formalist
1
8.2
- noun
- /ˈfɔːrməlɪst/
- Specialized
- But the kind of artifice with which the Formalists were primarily concerned, and that interests me here, is of a different order from that which narrative theory has insisted is intrinsic to all narrative, fictional or nonfictional.
- Russian formalist
Examples
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The formalist approach to literature emphasizes the structure and form of a text over its content and themes.
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UN quote The Pacific Gas Rule is not, however, without its formalist critics.
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As the Russian Formalist would like to see, language in Yusuf's poetry becomes, like a child, happily aware of itself.
Academic text (1997) -
And the second thing is why the friends of liberty are also decried in the world of law as formalists.
Academic text (2005) -
(n8) I always tell my students, "To call an argument a formalist argument is not a term of abuse."
Academic text (2005) -
Because of the intensity of his language, its self-consciousness, its playfulness, and its ultimate defamiliarizing of the familiar, Yusuf's poetry would be the delight of the New Critic and the Russian Formalist.
Academic text (1997) -
A formalist believes that solving a math problem relies on manipulating symbols rather than understanding the underlying concepts.
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Many formalists argue that the validity of a logical statement depends solely on its proof within a formal system.
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
The word formalist comes from formal, which comes from a root meaning 'form' or 'shape', plus the ending -ist meaning 'a person'. In math a formalist focuses on the 'form', the rules and symbols of a system, so they study how statements work inside those rules rather than treating numbers as real things.