Home › Glossary › Letter L

Linguistic assemblage

Form
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

A poetic composition constructed by combining disparate language elements

Detailed Definition
Linguistic assemblage is a poetic practice that constructs verse from heterogeneous language sources—advertisements, technical manuals, overheard conversation, multilingual fragments—juxtaposed without seamless integration; this method, aligned with collage and postmodernism, foregrounds language’s materiality and social embeddedness, challenging notions of originality and coherence while critiquing dominant discourses.
Example
Example in poetry:
Poems assembling dictionary definitions, street signs, and song lyrics; works combining scientific terms with romantic imagery; collage of multilingual phrases reflecting diaspora; examples include works by bpNichol or Susan Howe
Additional Notes
Linguistic assemblage challenges authorship—combine quotes, ads, and personal text to explore how identity is constructed from external linguistic fragments.
Also Known As
Linguistic mosaic Verbal assemblage Discursive collage Polyvocal construction Linguistic montage
Skip to main content