Linguistic Cohesion in Tahar Ben Jelloun’s Les Yeux Baissés

Abstract

This article examines the use of cohesive devices in Les yeux baissés written by Tahar Ben Jelloun, a Francophone Moroccan writer, with a view to foregrounding how different cohesive strategies help to unveil the writer’s thematic preoccupation and project the socio-cultural and political anomies within his society. Selected passages from the novel are analysed to illustrate the types, patterns and functions of cohesion in the novel. The study identifies reference and conjunction as the two main structural and semantic devices which knit the linguistic elements in the novel together and which help to bring out its thematic and aesthetic qualities. The article therefore concludes that the cohesive elements deployed in the novel project the literary and linguistic ingenuity of the author to picturesquely capture the experiences of the characters vis-à-vis the socio-political situation within their immediate environment.