Seven-year-old Thalia told her mother that the boys playing tag outside were "chasing each other around like puppies." What is reflected in Thalia's use of the metaphor

A)  metalinguistic awareness
B)  overextension 
C)  overregularization
D)  changes in her mean length of utterance

Metalinguistic Awareness

The ability to reflect on and manipulate the structural features of spoken language, such as understanding that a sentence can be interpreted in different ways.

Metaphor

A figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable, suggesting a resemblance.

Overregularization

A linguistic phenomenon in language development where children apply regular grammatical patterns to irregular words, like saying "goed" instead of "went".