One of the assigned readings for Friday was the article called "Fighting For Our Lives" by Deborah Tannen. While I was reading my seven year-old sister came to spend time with me. So I decided to entertain her while I did my homework. I did this by making her read me the article. We were going to split the article because she would read one paragraph and then I would follow suit with the next. We eventually get the aggressive part of war and how Americans will turn a lot of metaphors to having a war theme.
When the example of "Blood lust" came into picture and she was pretty perplexed by this. It was hard for her to wrap her head around the idea of Blood lust and when I told her they wanted blood. She gave me this crazy look, as I knew she would. I explained to her the idea of a metaphor. I gave her the example of me saying "I could eat a whale right now" which is a metaphor for me being super hungry. I then went back to explain how blood lust is a representation of aggressive behavior.
Throughout this reading process her and I created, I began to wonder when students, even young ones, become aware of different sayings for different meanings. Metaphors like "take a shot at it" is not usually taken like a war reference unless you're super analyzing it. And with new generations different metaphors will arise because the way they speak are very different.
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