Understanding Foregrounding in Literature: Deviation, Parallelism, and Schemes, Schemes and Mind Maps of Poetry

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Foregrounding

• Foregrounding Defamiliarization Automatization Deviation Parallelism Tropes Schemes

Foregrounding

• A convincing illustration of the power of foregrounding to suggest latent significance is furnished by modern poets who make use of stylistic devices of transporting pieces of ordinary, non poetic language into poetic context. The Waste Land T.S Eliot The bar-parlor monologue:

Interpretation and Foregrounding What is interpretation? Action or process of understanding the meaning and giving explanation to things and ideas which are complex or ambiguous.

• To understand something.
• To decide the meaning/purpose of something Gives clarity to ideas, reveals implications and symbolic meaning.

Deviation

Linguistic Deviation and Linguistic Parallelism Produce the effect of FOREGROUNDING

Deviation

• Deviation occurs when we have a set of rules or expectations which are broken in some way. Like the way this font has just changed. This deviation from expectation produces the effect of foregrounding, which attracts attention and aids memorability.

Deviation

• A linguistic deviation is a disruption of the normal process of communication: it leaves a gap, as it were, in one’s comprehension of text. The gap can be filled, and the deviation rendered significant. But only if by an effort of imagination the reader perceives some deeper connection which compensates for the superficial oddity. In case of a metaphor this compensation is in the form of an analogy.

Elements in Deviation

1. The element of Interest: A deviation first of all evokes the interest of the reader. Since a deviation is unusual use of language and expression it appears appealing as the reader finds it different. 2. The Element of Surprise: The deviations are apparently confusing and seem strange and abnormal as these do not fit into the regular process of communication. As a result the reader feels surprise on encountering such abnormalities in writing. He questions what does it mean? how is it possible? What is its significance?

Parallelism

• A parallel structure joins together two or more recognizably similar, yet not identical structures, and can, just like deviation or repetition, occur at all levels of language (phonological, syntactic, morphological etc.). It is very frequently used as a rhetorical device, in both literary and non-literary texts, and is common even in everyday speech, e.g. in proverbs, or in jokes:

Parallelism as foregrounded Regularity

• A type of foregrounding which is in a sense opposite of deviation, for it consists in the introduction of extra regularities, not irregularities, into language.
• To the extent that any use of language consists in obeying rules, regularity or ‘ruledness’ is a property of language in general, both inside and outside poetry.

Features of Parallelism

• Identity and contrast Roman Jakobson: “Any form of parallelism is an apportionment of invariants and variable” In other words in any parallelistic pattern there must be an element of identity and contrast.

• Functions of parallelism:

1. Connected with rhetorical emphasis
2. Aids memorability
3. Connects the elements of identity and contrast
4. Leads towards climax

Schemes and Topes

• Schemes: Repetitions :Repetition can be of two types:
• 1. Repetition of Sounds: i) alliteration ii) assonance iii) consonance
• 2. Repetition of Words : i) anaphora (a…) (a…) ii) apanalepsis (a…a) (b…b) iii) epistrophe (…a) (…a) iv) symploce (a…b) (a…b)

Foregrounding

Parallelism

• Schemes (form/shape) Figures involving repetition Eg. Alliteration, anaphora Deviation
  • Tropes
  • (turn/change)
  • Figures involving semantic irregularities
  • Eg. Pun, metaphor