# Introduction roverbs are regarded as perceived truths based on people's common sense or experience. Proverbial expressions are generally viewed as an important constituent of any language, since they are believed to be scrupulously integrated with the society and the cultural ideologies and perceptions of the folk of a particular civilization. It is essentially believed that language and culture of a particular social group are intertwined and seem to reciprocally influence each other. Besides, proverbs chiefly tend to mirror the encapsulation of the social and cultural growth of various nations. Proverbs in the Hijazi society have, had, and presumably will have, immense impact on the transmission of ideas, beliefs, attitudes, knowledge and social morals from one generation to another. This can be attributed to the fact that proverbs are considered to be a primary vehicle for transmitting cultural norms and people's social beliefs in a given speech community. Therefore, examining this particular genre of folklore is significant in order to understand both the language and the general sociocultural tendencies of the people of a designated nation. It goes without saying that examining this specific area of animal proverbs will eventually reflect certain ideologies and beliefs that are related to the Hijazi culture. It seems that the people who use such proverbs in everyday speech attempt to convey certain messages to the interlocutor in an interesting and intriguing way. Instead of being direct, the Hijazi people seem to utilize particular stylistic devices manifested in the form of proverbial expressions to get to their point in a conversation. Therefore, it can be argued that there are certain prototypical connotations attached to each and every Hijazi animal proverb, which will be explored in the current paper. Moreover, by conducting such research, a better understanding of the Hijazi culture and the people will be arrived at. Due to the limited number of research studies that investigate Hijazi proverbs, the present study helps to fill in the gap found in the literature by tackling an interesting, and probably somewhat ignored, part of the proverbial treasures of the Hijazi culture in the Western region of Saudi Arabia. Moreover, the current research paper aims at semantically and pragmatically investigating the prototypical connotations of animal proverbs in Hijazi Arabic. Additionally, it seeks to highlight human-animal relation and explore the cultural values of the Hijazi society as reflected in these proverbial sayings. # II. # Literature Review The following review of literature presents some definitions of proverbs, explores the connection between animals and humans as manifested in proverbs, and sheds light on various animal proverb studies that have been conducted in several communities around the world. # a) Definitions of Proverbs Proverbs are said to be the words of the wise which bear fruits of subtle wisdom. Many researchers have attempted to define proverbs over the last decades. For instance, Norrick (1985) identifies a proverb as "a traditional, conversational, didactic genre with general meaning, a potential free conversational turn, preferably with figurative meaning" (p. 78), and thus, he asserts the traditionality of proverbial expressions in general. Another attempt was made by Mieder (2004), in which he defines a proverb as "a short, sentence of the folk which contains wisdom, truth, moral values, and traditional views in a metaphorical, fixed and definite, and memorizable form which is handed from generations to generation" (p. 3). In simple terms, a proverb is a short saying common among the folk that is performed to express some truth. Proverbs can meticulously depict culturally-specific accepted beliefs, ideas, attitudes and truths about how a particular speech community actually functions. Since a proverb is characterized as a "a saying current among the folk" (Taylor, 1931, p. 3), it carries a certain degree of wisdom on the basis of people's stories, real-life situations and general experiences. Therefore, Gibbs (2001) affirms that proverbs can be described as "familiar, fixed, sentential expressions that express well-known truths, social norms, or moral themes" (p. 168). In other words, proverbs seem to establish a code of folk culture, and as a consequence, serve the purpose of successful interaction. # b) Animals and Proverbs Animals play an important role in the lives of many people. Human beings and some animals can coexist and live together harmoniously which causes people to know some of the negative and positive characteristics of them well (Sameer, 2016). Since animals generally improve humans' lives, they seem to take part in the contexts of symbolic uses, such as in art, literature, religion, and mythology (Nesi, 1995). Strictly speaking, there appears to be an enormous body of words and expressions that pertain to animals in approximately all languages to describe the relationship that connects these animals to humans in various ways. Therefore, people