Foregrounding

Foregrounding is a concept in literary studies concerning making a linguistic utterance ( word, clause, phrase, phoneme, etc.) stand out from the surrounding linguistic context, from given literary traditions or from more general world knowledge.[1] It is "the 'throwing into relief' of the linguistic sign against the background of the norms of ordinary language."[2] There are two main types of foregrounding: parallelism and deviation. Parallelism can be described as unexpected regularity, while deviation can be seen as unexpected irregularity.[3] As the definition of foregrounding indicates, these are relative concepts. Something can only be unexpectedly regular or irregular within a particular context. This context can be relatively narrow, such as the immediate textual surroundings (referred to as a 'secondary norm'[4]) or wider such as an entire genre (referred to as a 'primary norm'[5]). Foregrounding can occur on all levels of language[6] (phonology, graphology, morphology, lexis, syntax, semantics and pragmatics). It is generally used to highlight important parts of a text, to aid memorability and/or to invite interpretation.