Foregrounding
Foregrounding is a widely-used term in text analysis, literary linguistics and stylistics, referring to patterns of language that stand out in a text. The term itself is derived from art and film criticism, and is best understood by a visual analogy.
Goal
Noticing and exploring linguistic patterns in literary texts.
Here is a picture of San Francisco:
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Foregrounding - activity
In pairs or small groups, explore instances of grammatical foregrounding in Funeral Blues. This could be done by producing an analysis grid, where students examine how a grammatical feature of the text is foregrounded, and most importantly, discuss the potential meaning of the foregrounded feature. How do the instances of foregrounding add to our understanding and enjoyment of the poem?
To get you started, here are a couple of ideas:
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Grammatical feature |