“Techniques of Defamiliarization in Literary Works”

∕ Chen Qingyang

Introduction

I. The Definition of Defamiliarization

Defamiliarization is a literary technique that primarily presents familiar things in novel ways, enabling readers to re-examine everyday experience and generate reflection.

This technique originates from the theory of the Russian Formalist Viktor Shklovsky, who believed that the essence of literature lies in disrupting people’s automated perception of daily life and returning them to a direct perception of the world.

II. Characteristics of Defamiliarized Literary Works

(1) Defamiliarized Novels

The technique of defamiliarization displays distinct characteristics in the novel.
By breaking conventional narrative modes and employing extraordinary narrative perspectives, language, and plot structures, it leads readers to re-examine familiar things.

Below are several common features of defamiliarized novels along with illustrative examples:

1. Unique Narrative Perspectives

Characteristic:
Defamiliarized novels often adopt unusual narrators, allowing readers to view the story from non-human or non-mainstream perspectives.
Such viewpoints alter readers’ understanding of reality, making originally familiar situations appear novel and profound.

Example:
In Tolstoy’s Kholstomer, the story is narrated from the perspective of a horse.
The horse’s viewpoint forces readers to re-examine human behavior and values, placing the problems of human society within a new and critically charged framework.

2. Non-Chronological Plot Structures

Characteristic:
Defamiliarized novels frequently employ non-linear plots, using temporal reversals, memory flashbacks, and other techniques to render the narrative unpredictable and blur readers’ sense of time and space.
This structure requires readers to actively participate in reconstructing the story.

Example:
In Ulysses, shifts in plot and temporal dislocation prevent readers from following traditional narrative progression.
Instead, readers gradually grasp the overall story through decoding and analysis of each segment.
James Joyce transforms reading into a process of exploration.

3. Alienation of Language and Symbols

Characteristic:
In defamiliarized novels, language is endowed with special forms—employing exaggeration, estranged rhetoric, or hybrid stylistic mixtures—so that language itself becomes a challenge to comprehension.
This approach encourages readers to re-examine the nature and function of language.

Example:
In Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, language blends multiple dialects and invented words, creating a pervasive sense of unfamiliarity.
This not only increases interpretive difficulty but also imbues the narrative with polysemy.

4. Distortion or Exaggeration of Plot and Characters

Characteristic:
Defamiliarized novels often employ extreme events or behaviors to create estrangement and bewilderment, prompting readers to reflect on characters’ motivations and deeper implications.
This feature is commonly associated with absurd or surreal styles.

Example:
Kafka’s The Metamorphosis depicts the protagonist Gregor’s transformation into an insect.
This absurd metamorphosis provokes reflection on individual value and human relationships in modern society, compelling readers to confront the absurdity of everyday life through shock and alienation.

5. Interweaving of Reality and Fantasy

Characteristic:
Defamiliarized novels frequently merge real and fictional elements, blurring the boundary between reality and imagination and prompting readers to question the authenticity of experience.

Example:
In García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, everyday life coexists with supernatural phenomena, allowing readers to experience the mystery and magic of Latin American culture.
This technique not only imbues the narrative with enchantment but also reflects deeper layers of reality.

These features highlight the importance of defamiliarization in the novel.
Within fiction, defamiliarization is realized through plot construction and narrative strategy.
It transforms reading from mere comprehension into a process of redefining reality, achieving both literary critique and self-reflection.

(2) Defamiliarization in Modern Poetry

In modern poetry, defamiliarization appears through techniques that break conventional language and structure, allowing familiar emotions and experiences to be newly perceived.

It not only reshapes common vocabulary and imagery but also employs collage of images and leap-like narration to create freshness and estrangement.
Below are several common characteristics of defamiliarization in modern poetry with illustrative examples:

1. Unconventional Combinations of Imagery

Characteristic:
Defamiliarized modern poetry often juxtaposes seemingly unrelated images, creating concrete yet elusive scenes that challenge imagination and turn language into a tool for exploring unfamiliar experience.

