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In [[linguistics]], a technical or second-order [[language]] used to describe and analyze a natural or first-order [[language]].
More generally, any descriptive [[discourse]] such as [[literary criticism]] can be said to function as a [[metalanguage]].
According to [[Jakobson]], the process of acquiring or learning a [[language]] involves many metalinguistic operations.
He also argues that all speakers of a [[language]] also use a [[metalanguage]] without realizing it in order to ensure that they are using the same code as their interlocutors.
The very possibility of a metalinguistic dimension is denied by many of the thinkers associated with [[poststructuralism]], [[postmodernism]] and [[deconstruction]].
[[Lacan]], for example, flatly denies the existence of any [[metalanguage]], basing his claim on [[Heidegger]]'s contention that [[language]] is the 'house of being' and that it is impossible to step outside it.<ref>1960</ref>
In [[Heidegger]]'s view, any [[metalanguage]] is a [[metaphysics]] and a 'technicalization' that destroys the experience of a [[language]].
Most of the [[philosophers]] associated with the [[linguistic turn]] take a similar view and argue, like [[Wittgenstein]], that there can be no metalinguistic or extralinguistic dimension betcause "the limits of my language are the limits of my world" or, like [[Derrida]], that "there is nothing outside the text."
Metalanguage is the technical term in linguistics for any form of language which is used to describe the properties of language.
Roman Jakobson includes the metalingual function in his list of the functions of language.<ref>Jakobson, 1960:25</ref>
<references/>
[[Category:Linguistics]]
[[Category:Postmodern theory]]
[[Category:Deconstruction]]
[[Category:Poststructuralism]]
[[Category:Symbolic]]
[[Category:Terms]]
