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Cognitive narratology examines the factors that elicit and interpret a text. One such interpretive structure is counterfactual thinking. When a story character’s action leads to either a pleasant or unpleasant consequence, the story’s moral message is extracted by comparing the existing reality with a counterfactual scenario. In other words, the reader automatically envisions a counterfactual scenario that could have occurred instead of the current reality, thereby preventing the occurrence of the existing desirable or undesirable event. This research was conducted using a descriptive-analytical method and a case study of four storybooks in age groups “A” and “B”. These books are “Uncle Wolf” from the collection of Italian Fables Hand of the Skeleton (Calvino, 2022), “Mrs. Pumpkin” (Sarmashghi, 2015), “The Ice that Fell in Love with the Sun” (Movzouni, 2019), and “The Bell-Footed Goat” (Shamlou, 2019). These stories were purposefully selected due to their alignment with different types of counterfactual thinking. The aim of this paper is to determine how the educational function of the counterfactual thinking template operates in stories, using a cognitive narratology approach. This template is categorized into two directions: “upward” and “downward”, two structures: “additive” and “subtractive”, and three criteria: “self-reference”, “other-reference”, and “non-reference”. By categorizing the stories based on the types of counterfactual thinking, this study demonstrates that the upward direction correlates with a negative approach and didactic-deterrent literature, while the downward direction correlates with a positive approach and didactic-incentive literature.

Cognitive narratology examines the factors that elicit and interpret a text. One such interpretive structure is counterfactual thinking. Humans evaluate events and occurrences not only based on what transpired, but also contemplate how those events could have unfolded differently. In cognitive psychology, "the tendency to construct a non-real aspect for realities is called counterfactual thinking" (Kahneman & Tversky, 1982). Counterfactual thinking activates automatically, comparing the existing scenario with a possible alternative and making judgments between them. This type of thinking is divided into two directions based on orientation: “upward” and “downward”. Upward counterfactual thinking is a process where the individual compares the real situation with a more desirable counterfactual situation that could have occurred but did not, leading to dissatisfaction with the current situation and regret over the lost opportunity (Baron et al., 2009: 92). Conversely, downward counterfactual thinking imagines a scenario that, if it had transpired, would have led to worse consequences than the current situation. Based on this thinking, the individual feels satisfied with the current situation or grateful that a worse outcome did not occur.
Counterfactual thinking also manifests structurally in two ways: additive and subtractive. The additive structure recreates realities by introducing a new element to the situation. For instance, a person might imagine that if their father had undergone heart surgery, they wouldn’t have passed away. In other words, the condition for the non-occurrence of the current event was the execution of an action in the past. The subtractive structure attempts to create a different reality by eliminating elements from the situation. For example, a person might imagine that if they had not transferred the house to their son’s name, they would not now be spending the rest of their life in a nursing home.
Counterfactual thinking has three criteria of reference. An individual who constructs a counterfactual scenario can build the constructed scenario from the existing one by adding or removing an element in themselves (self-reference), in others (other-reference), or in the event itself (non-referential). For example, “If I hadn’t been speeding, I wouldn’t have hit this pedestrian” (self-referential); “If this pedestrian had used the footbridge, he wouldn’t have collided with my car” (other-referential); “If the road hadn’t been slippery, I could have controlled my car” (non-referential).

The term "cognitive narratology" was first introduced by John in the article "Windows of Focalization: Deconstructing and Reconstructing a Narrative Concept" (1996); however, before him, researchers in the 1980s such as Jaus (1982), Tompkins (1980), Perry (1979), and Sternberg (1978) had paved the way for the emergence of this approach.
In the realm of Iranian children's and young adult literature, cognitive narrative research is limited to the articles "Representation of Cognitive Processes in the Story of Auntie Cockroach: Based on Discourse Analysis" (Zanjanbar and Zare, 2020) and "Cognitive Narratology of Humor in Children's Stories: A Schema-Based Approach" (Zanjanbar et al., 2021).