resort to the use of animal words, expressions or metaphors when communicating with others to express their emotions, feelings, or depict some situation in various contexts (Budiarta & Kasni, 2017). Thus, one can make use of the performativity, i.e., the power of language to cause some change in the world, of such words and expressions in different communicative settings. Put differently, various types of texts, including proverbs, idioms, and literary genres can be manipulated to purposefully serve multiple communicative functions. By using animal proverbs, one can achieve many sociolinguistic purposes, such as describing, insulting, praising, and criticizing. Animal proverbs form an important constituent of the corpus of proverbial expressions in almost any language. In various societies, people frequently utilize such powerful proverbial animal sayings to ascribe specific characteristics of people to particular animals (Al-Harahsheh & Al-Rousan, 2020). Lakoff and Turner (1989) contend that animals can be personified by symbolically attributing several human characteristics to them. Kövecses (2010) agrees that "human behaviors can be metaphorically understood as animal behavior, especially when human behavior is violent, deviant or unreasonable" (p. 153). As a result, animal proverbs are used in their nonliteral sense to reveal certain figurative meanings that heavily rely on the connotations of these proverbial expressions which in turn make their use socially and culturally bound. Hence, the symbolic functions of animal proverbs necessitate a particular attention to their meaning in context and to the cultural perspective in general. Animal proverbs, which are of main concern here, could refer to the animal itself, part of its body, or to one of its traits in order to describe people or some of their good or bad behaviors. According to Lakoff and Johnson's (1980) Conceptual Metaphor Theory, the process of mapping animal behaviors and traits onto human behavior and traits is built on the conceptual metaphor, NON-HUMAN IS HUMAN. As a result, such a practice is informed by the conceptual metaphor, PEOPLE ARE ANIMALS. People's tendency to attribute other people's behaviors and characteristics to animals seems to comply with traditions, cultural aspects, and social experience. # c) Studies of Animal Proverbs Animal metaphors have been tremendously explored by many researchers around the world. For instance, Pourhossein (2016) attempted to investigate the degree of similarity between Persian and Turkish people on how they conceptualize the world by means of animal proverbs. The results revealed both similarity and variation in the way the participants conceptualized the world, depending on the cultural and environmental perspective of each speech community. Another study conducted by Riyanto (2018) attempted to emphasize the idea that human behavior can be understood in terms of animal behavior which is symbolically expressed in English proverbs. The findings showed that the animal constituents found in many English proverbs can perform several functions as praising, advising, and warning. Thus, it appears that by understanding the sociolinguistic functions achieved by means of animal proverbs, one can gain knowledge with regards to the proper way of using these animal elements in English proverbs in order to effectively interact with other people in communicative situations. Views about gender inequality were also analyzed in light of animal proverbs. To cite an example, Barasa and Opande (2017) inspected animal metaphors from a feminist point of view to examine the representations of men and women in two communities in Kenya. The study concluded that certain animal proverbs indicated sex inequality which was apparent in the stereotypical depiction of females as submissive to men and reliant on them. In the same line, Rodríguez (2009) carried out a study to explore sexism in terms of animal metaphors. The study revealed several gendered depictions of women as chickens, bitches and vixens. Additionally, females were stereotypically represented as inferior to men which led people to acknowledge patriarchal beliefs about the role of women in English and Spanish societies. Khan, Sardar, and Yousaf (2017) also strived to reveal the depiction of men and women as reflected in Urdu animal proverbs. Their findings asserted that gender depictions of animals, whether domestic or wild, have corresponded with the roles of men and women in the Indian community. Other studies had a central focus on specific species of animals reflected in proverbial sayings. For example, Muhammad and Rashid (2014) examined cat metaphors in both Malay and English proverbs and explored the similarities and differences in their meanings. Their work showed many differences in meanings which are connected to the metaphorical schemas of the English and Malay proverbs. Such variation in meanings stemmed from the social and cultural environments that the language speakers lived in. On the other hand, Salman and Amer (2020) investigated