Metalanguage is language used to talk about language. In ELT, it refers to the technical terminology and descriptive language that teachers and learners use to discuss how English works, including terms like noun, past tense, conditional, passive voice, syllable stress, and collocation. The British Council defines it simply: "the language teachers and learners use to talk about the English language, learning and teaching."
Berry (2005) distinguishes between metalanguage in the broad sense ("language about language," meaning any talk about how language works, including explanations and paraphrases) and the narrow sense (metalinguistic terminology, meaning the labels themselves). This distinction matters because learners can develop metalinguistic awareness without necessarily knowing metalinguistic terms.
| Type | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Grammatical terminology | Labels for parts of speech, tense, aspect, clause types | noun, present perfect, subordinate clause |
| Phonological terminology | Labels for sounds, stress, intonation | phoneme, schwa, falling intonation |
| Discourse terminology | Labels for text organization and pragmatics | topic sentence, cohesion, register |
| Classroom metalanguage | Language for talking about tasks, skills, and learning | skim, scan, brainstorm, draft, peer feedback |
| Functional metalanguage | Language for describing communicative purposes | suggestion, request, opinion, concession |
The question of how much grammatical terminology learners need is one of the oldest in ELT:
| Position | Argument | Associated with |
|---|---|---|
| Pro-metalanguage | Shared terminology makes grammar discussion efficient; learners need labels as reference points for their coursebooks and other teachers | Deductive teaching, grammar-translation, teacher training (CELTA/Delta expect metalanguage) |
| Minimal metalanguage | Learners need to use grammar, not talk about it; too much terminology creates confusion and wastes class time | CLT, Guided Discovery, Thornbury's How to Teach Grammar |
| Strategic metalanguage | Introduce terms when learners need them as tools, not as content to be memorized | Berry (2005), most current coursebooks |
Berry (2005) argues for the strategic position: metalanguage should be introduced "as late on as you can, when the students already have some idea of the concept and the form." The label should name something the learner already partly understands, not introduce a new abstraction.
For teachers, metalanguage competence is non-negotiable. A teacher who cannot name present perfect continuous or distinguish transitive from intransitive cannot plan lessons effectively, use reference materials, or discuss language with colleagues. The CELTA and Delta both assess knowledge of metalanguage explicitly.
However, teacher metalanguage competence does not mean teacher metalanguage use in class. A teacher might know the term third conditional and use it in lesson planning but introduce the form to students as imaginary past situations with examples, only adding the label later, or not at all.
Andrews (2007) calls this distinction teacher language awareness (TLA), the teacher's own understanding of how language works, which includes but extends far beyond metalinguistic terminology.
In functional linguistics (Functional Grammar), metalanguage plays a central role. Halliday's systemic functional linguistics (SFL) provides a metalanguage for describing language in terms of what it does (its metafunctions: ideational, interpersonal, textual) rather than just what it is (its formal categories). The Genre-Based Approach (Genre-Based Approach) uses SFL metalanguage to help learners understand how texts work:
This functional metalanguage is particularly useful in academic writing instruction because it connects form to meaning and purpose.