This paper aims to investigate the role of the counterfactual thinking pattern in how the moral message of children's stories is represented. In this regard, by examining and comparing the mentioned stories, it seeks to answer three questions: 1. In these stories, how is the counterfactual thinking schema represented in terms of direction and structure? 2. What is the relationship between the structure of employing counterfactual thinking in the stories and their educational function? 3. In terms of employing the counterfactual thinking schema, what are the commonalities and distinctions among these stories?

This research was conducted through a descriptive-analytical method. The case studies of this paper cover four storybooks in age groups "A" and "B": the story "Uncle Wolf" from the first volume of the Italian fables collection titled Hand of the Skeleton (Calvino, 2022), Mrs. Pumpkin (Sarmashghi, 2015), The Ice that Fell in Love with the Sun (Movzouni, 2019), and the folk tale The Bell-Footed Goat (Shamlou, 2019). These stories were purposefully selected due to their alignment with different types of counterfactual thinking.

Counterfactual thinking manages the reader's judgment by substituting a possible scenario. In children's stories, episodes based on counterfactual thinking are categorized into two "upward" and "downward" directions, two "additive" and "subtractive" structures, and three reference criteria of "self-reference", "other-reference", and "non-reference". Upward thinking is accompanied by a negative feeling and dissatisfaction with the occurred event. Therefore, episodes based on upward counterfactual thinking employ a deterrent teaching method and instill fear of adverse consequences. With a negative and alarmist view of outcomes, they dissuade the child from performing certain actions or behaviors. In contrast, since downward counterfactual thinking is accompanied by the reader's positive feeling and satisfaction with reality, episodes based on downward counterfactual thinking employ an encouraging and incentivizing method, guiding the child towards certain behaviors with a positive approach. While the case studies in this paper demonstrate a correlation between the direction of counterfactual thinking and the teaching method, they do not find a correlation between the additive or subtractive structure of counterfactual thinking and the presentation of educational outcomes. Furthermore, this research reveals that in terms of complexity in using the counterfactual thinking schema, stories fall into two categories: simple and composite. Simple stories are based on one type of counterfactual thinking and usually engage the reader only once at the end of the story. On the other hand, composite stories form different types of counterfactual thinking depending on various episodes. In this context, composite stories alternate between the “carrot and stick” approach in different episodes. In one episode, they use a deterrent teaching method (stick) to discourage negative actions, and in another episode, they encourage positive actions through an incentivizing method (carrot). In contrast, simple stories employ only one of the two deterrent or incentivizing teaching methods.
Regarding the reference criterion, the child constructs the self-referential counterfactual scenario based on identifying with the beloved story character, the other-referential counterfactual scenario based on other characters, and the non-referential counterfactual scenario based on chance events.

One of the most prolific writers in the field of rewriting ancient literary texts is Mrs. Mozhgan Sheikhi, who has rewritten a number of stories for children such as Golestan, Bostan, Kalileh and Damaneh, Qaboos Nameh,Mantiq-ut-Tayr,etc. This article examines the structure of this author's rewritten stories from Golestan Saadi's six children's stories and compares them with the original text using a descriptive-analytical method and using library information collection tools. The findings of the research show that there is no noticeable change in the general framework of the work, but the range of rewritings has become wider than the original text. Describing the performance and appearance of the characters, increasing the dialogues, and in some cases, internal expression is among the rewriting techniques to make the story more interesting. The tone of the dialogue has changed from literary and poetic to a simple tone that matches the characters to some extent. The point of view in all rewritten texts is the omniscient narrator. In some stories, rewriting brought the point of view closer to the dramatic point of view, but did not change the content and theme. Sheikhi was not innovative in naming people and used common names in the original text. The language in the transcript is simple and formal. But sometimes difficult words, long sentences, incorrect omissions, and excessive use of the conjunction "and" between sentences have harmed the simplicity and fluency of the text. In all the stories, common terms and ironies are used significantly, some of which are incomprehensible and difficult for the target audience. Although the rewriter has sometimes achieved success in rewriting the work, there is a need for his rewrites to approach Saadi's artistic subtleties and tricks..