Example:
In T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, fragmented and complex images—such as “bells underground” and “empty streets”—convey a sense of fractured modernity.
These images resist immediate comprehension, requiring continual reorganization and reinterpretation.

2. Distortion and Alienation of Language

Characteristic:
Through linguistic distortion or unconventional syntactic structures, defamiliarized poetry disrupts automatic understanding and forces deeper engagement with meaning.
This technique dismantles or reconstructs semantic norms, endowing language itself with poetic strangeness.

Example:
Emily Dickinson frequently employed dashes, asymmetrical syntax, and unusual punctuation.
In poems such as “Because I could not stop for Death,” linguistic tension and abrupt structure render death mysterious and unpredictable, producing a poetic sense of estrangement.

3. Fragmented Narrative Forms

Characteristic:
Defamiliarized modern poetry often uses discontinuous narration, expressing emotion or scene through broken and leaping lines.
Logical sequence is blurred, creating a flow of disjointed thought that requires readers to actively assemble meaning.

Example:
Taiwanese poet Yang Mu’s Autumn Song employs shifting imagery and scattered narration to convey a sense of regret.
With no clear narrative line, readers grasp emotion only through dispersed poetic fragments.

Poets may choose unusual images or metaphors, allowing language and imagery to collide and disrupt conventional semantics.
In Eliot’s poetry, fragmented sentences and abnormal images repeatedly force readers to perceive language and emotion in unfamiliar ways, breaking traditional poetic modes and generating deep psychological resonance.

4. Non-Linear Concepts of Time and Space

Characteristic:
Defamiliarized modern poetry frequently blurs temporal and spatial boundaries, freeing imagery from realistic logic and producing a fluid poetic movement.
Such temporal perception enables scenes to shift freely, evoking sensations of reality mingled with illusion.

Example:
In French poet André Gide’s Autumn Ecstasy, the poet employs temporal retrospection and instantaneous scene shifts to depict autumnal emotion.
This non-linear narration allows readers to wander between time and feeling.

5. Abstraction and Symbolism of Language

Characteristic:
Defamiliarized modern poetry utilizes abstract language and powerful symbolism to create multiple layers of meaning.
Poets employ ambiguous or highly symbolic diction to convey complex thought and emotion, making language itself a medium of poetic exploration.

Example:
In Polish poet Wisława Szymborska’s poem The Ant, the life of a tiny creature symbolizes human existence.
Language takes on an abstract unfamiliarity, prompting readers to reflect on human value and smallness through the contemplation of the ant.

These defamiliarizing characteristics enrich linguistic expression in modern poetry, transforming poetry into an art of reshaping experience.
Through defamiliarization, reading evolves from simple comprehension into an active exploration of poetic meaning.

III. The Literary Significance of Defamiliarization

Defamiliarization is a literary technique aimed at disrupting readers’ automated understanding of everyday language and narrative.
Through unusual language, structures, or perspectives, it enables readers to recognize familiar phenomena anew, thereby producing effects of reflection and enlightenment.

The Russian Formalist Viktor Shklovsky first proposed the concept of defamiliarization in his essay Art as Technique, arguing that the essence of literature lies in “making the stone stony”—that is, rendering ordinary experience strange so as to liberate perception from habitual cognitive patterns.

The literary significance of defamiliarization can be summarized as follows:

1. Breaking Conventional Cognition and Enhancing Reader Engagement

Significance:
Defamiliarization disrupts everyday language and structures, slowing down the reading process and encouraging readers to attend closely to textual details, thereby re-examining overlooked scenes or images.
For example, some works deliberately design language or perspective to involve readers in the construction of imagery.

Example:
In poetry, defamiliarization is often achieved through the recombination of imagery and the reconstruction of language.
T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, for instance, employs collage-like images, requiring readers to participate continuously in the poetic reconstruction while decoding fragmented imagery, thus re-experiencing the fragmentation and alienation of modern society.

