Metalinguistic awareness
Encyclopedia
Metalinguistic Awareness refers to the ability to objectify language
as a process as well as a thing. The concept of Metalinguistic Awareness is helpful to explaining the execution and transfer of linguistic
knowledge
across languages (e.g. code switching
as well as translation among bilinguals.)
Meta-linguistics can be classified as the ability to consciously reflect on the nature of language, by using the following skills:
Metalinguistic Awareness is also known as "metalinguistic ability," which can be defined similarly as Metacognition
("knowing about knowing")
Meta-linguistic awareness can also be defined as the ability to reflect on the use of language. As metalinguistic awareness grows, children begin to recognize that statements may have a literal meaning and an implied meaning. They begin to make more frequent and sophisticated use of metaphors such as the simile, "We packed the room like sardines."
Between the ages of 6 and 8 most children begin to expand upon their metalinguistic awareness and start to recognize irony and sarcasm. These concepts require the child to understand the subtleties of an utterance's social and cultural context.
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
as a process as well as a thing. The concept of Metalinguistic Awareness is helpful to explaining the execution and transfer of linguistic
Natural language
In the philosophy of language, a natural language is any language which arises in an unpremeditated fashion as the result of the innate facility for language possessed by the human intellect. A natural language is typically used for communication, and may be spoken, signed, or written...
knowledge
Knowledge
Knowledge is a familiarity with someone or something unknown, which can include information, facts, descriptions, or skills acquired through experience or education. It can refer to the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject...
across languages (e.g. code switching
Code-switching
In linguistics, code-switching is the concurrent use of more than one language, or language variety, in conversation. Multilinguals—people who speak more than one language—sometimes use elements of multiple languages in conversing with each other...
as well as translation among bilinguals.)
Meta-linguistics can be classified as the ability to consciously reflect on the nature of language, by using the following skills:
- an awareness that language has a potential greater than that of simple symbols (it goes beyond the meaning)
- an awareness that words are separable from their referents (meaning resides in the mind, not in the name ie. Sonia is Sonia, and I will be the same person even if somebody calls me another name)
- an awareness that language has a structure that can be manipulated (realizing that language is malleable: you can change and write things in many different ways (for example, if something is written in a grammatically incorrect way, you can change it).
Metalinguistic Awareness is also known as "metalinguistic ability," which can be defined similarly as Metacognition
Metacognition
Metacognition is defined as "cognition about cognition", or "knowing about knowing." It can take many forms; it includes knowledge about when and how to use particular strategies for learning or for problem solving...
("knowing about knowing")
Meta-linguistic awareness can also be defined as the ability to reflect on the use of language. As metalinguistic awareness grows, children begin to recognize that statements may have a literal meaning and an implied meaning. They begin to make more frequent and sophisticated use of metaphors such as the simile, "We packed the room like sardines."
Between the ages of 6 and 8 most children begin to expand upon their metalinguistic awareness and start to recognize irony and sarcasm. These concepts require the child to understand the subtleties of an utterance's social and cultural context.