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Defamiliarization

Concept
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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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

The poetic technique of making familiar things seem strange or new

Detailed Definition
Defamiliarization (ostranenie) is a literary strategy that disrupts habitual perception by making the familiar seem unfamiliar through linguistic innovation, syntactic distortion, or perceptual reorientation; in poetry, it combats automatization by slowing reading, heightening attention, and renewing emotional response—as in the fragmented syntax of Gertrude Stein or the surreal juxtapositions of André Breton, where estrangement becomes a path to revelation.
Example
Example in poetry:
Shklovsky’s concept appears when Wordsworth calls a stone “a huge peak, black and huge”; Emily Dickinson defamiliarizes death as a “kindly” carriage driver; Neruda’s “Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market” makes fish alien and majestic; Claudia Rankine describes microaggressions with clinical detachment to defamiliarize racism.
Additional Notes
Defamiliarization makes the familiar strange to renew perception. Shklovsky's concept ("ostranenie"). Central to Russian Formalism. Poets defamiliarize clichés, dead metaphors, routine experience—forces fresh seeing.
Other Meanings of “Defamiliarization”
Also Known As
ostranenie making strange estrangement Estrangement device
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