2. Provoking Critical Reflection on Everyday Reality

Significance:
Defamiliarization enables readers to step outside established cognitive frameworks and examine life’s phenomena from new perspectives, thereby fostering critical thinking.
Once familiar objects are rendered strange, their concealed essence may be revealed, prompting reflection.

Example:
In Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, after the protagonist transforms into an insect, the family’s alienation and rejection vividly expose society’s indifference toward the Other.
This narrative device allows readers to view family relationships and social alienation from an unfamiliar angle, stimulating reflection on everyday ethics and moral values.

3. Endowing Literary Works with Polysemy

Significance:
Defamiliarization transforms literary works from objects of single interpretation into texts of multiple meanings.
Through unusual language and narrative strategies, it activates diverse reader interpretations, turning the work into a space of dialogue.

Example:
In James Joyce’s Ulysses, defamiliarization appears in its non-linear structure and stream-of-consciousness language.
Readers struggle to grasp the precise meaning of each segment, and this estranged language grants vast interpretive space, enabling each reader to uncover hidden meanings from different perspectives.

4. The Aesthetic Value of Language Itself

Significance:
Defamiliarization renders language itself an aesthetic object rather than merely a tool for conveying meaning.
By estranging language, sensory qualities such as sound, rhythm, and visual form become more prominent, allowing readers to experience the artistic nature of words more deeply.

Example:
Emily Dickinson’s poetry, with its distinctive punctuation, irregular rhythms, and abrupt line breaks, transforms the shape and sound of language into sources of poetic beauty.
Her estranged linguistic structures allow readers to feel the pulse and musicality of words during reading.

5. Creating Estrangement to Stimulate Reflection

Significance:
Defamiliarization produces a sense of distance rather than immersion, freeing readers from habitual familiarity and enabling deeper reflection on the relationship between self and world.

Example:
Bertolt Brecht employed the “alienation effect” to maintain critical distance rather than emotional absorption.
In plays such as Life of Galileo, audiences are prevented from fully identifying with the characters and are instead compelled to analyze actions and events rationally.

6. Emphasizing the Self-Reflexivity of Literary Works

Significance:
Defamiliarization foregrounds the creative process itself, transforming literature from mere imitation into self-reflective text.
By highlighting artificial construction, it makes readers aware that the work is carefully crafted, inviting consideration of how the text is formed.

Example:
In postmodern works such as Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, interrupted narrative structures and self-referential storytelling constantly remind readers of the novel’s fictionality, encouraging reflection on the nature of narrative and the act of reading.

Conclusion

Defamiliarization is not merely a literary technique but a mode of re-seeing the world—one that prompts reflection on life, self-awareness, and the nature of literature itself.
By continually challenging and expanding literary possibilities, it transforms literature into a powerful instrument for reshaping perception, critical inquiry, and self-examination.

In literary practice, defamiliarization primarily operates through altered modes of description, language use, and plot construction, rendering familiar scenes novel and strange.
Specific strategies include unusual metaphors, unconventional narrative perspectives, and the subversion of traditional plot structures.

For example, Tolstoy’s Kholstomer narrates the story from a horse’s viewpoint, enabling readers to interpret events through a non-human consciousness and generating modes of thought distinct from everyday experience.

At its core, defamiliarization seeks to provoke profound reflection by compelling readers to re-examine the habitual world.
Through estranged perspectives and unconventional language, it not only enriches literary expression but also transforms the reading experience itself.
Reading thus becomes a process of exploring and reconstructing self-awareness.

Defamiliarization plays a crucial role in literature by granting familiar phenomena new interpretive space.
Whether in narrative design or poetic language, it challenges traditional modes of reading and offers fresh ways of understanding reality, making literature a renewed pathway for exploring both self and world.

