The Rhetoric of Elsie


Elsie surprises us all the time with the words she knows and the phrasing she attempts and uses. We delight in her explorations of language. I need to do a better job of recording such things and probably should correct some of them, but they are so damn sweet. I'm thinking of my rhetoric class for this fall and if I was to analyze her language use from a rhetorical perspective, here is what I might say:

• Sometimes she tries out new words to exert her independence, recognizing the relationship between language and power in the Foucauldian sense. On the potty one day, she demanded some "privacy."
• Sometimes, she coins phrases. "Doing tricks and moves" is a neologism that means dancing naked.
• She calls "Sprite" "sprout." Today, at lunch, she requested "Sprite" and I let her since we were having a special mommy/eldest daughter day. She told me "I lub Sprout, Mommy." She then paused and said "I wike Sprout on demand, too." "Sprout" is also a preschoolers channel on TV with educational shows so she was recognizing its double-connotation and the complications of homonyms.
• One day I used a funnel to make a musical instrument--a shaker--using a water bottle and dry macaronis. That same day, Daddy removed a splinter from her foot. A month later, she was marching around the house with a water bottle requesting a "splinter." Obviously, she recognized the arbitrary nature of signification--there is no "natural" relationship between words and the things they represent.
• And many times, we recognize the limits of language and its lack and absence--as opposed to the presence of gesture (in its Derridean implications). Those are the fleeting moments we'll lose long before we forget "sprout" and "splinters"--the hand gesture she uses when she is "sneaking," the side kick she fancies when dancing, and the sweet sticky sweaty smell of her generously given hugs.