"Conceptualization" is a dynamic process based on which language units serve conceptual operations and background knowledge. Cognitive science experts consider language structure to be a direct reflection of cognition; Accordingly, a single word can have different conceptualizations in different situations. Schemas, as one of the tools of cognition, are general concepts that are created from the internalization of lived experiences and are responsible for organizing, interpreting and exchanging information. Pragmatic micro-schemas are micro-schemas that are called depending on the situational and functional context. This research, paying attention to the macro-schema of self-destruction, seeks to classify the pragmatic micro-schemas and their corresponding conceptualizations. The scope of the current research is children's stories with the theme of self-destruction. Each of the stories is considered as a pragmatic and objective situation for calling a specific micro-schemas of the macro-scheme of self-destruction. The present research with analytical-descriptive method aims to answer how to conceptualize the self-destruction scheme in the situational contexts of children's stories. The result of the research introduces five pragmatic schemas as five different conceptual bases: schemas of discontinuity, continuity, individual discontinuity-continuity, collective discontinuity-continuity, and unwanted discontinuity. For the first time, this article focuses on self-destruction in children's literature

Johnson and Lakoff consider conceptual metaphors as mappings between two domains called source and target domain. The function of these mappings is to objectify the abstract concepts of the target domain through the schemas of the source domain. The purpose of this research is to classify death-awareness stories based on "rebirth" in children's literature. In this regard, paying attention to the metaphor "death is a journey," this article seeks to answer how the schema-images of "journey" work in the conceptualization of "rebirth" and "resurrection." The method of this research is analytical-descriptive, and its statistical population is children's stories with the theme of rebirth and resurrection for the demographic group of early childhood. The result of this research shows that, according to the up/down orientational metaphor and the "path" scheme, the mentioned stories are divided into four categories: resurrection without transcendence, resurrection with transcendence, transfiguration with transcendence, and the chain of renewal. The above categories are also classified into subcategories. For the first time in Iran, this research examines reversible deaths with a cognitive semantics approach.

Based on the progress of psychology studies and the attention paid to children's cognitive, personality, emotional, and social development, it has been shown that psychological well-being is important for having a good life and helping children grow up to have productive and successful lives. Zakaria Tamer is a writer who works in the field of children's literature and writes in the Arabic language. He believes that the story is a platform that has an educational and psychological function and that it is effective in nurturing and flourishing the child's personality and ensuring that the child's mental health is maintained. A descriptive-analytical approach was taken in this study to investigate the components of well-being. Taking into account the importance of mental health as well as the need to raise the level of children's productivity and self-actualization, the present study was carried out. According to the obtained results, Zakaria Tamer tries to influence children's personality development and enhance their mental health by using a smooth style, a straightforward fantasy that is based on external reality, and animal characters that are drawn from natural elements and occasionally human. He also explains moral principles in his stories. Finally, he describes psychological well-being indicators in his stories, including personal development, independence, autonomy, effective and positive interpersonal communication, a sense of purpose in life, and control over one's environment. Tamer also aims to institutionalize away from idealistic self-concept and attention to self-concept in the child's institution through symbolic and metaphorical language use.

Anti-war literature is a subset of peace literature. Peace is portrayed in both negative and positive ways. Positive peace is defined on the basis of the concept of moral cosmopolitanism, while negative peace is in contrast to the concept of war. Accordingly, the cosmopolitan stories represent the utopia and the anti-war stories represent the ruined city. The data of this research are picture books with anti-war stories of age groups B and C. This article was written using the analytical-descriptive method and based on the formalist approach to answer how common devices (common formal patterns) are in children's anti-war stories. The result of this research shows that anti-war stories are divided into three categories according to the dominant element of the story based on the part of the triple process of beginning, middle and end of the war: beginning-centered, middle-centered and end-centered. Each of these three categories is further divided into subcategories based on the devices they use. The acceptance of the emerging genre of anti-war literature and the lack of sufficient internal and external research on peace literature for children necessitates research. This article is the first to categorize children's anti-war literature using a formalist approach.