〈文學作品裡的陌生化技法〉∕陳清揚

引言
一、陌生化（Defamiliarization）的定義
陌生化是一種文學技巧，主要通過將熟悉的事物以新穎的方式呈現，使讀者重新審視日常經驗並產生反思。此技法源於俄國形式主義者維克多·什克洛夫斯基（Viktor Shklovsky）的理論，他認為文學的本質在於改變人們對日常事物的自動化認知，讓人回歸到對世界的直接感知​。

二、陌生化文學作品的特色
(一)、陌生化小說
陌生化技法在小說中具有顯著的特色，它通過打破常規敘事方式、使用非凡的敘述視角、語言和情節結構，讓讀者重新審視熟悉的事物。以下是一些常見的陌生化小說特色和實例說明：

1. 獨特的敘述視角

特色：陌生化的小說通常採用不尋常的敘述者，讓讀者從非人類或非主流的角度來看待故事。這樣的視角改變了讀者對現實的理解，使原本熟悉的情景變得新奇而深刻。

實例：在托爾斯泰的《霍爾斯托默》中，故事由一匹馬的視角講述。馬的觀點讓人重新審視人類的行為和價值觀，使人類社會的問題被置於一種全新的、充滿批判性的框架下​。

2. 不按時間順序的情節結構

特色：陌生化小說常使用非線性的情節，通過時間倒錯、記憶插敘等方式讓敘事變得不可預測，模糊讀者的時空感受。這種結構讓讀者主動參與到重構故事的過程中。

實例：《尤利西斯》中的情節跳躍和時間錯位讓讀者難以跟隨傳統敘事，而是通過解碼和分析每一段內容來逐步理解整體故事。詹姆斯·喬伊斯運用這種方式使閱讀成為一種探索的過程​。