metaphorical proverbs of horses in English and Iraqi Arabic to discover how the respondents would comprehend, explain and utilize such proverbs. The study affirmed that there were certain similar connotative meanings attached to horse images in both languages, as English and Iraqi Arabic shared some social variables for some conceptualizations concerning the selected topic. However, the occupation variable seemed to have a tremendous effect on the participants usage of horse imagery, as farmers utilized horse portrayals more than any of the other participants. Another study conducted by Biyela (2003) focused on human-animal and bird relationship by inspecting the role this animal play in shaping a composite view of Zulu society in South Africa. It also aimed at exploring the sophisticated thoughts, social values and attitudes of the people. The results exhibited that by relying on metaphorical animal and bird proverbs as the common heritage of Zulu language, several aspects that shape the socio-cultural attitudes and behaviors of Zulu people can be deciphered. There seems to be only few studies cited in the literature which addressed the issue of animal proverbial expressions in revealing human-animal interface in Saudi Arabia. For example, Salamh and Maalej (2018) discussed animal proverbs in Saudi Arabic and Tunisian Arabic from a cultural and cognitive-linguistic viewpoint. Their study revealed that the two varieties of Arabic may make use of the same animal names, but with a different focus. Moreover, many animal names were associated with cultural desirable/undesirables or positive/negative traits of humans. Another study conducted in Saudi Arabia by Alghamdi (2019) investigated animal proverbs socially and eco-linguistically to highlight the representation of human-animal relationship. The findings revealed that Al-Bahah animal proverbs were not only sociolinguistic-specific, but also ecologicalspecific in such a way that asserted certain behaviors that can save the ecosystem. Due to scarcity of research in Saudi Arabia, the current research shall attempt to investigate the figurative meanings and the pragmatic functions of Hijazi animal proverbs. Furthermore, it will seek to explore the various representations of human-animal relationship manifested in these metaphorical proverbs. # III. # Purpose of the Study The present research aims to investigate the connotative meanings and the pragmatic representations of animal proverbs in Hijazi Arabic in Saudi Arabia. It also seeks to deduce the representation of human-animal interface and explore the cultural values of the Hijazi society as depicted in the proverbs. Therefore, the research will address the following research questions: 1. What are the figurative meanings (prototypical connotations) embedded in the selected Hijazi animal proverbs? 2. What are the pragmatic functions of the metaphorical animal proverbs as it relates to Hijazi culture? 3. How is human-animal relation depicted in Hijazi proverbs? 4. What are the cultural Hijazi norms embedded in these animal proverbs? IV. # Theoretical Framework The theoretical backbone of the study consists of three major components: Lakoff and Johnson's (1980) Conceptual Metaphor Theory, the approaches involving Semantic Molecules proposed by Goddard (1998), and the theories of Cultural Linguistics introduced by Palmer (1996). Lakoff and Johnson's (1980) Conceptual Metaphor Theory centres around the metaphorical 'mapping' across conceptual domains, namely the source domain and the target domain. According to Kövecses (2016), a conceptual metaphor refers to "understanding one domain of experience (that is typically abstract) in terms of another (that is typically concrete) [emphasis added]" (p. 13). In other words, the animals included in the selected proverbs of this study represent the source domain through which other human experiences are conceptualised as target domain. Therefore, the current study will seek to explore the mental connection between animal behaviours and human characteristics as portrayed in Hijazi proverbs. Animal proverbs can be studied in light of the approaches involving Semantic Molecules proposed by Goddard (1998). Drawing upon Wierzbicka's (2007) Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) theory, Goddard (2012) defines Semantic Molecules as "complex meanings which are decomposable into combinations of semantic primes but which function as units in the structure of other, more complex concepts" (p. 6). As a result, the explications for animals like parrot, sparrow, and eagle, for example, have to include the semantic molecule of 'bird'. Goddard (1998) further argues that various semantically complex words may be contained within several animal explications that are derived from "describing their habitat, referring to their sizes and appearance, revealing their characteristic behaviour and specifying their relation with human" (p. 247). Therefore, he asserts that the semantic molecules of animal explications are "composed directly of primitive semantic features" which