No definition is possible for all aspects of irony. From the perspective of this research, irony requires the presence of three people: the ironist, the victim, and the ironic observer. The ironist refers to a concept with his words or actions, knowingly (with the intention of deception) or unknowingly, but the victim takes the opposite. An ironic observer is someone (often a reader) who is aware of and laughs at the victim's misconception. In fact, irony is based on multiple meanings (sentences are multifaceted, words have multiple meanings, actions and situations have multiple inferences), some of its meanings are in conflict with each other.This study categorizes the types of irony, with a formalist approach, in terms of the type of code, the position of the victim, intertextuality, the degree of irony transparency, and density (the scattering of irony in the text). The research method is descriptive analysis, and its field of study is children's stories. In this regard, this article seeks to answer how irony is formed in children's stories with a formative approach. The present article is useful for humorists in the field of children, and the author has not seen a similar research regarding the classification of ironies, either in domestic or foreign articles.

Cognitive pragmatic schemas are one of the topics in cognitive linguistics, and applying this approach to the study of death in children's literature serves as a bridge between the fields of literature, cognitive linguistics, and philosophy for children. A single word can have different meanings under various cognitive pragmatic schemas. Cognitive pragmatic schemas are dependent on situational and functional contexts. This research aims to categorize the representations of suspended death based on cognitive pragmatic schemas. In children's literature, death is often portrayed as a reversible phenomenon; therefore, this motif has been chosen as the research subject. The statistical sample of the current research is the stories for age groups "A," "B," and "C," works that featured the assumption of its reversibility in their content. Each of these stories is like an practs to call and form the scheme of death. The current research aims to answer how situational speech acts in children's stories modify the frightening representation of death in forming and invocating the schema of suspended death. This article introduces five situational speech acts for the schema of suspended death: resurrection with external stimulus, resurrection with internal stimulus, transformation with external catalyst, transformation with internal catalyst, and delusion. Since concepts like "death" are abstract, philosophical, and emotionally provocative in nature, the way these concepts are conveyed to children has always been a subject of debate. This research, employs a descriptive-analytical method, demonstrates that children's stories modify the frightening representation of "death" by using various cognitive schemas of reversible death.

Along with the beginning of the new era, we got familiar with the new concept of children's literature. As the result of the development of this literary type, children's literature is changed into one of the main branches of literature and it has attracted numerous addressees. Among all the literary frames in children's literature, story is the most frequent and literary dominant. Throughout history, children have been always enthusiastic about it. The research of Propp and the structuralists led to frames of narration and narrative structure which have been true in all fairy tales as well as other stories. Placing story in this narrative structure means to have a proper narrative pattern and achieve a complete and meaningful story. In stories, the narrative structure acts as language for literature because language is a tool for literature to express and convey that literary image and that message imagined in the mind of the creator of the work. In this research, the understudy text is the story of ''the rabbit listened'' by Courie Durfeld. This story in the original language has been welcome by children all around the world and even the translated versions have been paid a lot of attention. The questions and research hypothesis are as the following: 1- are we dealt with a complete narration in this book? How are the narrative functions and the plot of this work like? In this research, the hypothesis was that since the audience has got a good connection with this work and this does not happen unless the narration has the least necessary quality and the story has a narrative structure. It is assumed that the story of the rabbit listened is probably a complete narration and different parts of a plot of a complete narration can be extracted through it. 2- What is the main content- structure dipolar of this story? Can other dipoles be considered? Due to the hypothesis of this research and regarding the present definitions of the thematic dipoles in the semantic square of a story, only one dipole can be considered as the main one. 3- Is the statement "the narrative structure makes sense for the narrative" true in this work and can it be presented? The hypothesis for the last question is that it is expected that the structural main stream analysis of the narration directs us to achieve the features of the meanings in deeper layers. Scrutinizing each of the tools of structural analysis to clarify which of the narrative's semantic aspects is unclear. In this research the narrative structure of the story of '' the rabbit listened'' has been extracted by the means obtained from the theory of narratology including the structure of the narrative levels, the semantic system, the semantic square and the structure of the plot. The questions were answered based on the reductionist method and the analytical- descriptive one.

