What is "foregrounding," which is a major stylistic device amongst creative writers?

Foregrounding is a literary concept borrowed from Russian
Formalism and developed by formalist Jan Mukařovský who called it
aktualisace, which has been translated
to English as foregrounding. Foregrounding is a technique within
literary devices whereby the author creates
"defamiliarization" through linguistic (i.e., pertaining to
language) "dislocation" that calls readers' attention the
strangeness of the world or the perception of the world
portrayed or depicted in the literary work.

In explanation,
Mukařovský posited that literature is a process of "strange
making" whereby the world or a perspective is presented in a manner that
separates it from real life experience through literary devices that manipulate
variables to set literary experience apart from real experience, thus making it strange,
as in unfamiliar. This stands in stark contrast to classical theory stating literature
reflects real life experience of the world and how it
operates.

The purpose of
foregrounding is to sharpen readers' vision and understanding of the event, feelings,
circumstance, concept, etc. that the author wants to point out in the hope of giving
readers new clarity, epiphany or motivation etc. The favored
techniques for creating foregrounding are patterns, such as
repetitions; ambiguity, in which meaning is clear but conclusions may be variable;
metaphor; tone; parallelism; and diction. Structural elements may also be foregrounded,
such as character development and plot structure. Any of these devices may be used to
defamiliarize the literary work through linguistic dislocation (i.e., atypical language
usage) so that the reader is struck by the author's points and aims while submerged in a
"strange" perspective of life and the world.