can be supported by linguistic evidence (p. 255). The present study will reveal the semantic molecules encapsulated in the Hijazi proverbs in order to reach a better understanding of animals' characteristics, behavior, and their relation to humans. The theories of Cultural Linguistics introduced by Palmer (1996) refer to the interface between language, culture, and conceptualization. He affirms that Cultural Linguistics is "primarily concerned not with how people talk about some objective reality, but with how they talk about the world that they themselves imagine" (p. 36). Consequently, Cultural Linguistics is aimed at exploring "the conceptualizations that have a cultural basis and are encoded in and communicated through features of human languages" (Sharifian, 2017, p. 34). Thus, this study will attempt to highlight several social norms and values of the Hijazi culture as reflected in the Hijazi animal proverbs. V. # Methodology The data is collected from several sources: online websites, interviews with some old Hijazi speakers, and the researchers' own repertoire of proverbs, being themselves native speakers of Hijazi Arabic. Nonetheless, the researchers relied mainly on a book of Hijazi proverbs titled 'Amthal Hijaziah Ma9a Jaddu Qaddori' by Atique (2018). The researchers selected about 11 Hijazi animal proverbs and verified their figurative meanings with Hijazi speakers. The present study makes use of the three aforementioned theories of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Cultural Linguistics, and Semantic Molecules, through which the meaning of proverbs will be manifested and clarified. # VI. # Data Analysis The animals included in the proverbial data are classified into five classes: donkeys, monkeys, wolves, dogs, and camels. Each class of animals contains 2 animal proverbial expressions (except for 'donkey' proverbs; n = 3), and will be qualitatively examined below. Drawing upon the conceptual metaphor PEOPLE ARE ANIMALS (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980), the various animal characteristics embedded in the Hijazi proverbs will be mapped onto human behaviors and traits. Therefore, the identification of the source domain and the target domain for each expression on the basis of the semantics for each animal is provided (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). Moreover, the semantic molecules for each animal are extracted based on the explications of each animal's size, appearance, habitat, characteristics, behaviors, and its relationship with people (Goddard, 1998), as exemplified in the following table. A stupid person A donkey can be defined as a four-legged domesticated member of the horse class with long ears and dorsal hooves that is found in dry, warm areas as deserts and savannahs. Donkeys have long served as pack animals in many parts of the Hijazi community ages ago. They are viewed as working animals which are used by humans for carrying heavy loads or as means of transportation, even though nowadays they seem to be an uncommon sight in cities. Thus, donkeys have been depicted in many Hijazi proverbial expressions as part of the people's cultural heritage. As indicated in Table 2, the first two proverbs have similar meanings, indicating relatively the same target. The first proverb describes a specific context in which a person finds himself in a really small place, yet he is being annoyed by the hard kicks of a raging donkey. If the current proverbial saying is used in a certain Hijazi situation, the donkey would immediately refer to an annoying addressee who cannot stop arguing in the wrong direction or doing a particular action that is considered irritating to the other party. As a consequence, the speaker attempts to sarcastically prevent the interlocutor from invading his/her personal space by paying more attention to what he/she is saying or doing in a particular social interaction. Eventually, a donkey's annoyance is mapped onto an annoying human being who seems to disrespectfully disturb others. In the same vein, the second proverb appears to portray donkeys negatively by mapping their unfavorable trait of harassment onto a lame person who has a really bad sense of humor, i.e. someone who makes horribly bad or offensive jokes. The proverb generally criticizes people who annoy others by intruding into others' lives or by making silly and offensive jokes As for the third proverb, the donkey represents a stupid person who is so slow in comprehending concepts and is incapable of understanding anything except when he/she is being kicked hard. On the contrary, a smart person is depicted as ???? ???? 'a freeman' who would grasp the meaning of anything simply from a ?????? 