Global Journal of Human Social Science, C: Sociology and Culture, Volume 22 Issue 1

moody. Such negative characteristics seem to be in line with the connotations assigned to dogs in a number of other cultures as well (Fu, 2008; Estaji & Fakhteh, 2011; Petrova, 2015; Liu, 2019). e) Camels Table 6: Camel proverbs associated with the identification of the source domain and the target domain. Proverbs Source Target 10. حاط اذا هنيكاكسترتك لمجلا ( iza TaH ‘l-jamal kitrat sakaki:nu: ) Lit. Tr. If a camel falls, many knives appear. Fig. M. People usually seize any moment of weakness displayed by powerful people to gloat about them. Camel A powerful/successful person 11. همانسفوشي ام لمجلا ( ‘l-jamal ma: yešu:f sana:mu: ) Lit. Tr. The camel does not see its hump. Fig. M. Some people tend to forget about their own faults and focus on others’ mistakes. A person who ignores his own faults and blames others A camel is a large animal with a long neck and one or two humps which lives in the desert. It goes without saying that the Arabian camel is the undisputed favorite animal of the whole populations of the Arab world. Therefore, it is the only animal that has been found to be evaluated positively in the study as indicated in Table 6 above. In the tenth proverb, a powerful camel is mapped onto a powerful, successful human being. In fact, a camel is positively portrayed as a powerful and successful person whom, unfortunately, everybody else feels jealous or envious of. Accordingly, everyone attempts to seize the opportunity to gloat about this successful person in his/her moment of weakness. The situation is depicted in the proverb in terms of the appearance of many knives when the camel has apparently been slain, which evidently shows the cowardice of such people as they could not face that mighty camel when it was alive. Thus, it seems that a camel is conventionally conceptualized as a strong, brave, noble, thoroughbred, worthy and clean animal in the current proverb (see Table 6). This result is harmonious with the study findings of Alghamdi (2019), which revealed the positive conceptualization of the symbolic importance of camels in Al-Baha proverbs. Nonetheless, there are certain negative connotations attributed to a camel, as it has also been personified as an egotistical, arrogant, and ignorant person. When a Hijazi speaker utilizes the eleventh proverb mentioned in Table 6 above in a specified communicative context, he/she is trying to emphasize the fact that the interlocutor is ignoring his/her negative traits and is focusing on others’ flaws instead. Therefore, the speaker is indirectly trying to draw the hearer’s attention to his/her own imperfections, rather than concentrating on the other party’s negative qualities. This case is certainly emphasized in the proverb through the portrayal of the camel as not being able to see its own مانس ‘hump ’; a further negatively-depicted physical characteristic of this animal. As a deduction, a camel is systematically conceived as a censorious, captious, and hypercritical person who is inclined to look for and point out faults and defects of others. When such a proverb is utilized in a particular Hijazi setting, it immediately reprimands a person who is overly focused on people’s small faults and who overlooks his/her own mistakes (refer to Table 6). All in all, this finding seems to be in line with the negative depictions of camels in other studies (Krikmann, 2001; Estaji & Fakhteh, 2011; Salamh & Maalej, 2018). In spite of what preceded, a camel has been observed to be positively portrayed as mentioned earlier. VII. G eneral D iscussion It seems that the human-animal relation is evidently depicted in the selected Hijazi proverbs through the conceptual mappings where animals function as a vehicle to express human characteristics, traits and behaviors. Therefore, the animals portrayed in the Hijazi proverbs are used metaphorically to convey the specific characteristics of human beings. Moreover, the analysis of Hijazi animal proverbs revealed that there are certain prototypical connotations attached to each and every animal included in the study, which eventually turned out to be mostly negative. The proverbs seem to comply with the conceptual metaphor PEOPLE ARE ANIMALS proposed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980), in such a way that the various animal characteristics embedded in the Hijazi proverbs are mapped onto human behaviors, characteristics, and traits. Therefore, donkeys have been depicted as annoying people; monkeys as ugly people; wolves as deceitful people; dogs as bad-tempered people; and camels in one occasion as powerful people, and as arrogant people on another. It can be argued that all of the animals, namely donkeys, monkeys, wolves and dogs, depicted in the Hijazi proverbs were associated with negative Volume XXII Issue I Version I 62 ( ) Global Journal of Human Social Science - Year 2022 © 2022 Global Journals C Exploring Connotative Meanings and Metaphors of Saudi Animal Proverbs: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis connotations. These animals showed negative