Editing Defamiliarization (section)

== Coinage ==

The term "defamiliarization" was first coined in 1917 by Russian formalist [[Viktor Shklovsky]] in his essay "Art as Device" (alternate translation: "Art as Technique").<ref name=crawford>{{cite journal|last=Crawford|first=Lawrence|title=Viktor Shklovskij: Différance in Defamiliarization|  journal=Comparative Literature|volume=36|issue=3|date=1984|pages=209–19|jstor=1770260|doi=10.2307/1770260}}</ref>{{rp|209}}  Shklovsky invented the term as a means to "distinguish poetic from practical language on the basis of the former's perceptibility."{{r|crawford|p=209}}  Essentially, he is stating that [[poetic language]] is fundamentally different than the language that we use every day because it is more difficult to understand:  "Poetic speech is ''formed speech''.  [[Prose]] is ordinary speech – economical, easy, proper, the goddess of prose [''dea prosae''] is a goddess of the accurate, facile type, of the "direct" expression of a child."<ref name="shklovskyreader">{{cite book|last=Shklovsky|first=Viktor|title=Viktor Shklovsky: A Reader|editor-first=Alexandra|editor-last=Berlina|translator-first=Alexandra|translator-last=Berlina|publisher=Bloomsbury|date=2017}}</ref>{{rp|20}}  This difference is the key to the creation of art and the prevention of "over-automatization," which causes an individual to "function as though by formula."{{r|shklovskyreader|p=16}}

This distinction between artistic language and everyday language, for Shklovsky, applies to all artistic forms:
<blockquote>
The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known.  The technique of art is to make objects 'unfamiliar', to make forms difficult, to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged.{{r|shklovskyreader|p=16}}
</blockquote>
Thus, defamiliarization serves as a means to force individuals to recognize artistic language:
<blockquote>
In studying poetic speech in its phonetic and [[Word|lexical]] structure as well as in its characteristic distribution of words and in the characteristic thought structures compounded from the words, we find everywhere the artistic trademark – that is, we find material obviously created to remove the automatism of perception; the author's purpose is to create the vision which results from that deautomatized perception.  A work is created "artistically" so that its perception is impeded and the greatest possible effect is produced through the slowness of the perception.{{r|shklovskyreader|p=19}}
</blockquote>
This technique is meant to be especially useful in distinguishing poetry from prose, for, as [[Aristotle]] said, "poetic language must appear strange and wonderful."{{r|shklovskyreader|p=19}}

As writer [[Anaïs Nin]] discussed in her 1968 book ''[[The Novel of the Future]]'':
<blockquote>It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and as if by magic, ''we see a new meaning in it''.<ref>{{cite book|date=1976 |version=Third Printing |orig-year=1968 |title=The Novel of the Future|url=https://archive.org/details/noveloffuture00nina|url-access=registration|first=Anaïs|last=Nin|chapter=2: Abstraction|page=[https://archive.org/details/noveloffuture00nina/page/25 25]|publisher=Collier Books: A Division of Macmillan Publishing Company, New York}}</ref></blockquote>

According to literary theorist [[Uri Margolin]]:
<blockquote>Defamiliarization of that which is or has become familiar or taken for granted, hence automatically perceived, is the basic function of all devices. And with defamiliarization come both the slowing down and the increased difficulty (impeding) of the process of reading and comprehending and an awareness of the artistic procedures (devices) causing them.<ref>{{cite book|last=Margolin|first=Uri|s2cid=50084002|title=Russian Formalism|editor-first1=Michael|editor-last1=Groden|editor-first2=Martin|editor-last2=Kreiswirth|editor-first3=Imre|editor-last3=Szeman|location=Baltimore, Maryland|publisher=The Johns Hopkins University Press|date=1994}}</ref> 
</blockquote>