Term
Metalanguage
used in 72 texts across the archive
“So, there’s no sense in which language is more real than metalanguage; and metalanguage is just as much a use of language as any other: it directs attention to uses of language, while language directs our attention to the centered world, but language is itself part of the centered world. Metalanguage is the pedagogical dimension within language, which means that the primary sin of metalanguage is assessing uses of language without issuing operable imperatives: assessments of the language use of others devoid of operable imperatives is the way I would define “cant.””
In use
“The metalanguage is the anomaly, and therefore the crisis, not its distortions.”
“Metalanguage is a way of solving this problem, and it’s not surprising that the masters of writing would have found this solution to be an appropriate one to the problem of potentially infinite dissemination.”
“The most meaningful metalanguage is one that keeps attending to the distinction between language and metalanguage.”
Key texts