Foregrounding Theory

• To defamiliarize the familiar • By defamiliarizing a work of art or a text we

make it stand out from the norm – it becomes foregrounded

• This concept was first employed in the visual arts – by analogy, the notion of a figure equates to the linguistically foregrounded elements of texts.

• Foregrounding can be achieved in two ways:

• Parallelism

• Deviation

LINGUISTIC PARALLELISM

unexpected regularity

• The life to come holds a richer prize for you than this present life.

• You shall be gratified with what your Lord will give you.• Did He not find you an orphan and give you

shelter?• Did He not find you in error and guide you?• Did He not find you poor and enrich you?• Therefore do not wrong the orphan, nor chide

away the• beggar. But proclaim the goodness of your Lord.

The Holy Quran

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.I have a dream today.I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.I have a dream today.I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

Martin Luther King

We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

Winston Churchill

We have seen the state of our union in the endurance of rescuers working past exhaustion. We’ve seen the unfurling flags, the lighting of candles, the giving of blood, the saying of prayers in English, Hebrew and Arabic. We have seen the decency of a loving and giving people who have made the grief of strangers their own.

George W. Bush

LINGUISTIC DEVIATION

unexpected irregularity

A GRIEF AGOBy

Dylan Thomas

• Linguistically deviant • the word grief – an uncountable noun of

emotion is used instead of a countable noun of time measurement

• Deviation gives rise to a foregrounding effect• Time being measured in emotion• External deviation – the word grief deviates

from the norm external to the text

• Internal deviation – deviation from some norm set up by the text itself

• The poem GOING by Philip Larkin – ending with 3 questions in a row

• Poems by e.e.cummings

LIFE ON MARS – WAR OF THE WORDS

The Independent of 21 Aug. 1998

•The Life on Mars debate remains a war of words

• Nouns – Life Mars War Words

• war and words alliterate

• Excellent illustration of intertextuality

• THE WAR OF THE WORLDS

• Intertextuality has an effect of giving the reader the pleasurable satisfaction of having spotted the allusion and intensify the overall significance of the text.

• Those which stand out in stylistics is this psychological effect called Foregrounding

• Borrowed from the visual arts• Also include patterns – parallelism,

repetition, typography, sounds, choices of grammar, sentence structures and deviations

Wreck of the Deutschlandby Gerard Manley Hopkins

• Into the snows she sweeps• Hurling the haven behind• The Deutschland, on Sunday; and so the sky keeps,• For the infinite air is unkind,• And the sea flint-flake, black-backed in the regular blow,• Sitting Eastnortheast, in cursed quarter, the wind;• Wiry and white-fiery and whirlwind-swivellèd snow• Spins to the widow-making unchilding unfathering deeps.