This article, based on the approach of Eden Chambers theory, descriptively-analytically examines the elements of "style", "angle of view", "expressive gaps" and "advocacy" in the story series "Garden of a Thousand Girls" from the legend of Shabannejad. The importance of reader-centered literary criticism in this work lies in the fact that it contains two fundamental questions, one about the nature of literature and the other about its child readers. According to this article, the author has used not only different concepts but also different techniques in conveying the meaning to the hidden reader, which shows that he has consciously used different communication methods to communicate with the children and adolescents of his time, in simple, slang and poetic language. In this work, the child is more free to understand the meaning of the story, as if the author has accepted his place in recreating the other half of the story, but in some cases, the reader has no choice but to be influenced by the space and tone of the story from the author's point of view. Align. Thus, suspensions and gaps remain on the surface and never provide opportunities for the reader to freely comprehend in the deep layers of meaning. The latent reader of this story series as a child in every age feels satisfied and proud of reading national beliefs, concerns and hopes

Ecocriticism is the bridge between the environmental sciences and literature. Silverstein’s The Giving Tree and Dehrizi’s The Treeless World are both picture books that possess implied environmental themes and share a ‘tree’ motif. The canonical position of The Giving Tree in classical children’s literature functions as a touchstone in comparing similar works, among other nations. This analytic-descriptive research compares and contrasts the representations of environmental elements in the aforementioned works in the light of deep ecology and ecofeminism. Arne Næss, the Norwegian philosopher, coined the term ‘Deep Ecology’ in opposition to Shallow Ecology. Deep ecology connects the understanding of the relation between identity and nature to identifying oneself to a larger eco-cycle known as the ‘Ecological Self.’ Through equating the place of women with nature in a patriarchal system, ecofeminism criticizes the Ecological Self Theory for neglecting the role of gender in the formation of environmental crises. The present article studies the representations of environmental elements and the reciprocal relation between man and nature in the aforementioned works. This research shows that in The Treeless World, the dominant ecological representation is in line with deep ecology and in opposition to ecofeminism; also, it reveals that in The Giving Tree, the dominant ecological representation is in line with ecofeminism.

Jung considers psychoanalysis as archeology of human consciousness. On this basis, the term "archetype", which underlies the theory of the process of individuation, is derived from a combination of the terms archeology and typology. Individuation is the archetype of psychological development which is involuntary, gradual, regular and strong. It consists of a chain of archetypes such as shadow, persona, wise old man, anima. The goal of the process of individuation is the conscious integration of the components of this archetypal chain in the form of a single archetype called "self". Jung's psycho-mythological analysis is based on the discovery and interpretation of archetypes, and in the present research, we use this method of analysis to recognize and interpret archetypes related to the process of individuation in the story The horn that got Croup, written by Hamed Habibi and illustrated by Alireza Goldooziyan. We are also looking for an answer to the question of how the archetypes of psychological development are represented in the text and images of the story. The innovation of the research is that it examines the theory of individuation in a text composed of text and image. In other words, it considers the interaction of archetypes related to individuation in the verbal and visual text. The results show that the pattern of identification in such stories is the reproduction of the archetype of individuality.

Cover design, foreword, captions, cutouts, paperwork, footnote,, and all the extensions that make the text a book, are the paratext. Inspired by the concept of paratext, Yuste Frias coined the term paratranslation. Paratranslation is the translation of the paratexts of a book in order to adapt it to the sign sphere of the target language. Paratextual factors are invisible channels for the influence of translators' ideology. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of paratranslational factors on changing the dominant discourse of the original language effect. Due to the large number of translations of "The Giving Tree" by Shell Silverstein, from English to Persian, and the various readings of its commentators, the book has been adapted for the subject of translation studies of this article. In this regard, the present research, by analytical-descriptive method, seeks to adapt how different paratextual factors of each of these translations interact. In the field of children's literature, the interaction of text and image has always been considered by theorists such as Nikolajeva. The novelty of the present study is that it generalizes their intended interactions, from the level of text-image relationship to the level of paratranslational factors. The results show that the interaction of text and paratranslation is of five types: symmetric, complementary, expansive, counterpointing and paradoxical. The cultural distance between the original language text and the translated text, as well as the prominent position of paratranslational factors such as cover design,, etc. in the children's book publishing industry, necessitate research.

