Marine metaphor and language(s) of writing in The Expropriated by Tahar Djaout.

Abstract

When language loses its power of nomination, when it is limited to be used
as a propaganda tool, its resources have no other explanation but what make
them say the Ŗnegative semioticsŗ, organically related to what Djaout names
the Ŗimprecatory rhetoricŗ. The solar being, Ŗfully supplied with cold light
and silvery star fragmentsŗ, privileged figure of the author, draws a big part
of his vital energy from this inexhaustible source of the meaning of reality
that carries the Ŗotherŗ language. It is this language indeed that puts him
straighter in connection with what in the being depends on life experience
merely, as on that of pure transparency.
Dajout's writing professes a support unreservedly to all the dynamic themes,
offering a plural writing aspect, where clearly stands out a permanent mixture
of languages, voices and styles; it adopts the Ŗvariable moodsŗ, of the mother
tongue that raises what it creates up to the highest summit the most
affirmatively that can be, the highest and the most decisive in the being.