Metalingual

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Relating to or involving metalanguage, the language used to describe or analyze another language or linguistic system
2. Describing language that takes another language or itself as its object of study rather than everyday subject matter
3. Concerned with statements about language itself, particularly those that explain how a linguistic system works

Etymology: "Metalingual" is a plain compound, built from the Greek prefix "meta-", meaning "beyond" or "about" in the sense of stepping back from a subject to examine it, and the English adjective "lingual", from Latin "lingua" meaning "tongue" or "language." Put together, the word describes language used to talk about language itself. The formation follows a familiar pattern in linguistics and philosophy, where "meta-" is attached to a field or concept to mark a level of reflection one step removed from the original. A metalingual statement, for example, is one that defines or explains a term in the same language, as when a dictionary entry uses English words to explain English. The prefix does the work here: it shifts the focus from the words themselves to the act of describing them.