The Greek myth of Narcissus is a narrative of Echo''s one-sided love for Narcissus. Echo has been a talkative, sweet-spoken girl who after Hera''s curse, has lost the power of speech, and can only repeat one the last word of another. Narcissus is a boy who ignores the love of others and is immersed in his own beauty. In other words, one side of this discourse forms a narcissistic personality, whose self-centered perspective deprives him of seeing and paying attention to the other; On the other side of the discourse, is a character who has no verbal ability to convey his thoughts and emotions. Hence, it is not possible to have a dialogue between the parties to this discourse. This study seeks to show that the bipolarity of echo-narcissism is one of the motifs of the child''s fictional literature, represented in the child-father dual confrontation costume (the father is not necessarily the male parent; rather, a metaphor for each is patriarchal). In this regard, this research seeks to respond in a descriptive-analytical way to how the basis of echo-narcissism is represented in the narrative structures of children''s stories. The novelty of the present study is that, first, it compares the network of relationships between all the main characters within a myth with the network of relationships between all the main characters within a children''s story; Second, for the first time in Iran, it examines narcissism and echoism in the context of fiction.

Non-verbal elements are the invisible conduit for transmitting the personal ideology of the translator and other translators idiots (art director, editor, publisher, etc.). Due to a large number of translations of Silverstein's "Giving Tree" from English to Persian, and the various readings of its commentators, this work has been chosen for the subject of translation of this article. The present research seeks to answer, how non-verbal elements (images, micro-patterns, pagination, typography, and font color) interact in the translated books of the mentioned work. . In the field of children's literature, the interaction of text and image has always been considered by theorists such as Scott and Nikolajeva. The innovation of the present study is that it generalizes their interactions from the level of text-image relationship to the level of non-verbal factors. The results show that the interaction of non-verbal elements is of five types: symmetric, complementary, expansive, counterpointing, and paradoxical. The cultural distance between the original language text and the translated text, as well as the prominent position of image, pagination, typography, etc. in the children's book publishing industry, necessitate performing the research. and in this regard, This research aims to answer three basic questions in the field of Persian translations of “The Giving Tree” (Silverstein, 2011): 1- How can the Nikolajeva-Scott (2019)  Fifth Interaction Pattern, in terms of classifying types of image-text interactions, be generalized to, a model for classifying the types of interactions of non-verbal elements? 2. What are the differences and similarities between the different translations of “The Giving Tree” (Silverstein, 2011) in terms of the interaction of non-verbal elements (image, pagination, typography, miniatures, and font color)? 3- In the various translations of above- mentioned book, what are the types of interactions of non-verbal elements? Mohsenianrad (2014), while quoting Bosmajian's definition, considers non-verbal communication channels to be very wide and expands its scope from facial expressions to fashion, from symbolic actions to dance, theater, pantomime, and music, from the influential currents of time to the flow of traffic, from brutal hegemony to clever diplomacy. In Iran, the articles that have been done on non-verbal communication, which have focused on the non-verbal communication of stories, have focused on the body language and the way the characters dress. Unlike studies conducted in Iran, which generally focus on the non-verbal element of body language, the subject of leading research is the axis of space (such as the proximity of pages in pagination, the proximity of images, and the like), and aesthetics (such as typography, miniatures, etc.).Research through descriptive-comparative analytical methods, it compares semantic changes that the translation process has imposed on these interactions, with the original language text. The data in this article are taken from the original language book of “The Giving Tree”, by Silverstein, and the nine Persian translations of the book. In this research, in terms of non-verbal elements (image, typography, pagination, and font), each of these translations is compared with each other, and also the non-verbal elements of the translations, with their corresponding non-verbal elements, are adapted in the original language version. In this regard, the research expands the fivefold division of Scott-Nikolajeva, from the level of text-image interaction to the level of interaction of other non-verbal structures. This study shows that non-verbal elements enclose the text, like a glass frame, without being seen themselves. Many of the non-verbal elements of the books being translated are modified according to the culture and sphere of the target language.  Thus, the non-verbal factors in the various translations of “The Giving Tree” (Silverstein, 2011) may not be semantically identical to the original language text; That is, texts can find new meaning through the interaction of non-verbal factors in line with the ideology of the translator, translation editor, and second publisher.  Non-verbal image factors, pagination, and typography can enter into semantic interaction in five ways: symmetric, complementary, expansive, counterpointing, and paradoxical.When two non-verbal elements represent the same information, their type of interaction is "symmetrical interaction." When two non-verbal elements fill in each other's gaps, their interaction is of a "complementary interaction" type. To understand complementary interaction, the audience usually does not need conscious attention and receives this interaction, automatically and unknowingly. When two non-verbal elements expand the meaning of each other (usually the expansion of this meaning requires the conscious reflection and careful attention of the audience), then their relationship will be of the "expansion interaction" type. In the "hybrid interaction" situation, the two non-verbal elements each have a different narrative, and from their interaction, a new meaning is created, and without each of them, the decoding of the message is not accomplished. The most severe incompatibility between the two non-verbal elements occurs in "contradictory interaction."

