Exploration of Foregrounding as a Style Index in Literary Texts

Cite this article as: John U. C., Joekin E. & Daniel J. (2024). Exploration of Foregrounding as a Style Index in Literary Texts. Proceedings of International Conference on Rethinking Security through the lens of Humanities for Sustainable National Development Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Pp. 209-214.

EXPLORATION OF FOREGROUNDING AS A STYLE INDEX IN LITERARY TEXTS

By

Ukazu C. John (Ph.D.)
Federal University of Education, Pankshin,

And

Ekwueme Joekin (Ph.D. in view)
University of Nigeria, Nsukka,

And

Jumbo Daniel
Federal School of Statistics, Manchok, Kaduna

Abstract: Foregrounding is a stylistic device used in the interpretation of text, whether literary or nonliterary in order to make certain elements of the text stand out or become prominent, often to convey meaning, emphasis, or significance. This literary/linguistic tool is instrumental in x-raying the internal structure of text and bringing out implicit or explicit meaning. This paper, therefore, explores the general concept of foregrounding, its history, types and the devices used in interpreting texts. The study argues that foregrounding performs the literary or linguistic function of interpreting texts that are parallel to or deviate from the conventional norms of writing in order to project meaning. The paper concludes that foregrounding plays a crucial role in placing emphasis on linguistic structure or items that bear the weight of meaning in literary or non-literary discourse.

Keywords: foregrounding, stylistics, deviation, parallelism, and literary text

1. INTRODUCTION

One of the objectives of stylistics as a functional linguistic discipline is to identify the salient as well as deviant features of a text in order to interpret their artistic and other functions. These salient and deviant features are highlighted to capture the reader’s attention is what the notion of foregrounding revolves around. Over the years, the term ‘Foregrounding’ has received myriad applications in the field of Literature and Linguistics, Cognitive Psychology and Computer Science hence, having different unique definitions. Generally, “Foregrounding” is used in contradistinction to “background”. The latter being the conventional unaltered form while the former is marked by its alteration from the norm, this having prominence. Yankson (1987: 3) puts this more succinctly thus: “… the normal code is background. Any deviation from the norm-the code- is the foreground, because it brings the message to the forecourt of the reader’s attention.” Similarly, one of the inventors of the term “foregrounding”, Mukarovsky (1970: 43) opines that “foregrounding is the opposite of automatization, that is the deautomatization of an act, the more an act is automatized the less consciously executed; the more it is foregrounded, the more completely conscious it becomes.” The present paper shall attempt to survey the brief history of foregrounding, delineates its types and thereafter concentrate on literary foregrounding and linguistic devices used to achieve it.

2. BRIEF HISTORY OF FOREGROUNDING

The Russian Prague School of structural linguistics led by N.S. Trubetzkoy and Roman Jokabson was the first to use the term “foregrounding” in the 1920s to describe the difference between poetic and non-poetic language. Poetic language they aver makes maximal use of foregrounding which relates to the unexpectedness, unusualness, and uniqueness of literary texts. According to Fowler (1990), linguistic formalism (i.e. structuralism) promotes the view that there is a special poetic language which is distinct from “ordinary” or “Scientific” language. Thus, the Prague Linguistic Circle, in their quest to identify oppositions and markedness in language, identified foregrounding as a marked feature of literary language as against ordinary or non-artistic use of language. Other earlier uses of the tem can be found in the works of Czech theorist Jan Mukarosvsky who defines the term “foregrounding” as ‘the range of stylistic effects that occur in literature whether at the phonetic level (e.g. alliteration), the grammatical level (e.g. inversion or ellipsis), or at the semantic level (metaphor, irony) (Mukarovsky 1932, 1944). More lately, interest has grown in the area of foregrounding in the study of Discourse in such pioneering works as Leech (1976), Grimes (1975), Longacre (1976a, 1976b), Jones and Jones (1979) and a host of others.

3. TYPES OF FOREGROUNDING

According to Helen Aristar Dry of the Eastern Michigan University, “foregrounding” has a long history of usage in literary criticism and through an accretion of ideas drawn from different areas of research has come to be used in discourse analysis. Foregrounding in discourse analysis started with the identification of what is called the “main line” or “backbone” of discourse as found in Grimes (1975), Longacre 1976 etc.). This kind of study is premised on the fact that there exist certain morphosyntactic structures which can only be explained by referring to the discourse phenomena. Also as part of memory research, Psycholinguists investigate the textual foregrounding. They define foreground as the textual referent present in short memory.

