Foregrounding

By
Ahtisham Jameel
 Foregrounding

"Foregrounding" literally means "to bring to the

front." The writer uses the sounds of words or the
words themselves in such a way that the readers'
attention is immediately captivated. The most
common means employed by the writers is
repetition.
Foregrounding is a the linguistic strategy of calling
attention to certain language features in order to
shift the reader's attention from what is said to how
it is said.
To foreground is to make an image, symbol, or
the language a prominent or important feature
as a contrast to the background.
Foregrounding can be used at any level of
language, from the phonological level (the level
of sound) to the pragmatic level (the level of
meaning in context). It is a powerful tool that
writers can use to create different effects in
their writing.
For Example,

• An example is Dickens' famous opening lines

from “A Tale of Two Cities”. He uses
parallelism, or the repetition of the same
structure within a line, in order to make the
opening memorable.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of

times”.
Types

• Parallelism
• Deviation
 Parallelism
In parallelism, there is always a relationship in the
structures and ideas so just apposed generally in the
form of synonymy, repetition, antithesis and other
forms.

“Sameness relationship between two sections of a

text”

Examples
•Like father, like son.
•Easy come, easy go.
 Deviation

Deviation is the use of language that is

unusual or unexpected in the given
context. It can be used to draw attention
to certain words or phrases, or to create a
sense of strangeness or disorientation.
For example

The following sentence uses deviation to draw

attention to the speaker's unusual perspective:

a. The trees were walking through the forest.

b. Beautiful or Unbeautiful