Metalanguage

Focusing participant roles in relation to process types: recently arrived adolescents' progress in written academic language Due to increased migration and mobility, teachers face recently arrived adolescents with limited schooling in need of support to develop academic language and literacy. SFL's meta language supports this development (Christie 2012, Schleppegrell 2013) and process types are applied in genre-based pedagogy in Sweden. Participant roles, however, are not. The intervention study aims to develop and scaffold a metalanguage awareness amongst teachers, enabling an explicit lexicogrammatical focus that could potentially enrich students' academic language and literacy. This pilot study analyses students' texts regarding participant roles in relation to process types within the system of TRANSITIVITY (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014, Thompson 2014). The data consists of 30 factual genre texts written in Swedish by twelve students, primarily with a refugee background, aged 16-18, who had lived and studied in Sweden for two to three years. Preliminary findings indicate a varied use of participant roles. Students' texts can be described more as "complex" than "correct" as if students strive to create complex, cognitively relevant meaning with the limited language resources available to them. This could indicate a starting point for an explicit lexicogrammatical focus. In this presentation, text analysis will be presented and implications for the intervention study will be discussed.

Показывается ошибочность базовых положений когнитивизма о репрезентативной функции сознания и языка. Подчеркивается биосоциальная функция языка как когнитивной области кооперативных взаимодействий, в ходе которых формируется и развивается индивидуальное сознание. Понимание этого требует пересмотра повестки дня наук о языке, включая научное определение предметной области языкознания и непредвзятый анализ метаязыка традиционной лингвистики.

Det Naturlige Semantiske Metasprogs ordforråd kaldes 'semantiske primer'. Kortet viser de danske eksponenter og nogle af de mest basale kombinationsmuligheder. Der findes flere muligheder for kombinatorik end de muligheder der vises her. I nogle sprog kan to primer udtrykkes ved det samme ord (fx føler og hører, noget og del), og sommetider kan primer have to eller flere eksponenter (allolexer), som det fx er tilfaeldet med noget og ting eller nogen og person i dansk. Nogle gange kan kombinationer af to eller flere primer udtrykkes ved et enkelt ord fx *samtidigt (på samme tidspunkt), eller *sådan (som det her). Dette kaldes portmanteau og er markeret med asterisker. [c.goddard@griffith.edu.au; clevisen@ruc.dk]

Speech acts shape the core of pragmatic competence and their mastery is a prerequisite for successful discourse encounters in an L2. Cross-cultural comparisons, as claimed by Johnstone (2018), are very effective for knowing and acquiring the speech acts. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to compare a limited number of communicative routines in English and Persian within the framework of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) developed by Wierzbicka (1991) and to examine if the words uttered by speakers at the surface level (exterior) would match their thoughts (interior) especially in such routines as compliment, request, and invitation patterns. The participants comprised 21 MA students studying Eng-lish language teaching. The data was obtained by a validated researcher-made questionnaire containing both structured and unstructured items and 10 scenarios on the basis of which the study participants provided comments, appropriate expressions, and responses. For the English routines, the data was obtained from three English plays. The aforementioned communicative routines in Persian were described in terms of their NSM while the metalinguistic components for the English routines were adopted from Wierz-bicka (1991). The results indicated that the NSM provided rich insights into subliminal cross-cultural differences. Since this study makes use of simple cultural scripts (similar to circumlocution) to describe communicative routines in both English and Persian, learners can easily understand differences within the hidden cross-cultural bound interactions. Implications of the study suggest that both EFL teachers and learners can gain more profound insights about the cross-cultural sociopragmatic differences between English and Persian.

Within the context of multidimensional education, the efficiency of language teaching and assessment in English involves depolarizing the educational process, disbanding boundaries, and encouraging students to actively participate in the educational process, with reference to the students-centered training process, adjusted to their learning needs and propensities as well as their specifically linguistic, cultural and social interests, focusing on skills building activities and exploring their metacognitive, cognitive and social potential. Taking into account the fact that the process of thinking is done by the linguistic categories, this paper aims to highlight the idea that metacognition through metalanguage underscores the role of the subject in both knowledge and learning process awareness by self-control, self-appreciation and the self-refinement of his/her own cognition. This fact allows metacognitive strategies in devising communicative language skills in English – according to CEFR (writing, reading, listening and speaking skills) – by making assessment strategies more efficient. The implementation of this strategy aims at mobilizing the cognitive, metacognitive and social domain in the process of coining communicative skill in EFL teaching (English as a Foreign Language), especially in the field of plurilingual skills development and intercultural communication though developing language acquisition and encouraging the use of language as well as acquiring skills as an advanced user.