3. 語言與符號的異化

特色：在陌生化的小說中，語言被賦予了特殊的形式，使用夸張、陌生化的修辭或是混合多種風格，讓語言本身成為理解故事的挑戰。這種方式讓讀者重新審視語言的本質及其作用。

實例：在喬伊斯的《芬尼根的守靈夜》中，語言混雜了多種方言和生造詞，讓閱讀過程充滿陌生感。這不僅增加了理解難度，還讓故事本身具有了多義性​。

4. 情節與角色的扭曲或誇張

特色：陌生化小說中常通過極端的情節或角色行為讓讀者感到疏離和不解，從而使其思考角色動機與背後的深層意涵。這一特色通常與荒誕或超現實的風格相結合。

實例：卡夫卡的《變形記》描述了主角格里高爾變成甲蟲的經歷。這種荒誕的轉變使人們反思現代社會中個人的價值與人際關係，使讀者在疏離與驚異中審視日常生活的荒謬​。

5. 現實與幻想的交織

特色：陌生化小說經常融合真實與虛構的元素，使讀者難以區分現實與幻想的界限，從而讓他們質疑經驗的真實性。

實例：在馬爾克斯的《百年孤獨》中，現實生活與超自然現象並行，讓讀者感受到拉丁美洲文化的神秘與魔幻。這種手法既賦予故事神秘色彩，也反映了現實的深層意涵​。

這些特色突顯了陌生化技法在小說中的重要性。在小說中，陌生化可通過情節設置和敘述策略來實現。陌生化使讀者的閱讀過程不再僅僅是故事的理解，而是進入到重新定義現實的思考過程中，達到文學批評和自我反思的雙重效果。
(二)、陌生化新詩
陌生化在新詩中以突破常規語言和結構的手法呈現，使熟悉的情感和經驗重新被認識。新詩中的陌生化不僅涉及對常見語彙、意象的改造，更運用意象拼貼、跳躍敘事等手法讓讀者產生新鮮感和疏離感，以下是幾個新詩作品中常見的陌生化特徵及其作品實例：
1. 不尋常的意象組合
特色：陌生化新詩經常選用看似無關聯的意象組合在一起，創造出具體卻難以解釋的畫面，挑戰讀者的想像力，讓語言成為探索陌生經驗的工具。
實例：在T.S.艾略特的《荒原》中，詩中呈現出龐雜、破碎的意象，如“地底的鐘聲”、“無人的街巷”，讓人感受到一種斷裂的現代性。這些意象讓讀者難以直接理解，需要在不斷閱讀中重新組織和解讀​。
2. 語言的扭曲與異化
特色：通過語言的扭曲或不尋常的語法結構，陌生化新詩使讀者無法自動理解內容，必須更深入地探索語言背後的意義。這樣的技法將常見詞彙的語意拆解或再造，讓語言本身帶有詩意的陌生感。
實例：艾米莉·狄金森的詩句中常使用破折號、不對稱的語法和異常標點。她的詩如「Because I could not stop for Death」通過語言的張力和突兀的結構，讓死亡這一概念更顯神秘和不可測，帶來一種詩意的陌生感​。
3. 碎片化的敘事方式
特色：陌生化新詩採用不連貫的敘事，通過斷裂和跳躍的語句來表達情感或場景。這種技巧模糊了邏輯順序，使詩意呈現出不連續的思維流動，讀者在閱讀時需要主動拼湊詩中意涵。
實例：台灣詩人楊牧的《秋歌》通過意象的跳躍和分散的敘事讓詩歌充滿遺憾之感。詩中沒有明確的敘事脈絡，讀者只能在分散的句子中捕捉詩人的情感片段​。
詩人可能選擇不尋常的意象或比喻，讓語言和意象相互碰撞，打破常規語義。在T.S.艾略特的詩作中，他經常運用破碎的語句和異常的意象，讓讀者以陌生的方式理解語言和情感，這種技法打破了傳統的詩意模式，賦予詩作更深層的心理震撼。
4. 非線性的時間與空間觀念
特色：陌生化新詩經常模糊時間與空間的界限，使詩中的意象不受現實邏輯限制，創造出一種詩意的流動感。這樣的時間觀讓詩歌中的畫面自由變幻，讀者感到似真似幻的感受。
實例：在法國詩人紀德的《秋天的狂喜》裡，詩人以時光回溯和景象的即時變換，描繪秋日的情懷。這種非線性敘述讓讀者在時間和情感之間來回遊走​。
5. 語言的抽象化與象徵性
特色：陌生化新詩通過抽象的語言和強烈的象徵，使詩歌具有多重意涵。詩人可能用模糊或高度象徵的詞彙來傳達複雜的思想和情感，使語言本身成為探索詩意的媒介。
實例：波蘭詩人辛波絲卡的詩作《蟻》通過一隻微小生物的生活來象徵人的生存意義，並讓語言呈現一種抽象的陌生感，使讀者在理解蟻的同時，也反思人類自身的價值與渺小​。

