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Estrangement device

Device
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

A technique that defamiliarizes everyday objects or ideas—through unusual diction, perspective, or syntax—to renew perception and insight.

Detailed Definition
An estrangement device in poetry is a deliberate stylistic or linguistic technique—such as unusual diction, syntactic inversion, defamiliarized imagery, or disrupted meter—used to make the familiar seem strange, thereby renewing the reader’s perception and emotional response; rooted in Russian Formalism’s concept of “ostranenie” (defamiliarization), this device forces readers to engage more deeply with language and meaning by disrupting automatic or habitual reading patterns, as seen in Emily Dickinson’s slant rhymes and compressed syntax or in the surreal juxtapositions of André Breton’s automatic writing.
Example
Example in poetry:
Defamiliarization is an estrangement device; Using archaic diction to make familiar strange; Estrangement through foreign syntax, as in Gertrude Stein; Contemporary poets use estrangement to critique norms, e.g., Claudia Rankine.
Additional Notes
Technique making familiar strange to provoke fresh perception. Shklovsky's concept (Russian Formalist). "Defamiliarization." Related: ostranenie, foregrounding. Study: how poetry estranges ordinary language.
Also Known As
defamiliarization making strange
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