'wink' (see Table 2). The proverb scorns people who lack the necessary mental ability to understand something and encourages them to promote their intelligence. In sum, it seems that the donkey in the Hijazi proverbial expressions is associated with negative and abusive connotations. The Hijazi people relate donkeys to a number of negative characteristics as dullness, stupidity, and stubbornness. Such depiction of donkeys appears to be in concordance with several other research studies (Nadim, 2000 A person with bad habits The above table exhibits the proverbial sentences that pertain to monkeys. A monkey is a tropical, long-tailed primate that lives in hot countries. In the fourth proverb shown in Table 3, a monkey is personified with certain negative connotations which are attached to an ugly person. In other words, the unflattering physical qualities (ugliness) of a monkey are mapped onto an ugly human being. However, such hideous, bad-looking person is conceptualized through the eyes of his/her mother as a lovely, beautiful human being which is perceived as a ?????? 'gazelle' in the proverb. This points out that people might have a bias, rather than being neutral, when they have a preference for or aversion to particular people whom they love. Therefore, if the present proverb is articulated by a Hijazi speaker in a designated communicative situation, it directly warns the hearer not to become biased and settle matters to the benefit of the ones whom he/she loves at the expense of others. In the fifth proverb, a person with bad habits is being conceptualized in terms of its behavior as a monkey. If some person does not endure this person's mischievous or child-like behavior, he/she will end up having another individual in his/her life whose actions are even worse than the one with the monkey-like traits whom he/she resented before. The proverb does not only apply to the context of relationships among human beings in the Hijazi culture, but also to such other entities as objects, properties, materials, and anything that a person may own. As a result, the proverb advises people to be content with what they have (money, partners, friends, possessions, etc.), so as to avoid losing everything, or having things that are worse than what they already possess. Again, it is evident that the connotations evoked by monkeys are abusive and deliver a distorted imagery to the hearer (see Table 3). It is indisputable that the connotative semantics of a monkey in the Hijazi speech community are loaded with negative characteristics, such as ugliness, noisiness, intolerability, and hideousness. This finding of ascribing negative connotations to monkeys is consistent with the results of several other research studies around the globe (Yusuf, 1997;Krikmann, 2001;Pourhossein, 2016;Saragih & Mulyadi, 2020). A wolf is the largest wild member of the dog family which prefers to live in remote wilderness and forests, and tends to hunt in packs. The Arabian wolf is a subspecies of gray wolf which has long lived on the Arabian Peninsula. A wolf is typically a complex, highly intelligent and playful predator. It has a large head with a wide forehead, powerful jaws, bone-crushing teeth, and long, blunt muzzle. More importantly, its limbs are long and powerful. Therefore, it has been depicted as a strong, fierce, deceitful and dangerous animal in many Hijazi proverbs. # c) Wolves People with deceitful attitude are rightly likened to a wolf as conceptualized through the sixth proverb included in Table 4, which in turn evaluate wolves negatively. Its bad trait is mapped onto a fierce or twofaced person who acts in a particular way in certain situations and then in a contrary manner in others. Due to this person's craftiness and deceitful traits, his/her conscience is corrupted and is depicted quite the opposite to a clear one, which is represented by 'freshly washed clothes' (refer to Table 4). Such a cruel person is represented as a wolf in the sense that he can easily lie and deceive others. Similarly, the seventh proverb depicts someone with the tendency or disposition to deceive as a wolf. Put more clearly, an individual who displays such negative attitude is regarded as a 'backstabber' who attacks another person deceitfully behind his/her back. Thus, in front of people, he would act in a certain manner. However, he might simply betray them and act in another way behind their backs (see Table 4). The proverbs certainly reprimand people with such negative behavior, and encourage them not to attack, whether actually or figuratively, when someone's back is turned. On the whole, it seems that a wolf is unfavorably evaluated, due to the negative association of the wolf with deceptive habits in the selected Hijazi proverbial expressions. Hence, a wolf is systematically thought of as cruel, tricky, and untrustworthy, just as indicated in a number of other studies as well (Krikmann, 2001 A trivial person who suddenly gained fame and became important A dog is one of the most common four-legged domesticated animals, usually used by people to hunt and guard livestock, or to be merely kept as a pet. In proverb 8, the concept of a person's bad temper is conceptualized using dogs, which in turn evaluate them negatively. If such a proverb is performed in a particular Hijazi social interaction, it urges one to 'lick someone else's boot', especially if he/she is in a powerful position. By doing so, one can obtain what he/she needs or wants, even if the other person has a terribly bad character. Depicting the situation in this particular way in which a person attempts to put up with an arrogant person who deserves to be called a dog (a negativelyperceived animal in the Arab culture), and instead one calls him ?????? 