Plot is a set of sequences of events within the framework of a causal system. The present study argues that “narrative ornament” is a phonetic or semantic element in excess of the plot; it is also for the aesthetic enrichment of the narrative, and if removed, it does not distort either the plot’s causal system, or the central core of the story. The counterpart of a “narrative ornament” is a “plot-making figurative device,” which cannot be removed from the plot. The aim of the present study is to introduce these figurative devices which are not purely aesthetic elements, but, rather, form the structure of the plot in children’s stories. The paper aims to find out if the definition of figures of speech can be semiotically generalized to plot-making figurative devices. In this regard, the study first describes the three elements in Peirce’s semiotics, i.e., “the sign, object, and interpretant”. Then, using a descriptive-analytical method, and making reference to a brief list of figures of speech, the article expands the definition of figures of speech to the semiotic definition of the plot-making devices. The present study for the first time highlights the narratological and non-rhetorical function of literary embellishment. Since the traditional poetry-related categorizations of figures of speech cannot be applied in the analysis of the narrative text, a study of figures of speech in narratives seems to be of great significance in literary criticism.

Cixous, like Lacan, sees language as theorem. Therefore, by inviting "feminine writing", he intends to deconstruct the language. Inspired by Derrida, Cixous rejects signals with fixed and clear meanings. Accordingly, the most important feature of women's writing is ambiguity and ambiguous metaphors. The present article seeks to examine how feminine writing is formed in the plot of "Purple Pencil". In this regard, in the main elements of the story (in characters, actions, causal relationships), he discovers and interprets fluid and multimodal signs, according to the paradigms of the theory of "feminine writing", in a descriptive analytical method. The results show that: First, feminine writing is not merely based on the style and form of writing (story superstructure), but through a Cixous character, and the causal relationships of the events of the story, can have a plural appearance (deep in the story construction); Second, the way out of gender repression is through language. The research that has been done so far, according to the Cixous Yi approach, has often paid attention to the style of expression and the poetic techniques of form. The innovation of the present study is that, firstly, it expands women's writing, from the level of style and manner of expression, to the level of plot and theme. Second, it examines, for the first time, the Cixous approach to women's writing in the context of children's fiction.

