ostranenie

[aw-strah-nuh-nee]

noun

1. defamiliarization.

Word History and Origins

Origin of ostranenie¹

1917; < Russian; coined by Viktor Shklovsky, Russian writer and literary critic

Example Sentences

Artistic estrangement — originally ostranenie, a word coined by the Russian literary theorist Viktor Shklovsky — is sometimes translated as “defamiliarization.”

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For Shklovsky, ostranenie occurs when a writer creates “a special way of experiencing an object, to make one not ‘recognize’ it but ‘see’ it.”

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