Home › Glossary › Letter B

Bleached language

Device
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Diction stripped of vividness, often rendered pale, neutral, or emptied of color

Detailed Definition
Bleached language describes poetic diction that is deliberately stripped of ornament, emotion, or specificity, using flat, neutral, or bureaucratic vocabulary to evoke alienation, trauma, or existential emptiness; this technique appears in postmodern and minimalist poetry (e.g., W.S. Merwin or Rae Armantrout), where absence of color or affect becomes a powerful expressive strategy.
Example
Example in poetry:
Bleached language: T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” with stripped-down, minimalist diction evoking desolation; modern poetry using sparse, plain words to create emotional numbness or ambiguity; poetry where language seems drained of feeling to convey alienation or emptiness.
Additional Notes
A style of writing that aims for utter simplicity, stripped of flowery adjectives, complex figurative language, and overt emotionalism; Focuses on clear, declarative statements and concrete nouns; Seeks to make the language seem "neutral" or objective; Related to minimalist poetry.
Also Known As
Washed-out language Faded diction Bleached poetic idiom Blanched diction
Skip to main content