adjective
- relating to or denoting language or linguistic phenomena used to describe or analyze language itself
Usage: commonly used in linguistics and language studies
Examples
- The teacher used metalinguistic awareness to help students understand grammar rules.
- A metalinguistic comment about the word 'run' might note that it has multiple meanings.
- Children develop metalinguistic skills as they learn to think about language as an object of study.
- The phrase 'the word cat has three letters' is a metalinguistic statement.
- Metalinguistic ability helps readers understand puns and wordplay.
- Linguists use metalinguistic terminology to discuss sentence structure and syntax.