Metalanguage for Literacy

Have you ever been to a party with your partner or friends who know individuals in completely different fields of work/study to your own? Have you nodded knowingly in the conversations you’re an audience member of, actually totally clueless to what’s going on? Perhaps you’ve been in a consultation with a professional like a doctor, lawyer, tradie who begins to use words you’ve never heard to try and explain something you need to know, that you cannot understand at all. 

“Can you use plain English for me?” is a line I have been privy to and have also uttered many times. 

This my friends, is the power of metalanguage and jargon which can unite and divide any individual that comes across them. For a breakdown of metalanguage, Richard Nordquist does a great job, but if you’re less of a linguist I’ve got a wonderful example from AITSL (Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership) where a Marylyn Pett is giving an explanation of her awareness of the power of metalanguage. Notice the wonderful waterfall analogy at the start:

Metalanguage is the language we use to talk about language, for example we might use the single word ‘repetition’ but what we mean is that the same word or phrase is being used more than once. 

Why is metalanguage so important for Literacy? Well in addition to the metalanguage of English as a language, there are terms applicable to the different types of texts students will encounter in classrooms inclusive of print, digital, and multimodal. By giving students a means by which they can articulate how something has been constructed or expressed gives them a deeper understanding of its meaning but also provides them with the tools to create those texts as well. 

For example, a student might read a social media post describing the moment an Olympian is receiving their medal and they exclaim that the post is very emotional. With an understanding of metalanguage they could articulate exactly what makes that post emotional, and then use that same language to create their own post about a time they felt proud about succeeding. This is an important part of every school subject, especially those subjects with terminology students may not come across in their everyday lives like Maths and Science. Creating core banks of vocabulary and metalanguage are a brilliant start for educators in any stage of schooling to give students a chance at communicating articulately and confidently. 

Have you experienced the feeling of clarity when you’ve learnt the metalanguage for a subject? Let me know in the comments below.