 From the foregoing, three types of foregrounding can be identified, namely: Linguistic, Literary and Psycholinguistic foregrounding. Linguistic foregrounding and literary foregrounding are similar but different. As Helen Dry explains, both are intersected in portions of a text perceived as prominent by the text-receiver but are stimulated by texts structured toward different kinds of interpretative strategies. Mukarovsky also identified the linguistic and literary foregrounding divide in the following way: “foregrounding may occur in normal. Everyday language, such as spoken discourse or journalistic prose, but it occurs at random with no systematic design. In literary texts on the other hand, foregrounding is structured: it tends to be both systematic and hierarchical. That is, similar features may occur, such as pattern of assonance or a related group of metaphors and one set of features will dominate the others”. (Mukarovsky. 1964:20). On the other hand, the focus of psycholinguistic foregrounding is not text per se but the cognitive process appropriately operationalized in a text. Here, the foreground of a text is taken to be whatever that is identified by the operationalization chosen.

 Furthermore, Leech and Short (2007) distinguished between two kinds of foregrounding: qualitative and quantitative foregrounding. Qualitative foregrounding is a deviation from the rules of a language code or from the convention of language use or both; while quantitative foregrounding has to do with the recurrence of linguistic features that is repetition. In essence, the study foregrounding in a text can be approached from any of the above kinds.

4. LITERARY FOREGROUNDING EXPOUNDED

Writers use foregrounding to both communicate textual meaning and enhance the artistic texture and flavor of their works. According to Internet Journal of Language and Linguistics, the notion of foregrounding is very crucial to stylistic analysis and refers to “all the devices of language deployed by artists to draw attention to prominent and fundamental aspects of meaning”. Leech and Short (1970:121) defines foregrounding in literary text as “… the motivated deviation from linguistic or other socially accepted norms.” This definition characterizes literary foregrounding as “motivated” which implies that the deviation is deliberate and born out of the writer’s intention to create some artistic function. This echoes the aforementioned view by Mukarovsky that literary foregrounding is structured and tends to ne systematic and hierarchical. Similarly, Halliday (1971) describes literary foregrounding as “salient features motivated by vision of the text”. Hence, it is the vision of the writer about his text that derives his choice of foregrounding in the process of textualization. In essence, the deviant features of the text being unexpected, come to the foreground of the reader’s attention against the background of normal linguistic features. For instance, analyzing the poem “The Bread I Break” by Dylan Thomas, Geoffrey Leech recognized the foregrounding of expressions “the oat was merry” and the “broke the sun”. These are contained in the stanza below:

Once in this wind the summer blood

Knocked in the flesh that decked the vine,

Once in this bread

The oat was merry in the wind

Man broke the sun pulled the wind sown.

In “the oat was merry” the word ‘oat’ which has the features “- ANIMATE” in the background code of English is here given the feature “+ ANIMATE” making it to appear like human. This is a deviation which is foregrounded against normal expressions like “the boy was merry,” or “the lawyer was merry”. Similarly, “man broke the sun,” gives “sun” the quality of fragility which is associated to breakable objects like glass and light bulb. The expression thus gets foregrounded in the reader’s mind by deviating from English selectional restriction rules.

5. LINGUISTIC DEVICES USED BY WRITERS TO FOREGROUND ASPECTS OF MEANING

Foregrounding is not limited to any one particular language pattern or poetic device. As an attention calling device in a literary text, it is achieved through the exploitation of a range of linguistic devices such as repetition, coupling, unexpected lexical collocations, parallelism, syntactic inversion and so on.

6. FOREGROUNDING DEVICES

6.1 Deviation

The writer of literature is allowed, in contrast to everyday speaker to deviate from rules, maxims or conventions. When an idea is presented in a way that is different from the expected way, then we say such a manner of carrying it out has deviated from the norm. According to Richard and Platt (1985), deviation is a term used to describe the spelling and pronunciation of a word or a sentence structure which does not conform to a norm. Deviation corresponds to the traditional idea of poetic license. It is a turning aside from an acceptable norm or grammatical rule, cases of neologism (a new word or expression or new meaning of a word), like metaphor, ungrammatical sentences as well as archaisms, paradox and oxymoron are clear examples of deviation.

