BRICKS AND WOODS UNDER THE ROOF: AN EXAMINATION OF PERSONAL PRONOUNS AS A COHESIVE DEVICE IN OSOFISAN’S MANY COLOURS MAKE THE THUNDER KING

Abstract

Cohesion is of significant relevance in the use of English Language given that it provides the platform for the relation between words to make it a unified whole. As much as works abounds on cohesion in English Language, to the best of our knowledge, very little has been done in investigating its application in the successful production of literary texts. This study, therefore, sets out to examine personal pronouns as a literary principle that motivates literary text productions so as to determine their values in text productions and interpretations. The first in the series, personal pronouns, are examined in Ahmed Yerima’s Many Colours Make the Thunder King. We found out that personal pronouns are employed to make anaphoric references which largely dominate the play as Osofisan builds the utterances as bricks are laid and woods structured under the roof. Notably, the first person singular person personal pronouns “I”, “me”, second person singular personal pronouns “you”, “your”, and third person singular person personal pronouns “he”, “him”, “her”, and “his”, are the bricks and woods used in the construction of utterances in the play. Apart from contributing to scholarship in this direction in linguistic scholarship, the study revealed a significant use that a no-content word class pronoun can be to achieve cohesion and meaning relation in text production. This template can be employed in the examination of cohesion in other African literary plays.