'my master' emphasizes such an idea. The proverb applies the metaphor of PEOPLE ARE ANIMALS, where a powerful person is understood in terms of a foul-tempered dog. The fact that a person acts in a 'sycophantic' way, i.e. to use flattery to get what he/she desires, in this specific situation seems to be the right action to be done and is, in fact, recommended. Since the other party has a bad personality and is unwilling to help, the proverb encourages a person to think and act in his/her best interest (see Table 5). By inspecting proverb 9 in the above table, a dog is conceptualized as a trivial person who suddenly gained fame and people's interest from the society around him/her. The proverb ironically characterizes such a person as living a life of hypocrisy and belittles him/her as he/she clearly does not deserve people's attention. The individual is depicted as a degraded dog which, being an animal itself, suffers from being looked down upon by almost all the speakers who belong to the Hijazi community. The current proverb seems to severely mock people who can easily put a 'façade' on by pretending to be something that they are clearly not. Indeed, dogs carry negative connotative nuances generally in Arabic cultures, unlike Western societies which appear to appreciate and value dogs more (Estaji & Fakhteh, 2011;Liu, 2019). In the Western culture, the dog is commonly considered as a loyal creature, a favorite pet, and also referred to as a man's best friend (Fu, 2008). In sum, dogs are conventionally viewed in the Hijazi culture as being impure, scruffy, humble, and 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). 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. # e) Camels 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 ?????? '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. # General Discussion 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 ( ) evaluations of human behaviors and characteristics, except for camels which have been found to be also positively evaluated. Strictly speaking, donkeys were mostly referred to as dull, stubborn and stupid; monkeys were viewed as ugly, noisy, and intolerable; wolves were perceived as cruel, deceitful, and tricky; and dogs were conceptualized as impure, scruffy, and inferior. As for camels, they were evaluated positively in one proverb as brave, noble, and powerful, while they were negatively thought of as arrogant, hypercritical, and ignorant in another. The study also showed that the conceptualization of people as animals seems to achieve different pragmatic functions of these metaphorical animal proverbs when linked to the Hijazi culture. For instance, some of the proverbs can be used to criticize, scorn, reprimand, belittle, advise, urge, warn, or perform a satirical function. Consequently, the selected Hijazi animal proverbs can be perceived as performative speech acts with designated pragmatic functions (Austin, 1962), in the sense that a person is performing a specific act by uttering a particular proverb in a specific social interaction. By applying the theories of Cultural Linguistics proposed by Palmer (1996) which indicate the interconnectedness of culture and language, several social values have been deduced from the Hijazi animal proverbs selected in this study. For instance, certain proverbs have asserted the importance of respecting other people's boundaries, being objective by considering the other person's point of view, and being content with what one already owns. In addition, the proverbs have warned people from the effect of deception on people's relationships, from living a life of hypocrisy, and from focusing on other people's flaws. To conclude, many such cultural norms and social values seem to be symbolically embedded in the selected Hijazi animal proverbs and tend to have a significant influence on people's lives, thoughts, ideas, and beliefs within the Hijazi culture. It can be argued that the negative connotations that arise from equating people with animals can be ascribed to the hierarchical system of the Great Chain of Being (GCB, hereafter) advanced by such ancient philosophers as Plato and Aristotle (Nisbet, 1982, p. 35, as cited in Kie?tyka & Kleparski, 2005) and its mechanism was employed by Lakoff and Turner (1989) to investigate the meanings of different metaphors. The organization of GCB tends to designate a place for everything that exist in the whole universe in a strict hierarchical structure that is vertically chained (Kie?tyka, 2015). The GCB presupposes that the chain begins with God and descends through angels, humans, animals, and plants, to minerals at the bottom (Rodríguez, 2009). Clearly, people stand above animals, as the chain places humans at the