 Linguistic deviation consists of lexical deviation, grammatical deviation, phonological deviation, graphological deviation, and semantic deviation. All of these kinds of deviations result in foregrounding. These kinds of mentioned above are explicated below:

 I. Lexical Deviation

Lexical deviation is associated with a writer’s formation of words for the purpose of his writing. The conversion of a word from one class to another, the addition of an affix to an item already in the languageetc. For instance, E.E. Cummings in his poem “ In-just” invents the compound nouns: Mud-lucious, ballonman, puddle-wonderful and goat-footed. T.S Elliot in his poem “The Warte Land” uses the verb ‘foresuffer’ and Hopkins in “The Wreck of Deutschland” uses the compound morphological deviants ‘widow-making’, ‘unchilding’, ‘unfathering. These lexical deviants are all employed to project prominence.

 II. Grammatical Deviation

The important feature of grammatical deviation is ungrammaticality. Here the writer breaks the rules of grammar in the construction of a text. In Cummings’ Poem “Anyone Lived in a Pretty hoe Too”. He employed grammatical deviation as thus:

He sang his didn’t

He danced his did

they sowed their isn’t

they reaped their same

she laughed his joy

she cried his grief

they said their never

they slept their dream

laughed their cryings

and did their dance

reaped their sowing

and went their came

 III. Phonological Deviation

Phonological deviations include the omission of initial, medial or final parts of a word or phrase and the special pronunciation of certain words for the convenience of rhyming. For example, the use of words like ‘tis’, ne’er’, o’er, pow’r and oft.

 IV. Semantic Deviation

Here, selectional restriction rules are broken. Like human beings, words also select and keep habitual company. A writer may however breach the rules for foregrounding purposes. The poem “Fog” by Carl Sanding is good example of semantic deviation:

The fog comes

On little cat feet

It sits looking

Over harbor and city

On silent haunches

and then moves on

2. Parallelism

M.H Abrams (1999) defines parallelism as ‘a similar word order and structure in their syntax.’ Parallelism is the phonetic bond that exists between two or more lexical items in a text. According to Yakson (1987), one of the stylistic effects of linguistic parallelism is to invest the three levels of linguistic organization- syntactic, semantic and phonetic. Simply put, parallelism is the repetition of sound, structure, word or idea.

2.1 Types of Parallelism

A. Morphological Parallelism: this is the repetition of morphemes. It is less used than syntactic parallelism. A classic example of this is used in Shakespeare’s Othello where he says: “I kissed thee e’re I killed thee.” There is a repetition of the past tense morpheme “ed”.

B. Syntactic Parallelism: this focuses more on the syntactic structure. A repetition of sentences with identical structure. For example, Charles Dicken writes in “A Tale of Two Cities” thus:

‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.’ The two sentences are syntactic parallel comprising of ‘pronoun, a verb and a noun phrase’.

C. Semantic Parallelism: this is the repetition of structures with identical meanings. They may be the same words or synonymous words or structures. For instance in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, he writes:

All our gods are weeping

Idemili is weeping

Ogwugwu is weeping

Agbala is weeping

All the others are weeping

Our dead fathers are weeping.

There is a repetition of the lexical item ‘weeping’ with a single semantic component.

D. Phonological Parallelism: this is the repletion of similar sounds. It includes assonance, alliteration, consonance and rhyme. Allan Poe’s “The Bell” is replete with phonological parallelism. Example of alliteration in the poem can be seen in the line thus:

“… what a world of merriment their melody foretells.” There is a repetition of the initial consonants /w/ and /m/ sounds. Other examples include:

… keeping time, time, time

…in sort of Runic rhyme

… what a tale of terror, now their turbulence tell

… how they clang and clash and roar

Examples of Assonance in the poem can be seen in the lines thus:

… in the icy air of the night /ai/

… with a crystalline delight /ai/

… what a liquid ditly floats /i/

…of the swinging and the ringing /i/

The poet also makes use of end rhymes in the poem. These are shown in lines below:

Hear the sledges with the bells,

silver bells!

What a world of merriment their melody fortells

How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,

In the icy air of the night

While the stars that oversprinkle

All the heavens, seem to twinkle

With a crystalline delight

Keeping time, time, time

In a sort of runic rhyme

In conclusion, the role of foregrounding in literary texts cannot be over emphasized. It is through foregrounded that aesthetic effect of work of art is achieved (literary text). As stated earlier, foregrounding takes diverse forms and makes use of different poetic devices to motivate and reinforce the meaning of a text. Writer’s employ it in literary works through the power and use of language which cuts across all the level of linguistic analysis. This “power” is however termed “poetic license.”

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