the language of paradox. Avoidance of overdetermined characters and events is achieved through what he calls defamiliarization. Pdf syntactic defamiliarization in charles manguas son of woman. From then on, the studies of the book have been booming.
To illustrate what he means by defamiliarization, shklovsky uses examples from tolstoy, whom he cites as using the technique throughout his works. The first is the observation that what richardson calls antimimetic tendencies are an integral part of not only modern literary narratives. Gullivers travels is the masterpiece of jonathan swift. Norton and defamiliarization in 2666 methods of literary. Flash fiction, defamiliarization and cultural criticism.
He is the most unconventional and innovative literature experimenter and english stylist of his time. Immersion has been conceived of as transparently directing attention toward what marielaure ryan referred to as the language independent reality presented by a fictional text, while uri margolin has conceived of defamiliarization as directing the readers attention to the artificial nature. Petersburg later leningrad and led by viktor shklovsky. The russian formalists concept of defamiliarization, proposed by viktor shklovsky in his art as technique, refers to the literary device whereby language is used in such a way that ordinary and familiar objects are made to look different. Immersion and defamiliarization edinburgh research explorer.
Joshua holds a masters degree in latin and has taught a variety of classical literature and language courses. Defamiliarization also includes the use of foreign languages. The aim of defamiliarization theory is to evoke the aesthetic emotion of people which has been widely used in the translation of film titles. What are some examples of defamiliarization in the. The narrator of kholstomer, for example, is a horse, and it is the horses point of view rather than a persons that makes the content of the story seem unfamiliar shklovsky 16.
Defamiliarization project gutenberg selfpublishing. Jul 15, 2014 through practical and insightful examination of how poems, plays and prose works produce special meaning, he counteracts the flight from the text that has characterized thinking about language and literature in the last thirty years, when the response of the reader, rather than the characteristics and meaning potential of the text itself. Here are also other quotations which define literature. Kant in his book critique of pure reason 1787 and later developed. At the time that shklovsky was writing, there was a change in the use of language in both literature and everyday spoken. Take the chance to get more familiar with defamiliarization in this lesson. Thus literary language is ordinary language deformed and made strange. Brooks bases his position on the contradictions that are inherent in poetry and his feelings that if those contradictions didnt exist then neither would some of the best poetry we have today using works from wordsworth to shakespeare brooks shows how the only. Literary theory does not mean making hypotheses or guesses about literature. The opojaz group, the society for the study of poetic. Some adopted the worldview of aestheticians and called for art for arts sake, and yet some, played with literature byrendering various definitions of literature, definitions furthering their aims. Mar 17, 2016 home literary criticism defamiliarization.
Looking for examples of ostranenie or defamiliarizaion. The description above makes sense of this phenomenon in everyday. Some adopted the worldview of aestheticians and called for art for arts sake. The technique of defamiliarization is not tolstoys alone. Art makes language strange, as well as the world that the language presents. Pdf the assessment of defamiliarization in forough farrokhzads. Defamiliarization of that which is or has become familiar or taken for granted, hence automatically. The words, language and literature are familiar to every literate person. Immersion has been conceived of as transparently directing attention toward what marielaure ryan. Traditionally, immersion and defamiliarization have been seen as describing opposing phenomena.