LEDDA, RONALD C.

                                                                        HUM 1-F1
2007-42914                                                                                         26 September 2008
Defamiliarization
 
Formalism aims to deviate from the former definition that literature is an imaginative
writing in the sense of fiction, and it also claims that the literariness of a piece is not based on
whether it is imaginative or creative , but upon how language in peculiar ways is used. In this
sense, as defined by a Russian critic named Roman Jakobson, literature is a kind of writing
which represents an organized violence on an ordinary speech; thus, ordinary language as a
literature is transformed and intensified as it deviates systematically from daily utterances
through an approach or a tool called defamiliarization.
Russian formalism, through the use of defamiliarization, hinders literary pieces from
saying what is obvious and prevents formalists from being cliché. Defamiliarization submits our
common and usual perceptions to stylistic devices, which include sound, imagery, rhythm,
syntax, metre, rhyme, figures of speech, and narrative techniques. Through this, it manipulates
our worldly responses and makes us see differently.
Defamiliarization distorts practical language. Take for example a girl who is always
admired and who oftentimes hears the phrase which says you are so beautiful. At first, she would
be amazed of such experience, but later, she would be used to it. And she would become
unaware of the feeling of being admired in such manner. This becomes a habitual action which
she would probably ignore. Defamiliarization, in this case, brings back the fresh experience and
awareness by deforming and distorting such kind of ordinary or habitual action. This is
accomplished through the use of literary devices which intensify, condense, twist, telescope and
estrange ordinary language.
Likewise, one may instead use idiomatic expressions, figures of speech, and other literary
devices in expressing his appreciation. In this regard, he may either say that you are the apple of
my eye or you are truly worth-staring for. Thus, the alienation effect from an automatized
language provides fresh experience to the girl.
Defamiliarization, as conceptualized by Viktor Shklovsky, is a technique of art which
gives us back the awareness of things which have become objects of our daily consciousness.
Literature as an art, as he added, should provide the experience of the artfulness of a literary
piece as it is perceived. This is through the effect of defamiliarization which makes objects
unfamiliar and which increases the difficulty and length of perception. The idea is that it
transforms nonliterary material artistically and put stresses and emphasis through literary
devices. Hence, this provides the reader an encounter of the piece itself.
 Consider for example the poem entitled the Fleas by Hilario Francia. The arrangement of
the letters provides the difficulty of understanding and perceiving the literariness of the poem.
The poem says, “how many fleas are making love on the old bear skin rug”. Similarly,
defamiliarization, as a tool, provides a new experience of dealing with the hardship of counting
or determining how many fleas are making love on the old bear skin rug, with which can be
understood denotatively or connotatively, taking in consideration the literary devices used and
the purpose of the poem on the reader's point of view.
Defamiliarization is a very useful technique in making literary pieces. It estranges or
alienates ordinary speech. On the contrary, it brings readers into a fuller and more intimate
encounter of the experience that the literary pieces provide.