Ce texte vise à rendre compte des développements de la théorie de l’énonciation à la suite de la question posée par Benveniste sur la possibilité d’étendre ce concept à la musique et à d’autres langages non verbaux (1974 : 43-78). Si les sémioticiens héritiers de Saussure qui se sont consacrés à la théorisation et aux analyses du langage visuel dans les années 1980 et 1990 n’ont pas abordé la question de l’énonciation, une deuxième et une troisième génération de sémioticiens ont par contre pris au sérieux ce problème et développé ce concept en en justifiant la légitimité dans un cadre extra-verbal.
Un retour sur cette question se révèle aujourd’hui nécessaire pour plusieurs raisons. Certaines sont internes à la discipline et aux sciences du langage – la légitimité du visuel en tant que langage, le dialogue entre la sémiotique et la linguistique –, d’autres sont extra-disciplinaires, venant surtout des sciences de l’information et de la communication, et concernent la demande d’une méthodologie capable d’expliquer le fonctionnement des images contemporaines. La question de l’énonciation est d’ailleurs le point de départ de toute analyse d’images non seulement dans sa version « restreinte » (l’énonciation énoncée, dont il sera question ici), mais aussi dans sa version « étendue » – qui englobe les contextes de production des images ainsi que les domaines qui la rendent intelligible (art, science, droit, religion, etc.).

This study contributes towards an understanding of the nature of sequential visual narratives, how different semiotic resources may be employed to construct a visual narrative and how sequence of images may be developed. Over the years, extensive research has been undertaken in the area of still images. However, the particularities of meanings made in sequential images remain relatively unexplored. The significance of the study is that it contributes towards an understanding of sequential narratives by proposing a metalanguage for manga.

The term ‘manga’ refers to comics that originate from Japan and it is currently a trend in popular culture worldwide. Certain conventions employed in manga are different from that of Western comics. Using the proposed metalanguage, this study identifies the representational resources used in manga and examines how they are used to construct a visual narrative. The metalanguage is grounded in Kress and van Leeuwen’s (1996) work produced in Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design and Matthiessen’s (2007) concept of rhetorical relations in images.

The theory that underlines the study is multimodal social semiotics which assumes that texts are composed of a combination of representational resources. These resources are always socially situated, produced in a particular cultural, social and historical context. The theory supports the view of comics as a genre and makes it possible to attribute the differences between manga and Western comics to the social and cultural practices of the East and West. This study challenges the tendency in narrative tradition to favour verbal narratives over non-verbal narratives by demonstrating that different representational resources employed in manga have distinct narrative functions and that they contribute to the meaning of the narrative in different ways. Moreover, meaning is derived from an integration of all the representational resources.

The study concludes by looking at the implications of using the metalanguage in interrogating other visual narratives. The New London Group’s (2000) notion of ‘designs of meaning’ proposes that representational resources are like design resources. Individuals employ these resources in particular ways to produce particular texts. A social theory of genre highlights the overlapping nature of genres. Drawing on these concepts, this study argues that a metalanguage which can discuss different forms of meaning can also assist individuals to see the similarities between genres by foregrounding the use of conventions. From this perspective, it is possible to use the metalanguage to interrogate other visual narratives such as storyboarding.

Resumen
La Real Academia de la Lengua Española ha introducido en estos últimos años dos símbolos: el asterisco (*) para indicar la agramaticalidad, y la bolaspa (⊗) para indicar la incorrección de una expresión. En este artículo se analiza el uso que se
hace de estos dos signos en las últimas obras académicas, en concreto en la NGLE (2009) y en la ORAE (2010), así como de otras marcas y recursos metalingüísticos en la NGLE.
Summary
The Real Academia de la Lengua Española introduced two linguistic symbols in the past few: the asterisk (*), that marks an ungrammatical expression and the socalled “bolaspa” (a circled cross, ⊗), that marks an incorrect expression. The aim of this paper is to analyze the use of these new symbols in last academic works, the NGLE (2009) and the ORAE (2010), and the use of other metalinguistic marks.

