A study of the misperception and mis-application of the concept of defamiliarization in academic essays published by the Iranian scholars

This essay aims to explore the drawbacks and fundamental deficiencies of studies that claim to apply or discuss the concept of defamiliarization in the realm of Persian language through a critical analysis of published academic research articles. A review of 30 articles published in prestigious Iranian journals during the period of 1996 to 2016 illustrates that many researchers in Iran have serious misperceptions regarding the concept of defamiliarization.
These common misconceptions in appreciation and application of the term defamiliarization can be categorized as follows: 1) disregard for the methodological principles of the Russians formalists; 2) presentation of concocted definitions of defamiliarization, and 3) confusion of the concept of defamiliarization with similar terms, in particular reducing it to the basic and traditional principles of rhetoric. On the one hand, these drawbacks have given rise to a plethora of studies that intend to examine truisms and on the other hand, it has reduced this concept to a mere embellishment in academic circles. As a consequence, a fertile ground has been prepared for researchers to churn out articles that disseminate analogous misconceptions in this area.