“This or this” is one of Dina’s favorite games. Here’s how it went down the other night with Justin:
Dina: Black or white?
Justin: Black.
Dina: Rice pudding or ice cream?
Justin: Ice cream.
Dina: Coffee or tea?
Justin: Tea.
Dina: (beginning to laugh uncontrollably) You’re a woman!!
(I swear I don’t know where she got that! I drink coffee…)
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Ask her to define what a woman is.
She says: “A woman is an old lady or a mom”. Does this help your case, jj?
I have no case to make.
But I was looking for something a little more thematic, rather than literal. Maybe the qualities that define a woman.
And Dina, to your definition, are you not a woman, since you are neither an old lady or a Mom?
Children’s semantic mapping is an awesome area of research within linguistic study. Don’t necessarily look for your own logic, guys. If a woman is an old lady or mom, then her little friend is, by definition, no longer a woman either…yet apparently he was…or at least for the moment as indicated by his tastes. Yes, Dina’s definition is thematic but we can’t necessarily figure it out. I make my university students ask different age children the meanings of a given set of words when I introduce the topic of semantic development. It’s always fascinating for my students to see the emergence of the children’s definitions and their critical features. And for those of you who want to do a bit of reading on the subject, there’s a bunch of articles you can google. I, for one, think Dina said it all if we could just decode it. And, of course, she’s not a woman; she’s a girl. Yet somehow her friend, amusing as it might seem, was indeed a woman! You go, girl!
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