這些陌生化特色在新詩中豐富了語言的表達，使詩歌成為一種重塑經驗的藝術。通過陌生化技法，讀者的閱讀過程從簡單的理解轉變為探索詩意的過程。
三、陌生化的文學意義
陌生化（Defamiliarization）是一種文學技巧，旨在打破讀者對日常語言和情節的自動化理解，通過不尋常的語言、結構或視角，讓讀者重新認識熟悉的現象，達到反思和啟發的效果。俄國形式主義者維克多·什克洛夫斯基（Victor Shklovsky）在他的文章《藝術作為技法》中首次提出了陌生化這一概念，認為文學的本質在於“讓石頭顯得更像石頭”，即讓日常經驗顯得異常，使人從固有的認知模式中解放出來。以下是陌生化的文學意義：
1. 打破常規認知，提升閱讀參與感意義
陌生化通過打破日常語言和結構，使讀者放慢閱讀速度，仔細關注文本細節，重新審視被忽略的情景或意象。例如，一些作品通過刻意設計的語言或視角來讓讀者參與到意象的建構過程中。
實例：在詩歌中，陌生化通常通過意象組合與語言的重構來達成，例如T.S.艾略特的《荒原》運用了拼貼的意象，讓讀者在解碼碎片化的意象時不斷參與詩意的重構，從而重新感受現代社會的斷裂和異化。
2. 引發對日常現實的批判性思考
意義：陌生化幫助讀者跳脫既定的認知框架，以新的角度去審視生活中的事物和現象，達到批判性思考的效果。當熟悉的事物被陌生化處理後，它們原本被掩蓋的本質可能被揭露出來，引發讀者的反思。
實例：卡夫卡的《變形記》中，主人公變成甲蟲後，家庭對其的疏離和排斥更為鮮明地展現了社會對異質者的冷漠。這一設定使讀者以陌生的角度審視家庭關係和社會異化，促使人們反思日常倫理和道德價值。
3. 賦予文學作品多義性
意義：陌生化使得文學作品不再是單一解釋的對象，而是具有多重意義的文本。透過不尋常的語言和敘述方式，陌生化激發了讀者的多元詮釋，讓作品成為對話的空間。
實例：在詹姆斯·喬伊斯的《尤利西斯》中，陌生化體現在非線性結構和意識流語言上。讀者難以完全理解每個片段的具體含義，而這種陌生化語言的運用給予作品極大的詮釋空間，使每個讀者都能從不同角度發掘隱藏意涵。
4. 語言本身的審美性
意義：陌生化讓語言本身成為審美對象，而不僅僅是意涵傳遞的工具。語言的陌生化使文字的聲音、節奏、圖像等感官特徵更為突出，讓讀者更深刻地體會文字的藝術性。
實例：艾米莉·狄金森的詩歌以獨特的標點符號、不規則的韻律和斷句，讓語言的形狀和聲音本身成為詩的美感來源。她的詩句運用陌生化的語言結構，使讀者在閱讀中感受到文字的跳動與音韻之美。
5. 創造文本的疏離感，引發反思
意義：陌生化讓文學創造出疏離感，使讀者感到距離而非投入。這種疏離感使讀者從日常生活的熟悉感中解放出來，更易反思自我與世界的關係。
實例：布萊希特（Bertolt Brecht）運用“陌生化效果”來讓觀眾保持對情節的批判性距離，而非僅僅沉浸於劇情中。例如，在他的戲劇《伽利略傳》中，觀眾無法完全同情角色，而是被迫保持疏離感，從而對角色和情節進行理性思考。
6. 強調文學作品的自我意識
意義：陌生化讓文學作品展示自身的創作過程，使作品不再是純粹的模仿，而是一種自我反省的文本。這種特徵突顯了作品的人工性，讓讀者意識到作品是由作者精心構築的，從而考量文本的形成過程。
實例：在後現代主義作品如卡爾維諾的《如果在冬夜，一個旅人》中，小說中斷的結構和自反的敘述風格提醒讀者其小說性，使讀者持續反思小說的本質及閱讀的意義。

結論

陌生化不僅是文學的一種表現技巧，更是讓讀者重新審視世界、反思生活、思考自我認知和文學本質的方式。它不斷挑戰和拓展了文學作品的可能性，使文學創作成為改變現實感知、深刻批判和自我反省的重要工具。
在文學中，陌生化技法主要是通過描述、語言運用和情節設計的改變，使熟悉的情景變得新奇而充滿陌生感。具體方式包括使用奇特的比喻、異常的敘述視角、或顛覆傳統情節結構等。例如，托爾斯泰在《霍爾斯托默》中以馬的視角敘述故事，這使讀者從非人類的觀點理解情節，產生出與日常經驗不同的思維模式。

陌生化的核心在於引發讀者的深度反思，使其重新審視習以為常的世界。透過異化的視角或不尋常的語言，陌生化技法不僅豐富了文學的表現形式，還改變了讀者的閱讀體驗。它引導讀者超越日常經驗的界限，使閱讀過程成為自我意識的探索與重構​。

陌生化技法在文學中扮演著關鍵角色，賦予熟悉事物新的詮釋空間。無論是在小說的情節設計中還是新詩的語言運用中，陌生化都挑戰了傳統閱讀方式，為讀者提供了一個重新理解世界的視角，使得文學成為探索自我和現實的新途徑。