This is how the goals of this book are described in the Preface:
This study seeks to define language ideologies having first reached a definition of ideologies in general; that is, it proceeds from the general to the specific.
A comprehensive review of the literature on language and ideology is also provided, which allows the advanced student to move at their own pace through various theories and research tools and choose the ones that better suit their own research interests.
The book is structured around two fundamental principles. .
The first principle, “Barthes’ principle”, determines the semiotic nature of ideologies in general. According to it, ideologies are second-degree semiotic systems, which do not signify directly but only through language (or through other first-degree semiotic codes). They do not signify; they connote or implicate, or under- or over-signify. Implicature and presupposition are ideologies’ favorite modes of signification.
The second principle, “Silverstein’s principle”, defines in a very general way a very specific application of the first. Language ideologies, just like all ideologies, are second-degree semiotic systems (Barthes’ principle); in addition, they also are or they are also capable of becoming metalinguistic systems (Silverstein’s principle), i.e. semiotic codes whose universe of discourse is defined by first-degree semiotic systems, i.e. by languages.
The book is structured after those two principles. The second chapter, which could be read first, presents Barthes’ principle, some of its corollaries as well as some reasonable restrictions on it.
The third chapter presents Silverstein’s principle as a further condition on Barthes’ principle.  Language ideologies are defined as second-degree metalinguistic systems. The notion of metalanguage is explained at length. It is argued that, language ideologies, as second-degree metalinguistic semiotic systems, are ideologies par excellence. Although language ideologies are but a subcategory of ideologies in general, their analysis can now be used to shed light on ideologies in general.
The first chapter provides the necessary historical prolegomena to the next two chapters. It could be read independently of the other two.  It explains how the study itself weighs itself against two imposing and competing paradigms in the theory of ideology. The first: the original, descriptive, synthetic paradigm developed by the French idéologues, who first introduced the notion of idéologie; and the second one: the critical and analytical paradigm prevailing today, a paradigm established simultaneously with the deconstruction (or partial destruction) of the concept of ‘ideology’. The starting point for this second paradigm is, to my opinion, the critique by Marx and Engels of The German Ideology.
The study of these two “first moments” in the genesis of ‘ideology’ reveals how the concept of ‘ideology’ changed in parallel with the critique to it, a critique aiming simultaneously at specific ideologies and earlier theories of ideology. The subject of criticism became its object. We can no longer settle with a descriptive agenda. We do not believe in a General Science of Ideas, a General Idealogy capable of describing and classifying every idea and every ideology. Destutt de Tracy and his followers failed. But neither could we today adopt a critical attitude, pretending ideological neutrality and scientific objectivity - as if there were a science of ideology in which our critical force is founded. What is needed, I argue, is a synthesis of the two paradigms, which does not preclude a critical attitude towards ideologies, while at the same time providing detailed and inductive descriptions of them. The book’s approach is conceptual and explanatory; it draws from linguistics – and, more particularly, from sociolinguistics and metapragmatics.
The historical study of the early stages in the theory of ideologies is also revealing of how intellectuals working from within these two different paradigms perceived the relationship between language and ideology. In both paradigms we find the notion of ‘language’ to overlap with the notion of ‘ideas’ (concepts, perceptions, thoughts, beliefs). This partial identification, which, depending on one's interest, might be called either linguistic or conceptual relativism, can be attributed to the inability of both theoretical paradigms to distinguish between first-degree and second-degree semiosis, on the one hand, and between language and metalanguage, on the other. The absence of this double distinction is manifested in a paradoxical symptom: linguistic or conceptual relativism is invoked in the critique of ideology/ies, while, as documented in the third chapter, relativism is in fact one of the most important mechanisms of the ideology/ies thus critiqued. Particularly in the field of language ideologies, relativism, it is argued, is the finite mechanism that generates ideologies, while, at the same time, the ideologies thus generated become indistinguishable from the description or the critique to which they are subjected. Relativism is a metalinguistic principle, not a linguistic one. The ideologies it generates are language ideologies.
The three chapters of the book follow, therefore, the three steps in an argument. The first chapter defines the historical context in which the study is placed. The second defines the broad area defined by Barthes’ principle. And the third concentrates on the unexplored territory of language ideologies.
The book’s argument is largely explanatory. In the literature one comes across several definitions of “language ideologies”. The definitions reflect an author’s own interests and they are often incompatible with each other. The following distinctions are introduced, distinctions which define different (although interdependent) areas of research:
A) the language of ideology/ies;
B) language ideologies - linguistic ideologies;
C) ideologies-in-language.

A) The study of the language (or the “languages”) of ideology/ies is concerned with issues pertaining to the functioning of ideologies as semiotic (or “symbolic”) systems. The most important issues in this category are:
1) the analysis of ideologies as second-degree semiotic systems;
2) implicature as a tool for understanding second-degree semiosis;
3) the formation of ideological stereotypes;
4) the use of presuppositions and metaphors in forming stereotypes;
5) the normative and performative character of ideologies.

