From Lynne Murphy on Facebook, this Cul de Sac cartoon, which reminded her of her daughter Grover:
The child in the cartoon, Alice, is 4; she’s at the stage of bargaining about the exact choice of words.
On the cartoonist, Richard Thompson, from Wikipedia:
Richard C. Thompson (born 1957) is an illustrator and cartoonist best known for his syndicated comic strip Cul de Sac and the illustrated poem “Make the Pie Higher”.
His cartoons are often about linguistic pragmatics in childhood. Here are two more, the first showing Alice with her older brother, Petey, the second showing her with other kids in Blisshaven Preschool:
How to read comics:
Alice is interested in reading affect, rather than for content, and she hasn’t entirely caught on to the cartoon convention that (ceteris paribus) the characters endure through the panels.
Can you frame that as a question?:
The first kid takes “Question?” to allow for the introduction of any relevant discussion whatsoever. Well, Timmy Fretwork brought up the dog topic.
April 30, 2013 at 9:41 am |
To give credit where it’s due (tho I didn’t on FB), I got it from Language Log!