Exploring the Ambivalent Representation of Animals in Kamel Kilani’s Children Stories: A Cognitive-Ecolinguistic Approach

Using a cognitive–ecolinguistic approach, the study aims to highlight animals’ ambivalent representation in two animal-centered Arabic stories through frame semantics along with frameNet and conceptual metaphor theory. Ecolinguistics links language and the environment to evaluate environment-related texts from a linguistic point of view to promote the principles of ecolinguistics. The study applies the two cognitive tools to two Arabic stories: the cute rooster and the Valley deer by Kamel Kilani to show the ambivalent cognitive structures that are deduced based on frameNet-driven results and the metaphorical conceptualization of animals-related concepts in the sample analyzed. The study concludes that conceptual metaphors and frame semantics, represented in frameNet, are truly effective in demonstrating that the stories analyzed call for messages that are partially consistent with the principles of ecolinguistics. Ambivalent structures include animals being helpful and peaceful, nature providing a haven to all living beings, and animals being dangerous predators. Since ecolinguistics does not just call for exposing the destructive discourses but it encourages researchers to resist the destructive discourses and bridge the gap in the ambivalent ones, the study further suggests alternative cognitive structures to replace the ones that do not call for the harmony between all living beings using the same theories. This puts the study under the umbrella of environmental education which promotes raising people’s awareness towards achieving a sustainable and equitable society through encouraging respect of all forms of life. Thus, by the end of the analysis, all the cognitive structures that are embedded in the stories become consistent with the ecological philosophy of sustainability and preservation of the environment, of which animals are one element