top of a hierarchy of intelligence, complexity, and value. This hierarchical system tends to have critical conceptual and sociolinguistic consequences since people are being degraded by attributing certain innate animalistic qualities to them. Therefore, the conceptual metaphor PEOPLE ARE ANIMALS seems to function as a means to express negative human traits, characteristics, and behaviors (Talebinejad & Dastjerdi, 2005) in different communicative situations. # VIII. Conclusion and Recommendations The present study has sought to investigate the connotative nuances and the pragmatic functions of animal proverbial sayings in Hijazi Arabic in Saudi Arabia. It has also attempted to deduce the humananimal interface and to explore the cultural norms and social values of the Hijazi society as portrayed in the selected proverbs. The findings showed that animals take part in the constitution of the social, moral and cultural context of a human's life. It has been observed that animal proverbs assign animalistic characteristics to human traits and qualities. Therefore, the animal names are utilized as linguistic means to portray human behaviors, beliefs, cultural norms, and social values. The study had also a central focus on revealing the semantic molecules and prototypical connotations of five animal classes, namely donkeys, monkeys, wolves, dogs, and camels. Most of the animals included in the study were conceptualized negatively by Hijazi speakers within the Hijazi culture, except for camels which were, in only one occasion, evaluated positively. Like any other human endeavor in diversified fields of knowledge, this study is certainly not without limitations. It seems that this particular area of linguistic investigation demands more research, by virtue of the scarcity of studies that tackle animal proverbial sayings in Hijazi Arabic and in other dialects found in Saudi Arabia. Due to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the researchers have analyzed only a confined set of animal proverbs despite the fact that Hijazi people's repertoire of proverbial expressions is full of other examples that have not been explored. Hence, researchers are encouraged to study different collections of animal proverbs, and from such other linguistic perspectives as cognitive, syntactic, phonetic and phonological viewpoints. In so doing, a better understanding of the people and the language under investigation can be achieved by examining such linguistic vehicles which tend to undoubtedly reveal some of human behaviors, thoughts, beliefs, cultural norms, and social views. 1AnimalSemantic MoleculesDonkey animal, head, mouth, dull, stupid, dumb, dopey, worthless, slow, impatient, wasted efforts, lazy, moody,annoying, scruffy, unfriendly, flimsy, mischievous, bite, careless.Monkey animal, head, mouth, ugly, noisy, worthless, scruffy, foul, disturbing, vexing, insignificant, ill-tempered,shrill, intolerable, pugnacious, irritating, hideous, unlucky.Wolf animal, head, mouth, teeth, strong, fierce, jumping, courageous, deceitful, vitality, powerful, greedy, hungry, dangerous, violent, cruel, untrustworthy, sneaky. Dog animal, head, weak, scruffy, humble, worthless, slow, impatient, gluttonous, moody, impure. Camel animal, head, strong, brave, noble, thoroughbred, worthy, clean, ignorant, arrogant. 3ProverbsSourceTarget4. ??????? ???? ?????? ???? ? ??? ??????('l-qird fi 9yu:n umu: ?aza:l) Lit. Tr. A monkey is a gazelle in its mother's eyes.An ugly personFig. M. People must become less biased when dealing with others.Monkey5. ?????? ??????? ???? ?????? ???? ? ??? ?????? ?????('rDa: biqirdak la yiji:k 'lli: 'qrad minnu:)Lit. Tr. Be content with your monkey, so you won't have someone/somethingworse than it.Fig. M. One must be satisfied with what he/she has (money, job, materials,relationships, etc). 4ProverbsSourceTarget6. ???? ???????? ??? ??? ???? ? ??? ???? ????????? ???? ?????? ??????? ???? ????????(law 'DDami:r yit?assal zai 'ttiyab ma: Sarat 'nna:s zai 'ddeyab)Lit. Tr. If conscience is washed like clothes, people wouldn't havebecome like wolves.Fig. M. Some people are insincere and manifest two-faced characteristics. 7. ???? ??????? ?????? ??????? ???? ?????? ?????? ????? ???? ?????? ?????WolfA deceitful/two-faced person(zai 'ddi:b Tab9u: ?ari:b: in ?uftu: harab wo in ma ?uftu: wasab)Lit. Tr. Like a wolf with a weird disposition: if you saw it, it ran away; and ifyou didn't see it, it jumps. 5d) DogsProverbsSourceTarget8. ????? ?????? ?????? ????? ??????? ?:???? ???? ?????? (iza 9indak 9aza: 9ind 'lkalb qullu: ya si:di:) Lit. Tr. If you need something from the dog, say to it: my master. 6ProverbsSourceTarget10. ????? ????? ??????? ?????? ????????? (iza TaH 'l-jamal kitrat sakaki:nu:)Lit. Tr. If a camel falls, many knives appear.A powerful/successful personFig. M. People usually seize any moment of weaknessdisplayed by powerful people to gloat about them. 11. ??????? ???? ?????? ??????? ('l-jamal ma: ye?u:f sana:mu:) Lit. Tr. The camel does not see its hump. Fig. M. 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