One of the tricks of childrenchr('39')s stories to objectify abstract relationships is employing the metaphor of "color". On the one hand, the metaphor of "color change" in the three stories of "Red: The Story of a Candle" (Hall, 2015), "The Day the Crayons Quit" (Daywalt, 2013), and "Purple Pencil" (Ghazaleh Bigdelou, 2012)  refers to the "identity revolution" and on the other, the first two stories are American and the story of "Purple Pencil" is Iranian, so this article has selected the mentioned stories to compare the views of the two mentioned cultural discourses in terms of the meaning of "ideal identity". In this regard, it intends to answer three questions in a descriptive-analytical way, within the framework of Landowski semantic systems: How has ideal self been interpreted in each text, given that these three texts encourage the child to identify? How does each text invite the child to socialize? The hidden ideology in every text creates alienation and de-alienation, which institutions are related to subjectivity? From a cultural semiotic point of view, every text is a culture. The present study examines the paradigm of identification in childrenchr('39')s stories. Since identity is a construct of discourse, it translates the ideology embedded in the identity-making discourse from the sphere of origin to the sphere of destination.

In children’s literature, if a child, in addition to learning the standard language, is expected to learn dialogue and informal language as well, he/she might face duality of some sort. The present article suggests the following for solving such duality: First, emphasize on the solution provided by Mahmood Kianoosh; ‘changing the order of words in the sentence’, instead of using ‘informal words and grammatically breaking the order of words in the sentence. Second, selecting words from the synonyms which are not only suitable for the audience’s understanding; but are also consistent with the pleasure they experience by reading. Third, paying attention to the geography and the linguistic convention of the certain region in which the story is happening in. Fourth, paying attention to this point; formal words become informal in the audience’s mind in a fictional situation and atmosphere. Fifth, selecting formal words used by the majority of people in their conversations. Sixth, paying attention to words available in authentic literature, and even the ancient literature that are also popular in peoples’ conversations. Seventh, using attached possessive pronouns and excluding extra words, which helps the story become closer to the peoples’ discourse. Eighth, observing the fact that in historical stories changing the words into informal ones could invalidate the authenticity of the dialogue atmosphere. Ninth, if for any reason we decide to make a word informal, we had better not exaggerate in that. Tenth, consider the exceptions. In cases that formal writing appears artificial; using the informal word is preferred. Finally, the researcher has evaluated and criticized the model of ‘reducing the syllables’ that is suggested by Ali Solhjou, and alternatively offers ‘spontaneous prose. The paradigm of the present research is qualitative research, with an interpretative approach and by data analysis through the comparative inductive methodology, and all the resources are gathered from libraries.

’’Story’’ has been recognized as one of the most applicable literary types in children’s literature. Regardless of its specific origin and known antiquity, fiction literature belongs to all ethnic groups, nations and cultures. In addition to its own characteristics, children's stories, like adult stories, have story elements. Considering the elements of the story not only harmonizes the audience with the subject, character, point of view, tone and body of the story in general, but also leads the author of the child story to create a more principled story that fits the child audience. This study analyzes and compares the elements of the story in the works of two prominent contemporary Iranian and Iraqi child storywriters. The elements of the selected story in this research are "Plot", "Characterization" and "point of view" which in the story "Good Night Commander" by "Ahmad Akbarpour" as a contemporary Persian writer and "Sar al-Tiran" by "Mohannad Al-Aqous", to the title of the author of the Iraqi child has been examined and analyzed. The results of this research, which has been done in a comparative-descriptive and analytical method, indicate that there are similarities and differences between the elements of the story in the works of Iranian and Iraqi storywriters. In all of these stories, the plot is linear. Characterization in Iranian and Iraqi children's stories is a combination of main, secondary and black characters, which has been designed in different types of stereotypes, conventional, simple, etc., according to the subject and content of each story.  It is also significant to note that the presence of these characters in each story is different. Furthermore, characters are human beings, animals, objects, etc. The presence of human characters is in the first place. Moreover, internal (first person) and external (third person) point of views are the most widely used ones in the works of Iranian and Iraqi storywriters. The role of illustration is also of special importance in the narration of each story.