Metalanguage

In logic and linguistics, a metalanguage is a language used to make statements about statements in another language which is called the object language. It can refer to any terminology or language used to discuss language itself: a written grammar, for example, or a discussion about language use. Very often expressions in a metalanguage are distinguished from those in an object language by the use of italics, quotes or being set apart on a line b... more

In logic and linguistics, a metalanguage is a language used to make statements about statements in another language which is called the object language. It can refer to any terminology or language used to discuss language itself: a written grammar, for example, or a discussion about language use. Very often expressions in a metalanguage are distinguished from those in an object language by the use of italics, quotes or being set apart on a line by themselves. There are a variety of recognized metalanguages, including embedded, ordered, and nested (hierarchical). An embedded metalanguage, as its name suggests, is a language embedded in an object language. It occurs both formally and naturally. This idea is found in Douglas Hofstadter's book, Gödel, Escher, Bach, in his discussion of the relationship between formal languages and number theory: "... it is in the nature of any formalization of number theory that its metalanguage is embedded within it." (pg. 270). It occurs in natural, or... less