The concept of "foregrounding" originated from Russian formalism, which was elaborated by scholars of Prague School such as Mukalov Ski and Jacobson, and finally formed by the processing and development of British stylists such as Leach and Halliday. As a complete concept, the concept of "foregrounding" was first put forward by Mukalov. According to him, poetic language does not constitute a standard language, but there is a close relationship between them. Standard language constitutes the background of poetic language, and systematic violation of standard language rules makes it possible for language to be poetic. Without this possibility, there would be no poetry, and denying the right of poetic works to violate the normative language rules is tantamount to denying poetry.
Russian formalists believe that the object of literary research is not general literature, but literariness, that is, what can make a work a literary work. Literature is a kind of language art, which is different from any other literature expressed in language because of its special structure and expression. It is this special structure and expression that makes literature produce artistic effects that other documents can't produce and become a unique feature of literature. Therefore, Russian formalists only care about pure literature itself, and only regard the formation of literary works and the way in which language produces aesthetic functions as special objects of literary research.