Definition
Metalinguistics as a field of study examines the relation between language and culture. Metalinguistic skills are strategies that are applied, either consciously or automatically, to an oral or written linguistic interaction to allow one to think about language and a linguistic message, to analyze a message, and to control language processing within the communicative culture (Bialystok, 1986).
Current Knowledge
In a conversational interaction as a speaker, one uses metalinguistic skills to relate the linguistic form of an intended utterance to the environment in which the utterance occurs in order to produce a message which has the desired effect on a listener. As a listener, one uses metalinguistic skills to understand the intended message of the speaker. Examples of verbal interactions in which metalinguistic skills are critical for understanding the message are joke telling that relies on the atypical interpretation of a word; metaphor that requires the ability to judge...
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Jarmulowicz, L., Taran, V. L., & Hay, S. E. (2007). Third graders’ metalinguistic skills, reading skills, and stress production in derived English words. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 50, 1593–1605.
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Patterson, J. (2011). Metalinguistic Skills. In: Kreutzer, J.S., DeLuca, J., Caplan, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-79948-3_898
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