focalised

Focalised is the past participle of focalise, the British English verb meaning to bring into focus or to concentrate on a focal point. As an adjective, it describes something that has been made focal or directed toward a specific point or plane. In optics and related fields, a focalised beam or image is one whose rays have been adjusted to converge at a focal point or lie on a defined focal plane. Devices such as lenses and mirrors are described as focalised when their configuration brings light to a sharp focus.

In linguistics and information structure, focalisation refers to the marking of a particular element as the focus of a sentence. A focalised element is highlighted as the new or emphasized information, often through prosody, word order, or syntactic devices like clefting or contrastive focus. The term is more common in discourse pragmatics and typological discussions than in everyday usage.

Spelling and usage notes: focalised is the British English spelling; the American English equivalent is focalized, with the related nouns focalisation and focalization rendered as focalisation (British) or focalization (American). The root noun focus and related terms such as focal point, focal plane, and focus marking are often used in the same contexts.

See also: focus, focal point, focal plane, focalization, focus marking.