B) On the other hand, language ideologies are implicitly (Barthes’ principle) or explicitly (Silverstein’s principle) about language.  The study of language ideologies includes all those issues which are openly debated within a linguistic community, issues which have become stereotypical, which have left their imprint on the collective consciousness (such as the Greek Language Question). One of the most salient language-ideological issues is standardization. Standardization is but the guiding of linguistic behavior by ideas (standards). But this is also the definition of language ideologies: the positing of a linguistic variety according to a metalinguistic model, which usually results in the attempt to make the linguistic variety “conform” to the pattern through which it is perceived. Language ideologies always exist when there is metalinguistic consciousness – and the aim of standardization is to increase metalinguistic consciousness at a collective level. Language ideologies are also distinguished from linguistic ideologies (i.e., ideologies within linguistics); not only are language and linguistic ideologies part of “divergent larger systems of discourse and enterprise” (M. Silverstein), their semiotic mechanisms are also different.

C) Finally, ideologies-in-language are more often than not confused with language ideologies. Ideologies-in-language have to do with differentiation. In this third category belong all the issues relating to perceived variation. It is shown that the correlation of linguistic variables with independent ones is not necessarily mediated by language ideologies; on the contrary, the correlation is more often than not mediated by non-linguistic ideologies (such as ideologies of prestige, of social class, of gender, etc.). These non-linguistic ideologies may also have linguistic manifestations (as ideologies-in-language), although it is not necessary that they develop to full-blown language ideologies. In fact, it can be proven (with semiotic arguments) that Barthes’ and Silverstein’s principles are incompatible for the same set of semiotic units; their incompatibility necessitates a semiotic mediation through non-linguistic ideologies for both principles to apply.
The theory of language ideologies developed in this book is exemplified by a comprehensive presentation of the development of Standard Modern Greek. Reference is also made to other languages and language ideologies.

Ala-Risku, Riikka (2016). Contrasti e commistioni: Plurilinguismo, dialetto e metalingua nella narrativa italiana contemporanea. Tesi di dottorato, Università di Helsinki. Helsinki: Unigrafia. (versione rivista con variazioni minime rispetto alla versione pubblicata in http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-51-2761-7)

Tesi discussa il 9 dicembre 2016 all'Università di Helsinki. Controrelatrice prof.ssa Gigliola Sulis, University of Leeds, presidente della discussione prof.ssa Eva Havu, Università di Helsinki.

Metapragmatics encompasses the study of displays of awareness on the part of users and observers of language about their use of language. In this chapter, it is argued that corpus-based approaches to metapragmatics are uniquely positioned to advance such studies, as it allows for interpretive (horizontal) and statistical (vertical) methods of analysis to be successively applied to the analysis of metapragmatic data. The different ways in which corpora have been used to study metapragmatic labels with respect to the broader metacommunicative lexicon of which they form a part are discussed, alongside studies of metapragmatics in use, that is, the use of these metapragmatic labels in situated contexts. It is then argued, building on a case study illustrating how claims of non-serious intent (e.g. just kidding, only joking) can be studied from a corpus-based perspective, that studies in corpus-based metapragmatics necessarily involve carefully interweaving horizontal and vertical methods of analysis. The chapter concludes with a call for further corpus-based metapragmatic studies across different languages.

Among the many subjects taught at primary, secondary and tertiary institutions physical education (PE) has had limited discussion with respect to the language of PE. As an examination subject in secondary school, physical performance is one key factor leading to success in PE; however, PE disciplinary knowledge is often assessed through written or spoken texts, resulting in students needing to have both the ability to physically perform and the disciplinary literacy required to demonstrate knowledge of the subject. The present paper extends the discussion of content and language integrated learning (CLIL), by providing a theory of language and a pedagogy informed by systemic functional linguistics; and investigating the benefits of the explicit teaching of curriculum language related to PE in order to prepare students to succeed in PE exams. Data including observations and videos of classroom interaction, texts written by students and interviews with teachers and students were collected at Hamstead Hall Academy, Birmingham, UK, where over 50% of students have English as an additional language. The data were analysed to investigate if the explicit teaching of the language of PE had a positive impact on both teachers and students. In focussing specifically on the language of PE, the teachers became more aware of the role of language as meaning making resource, students’ written assignments improved and overall the PE exam results increased dramatically. These findings illustrate the benefit of explicitly teaching discipline specific language for curriculum learning, and highlight the language of PE, which tends to be a marginalised subject in the discussion of ESP.

The aim of the present study is to evaluate the pragmatic information in 'My Book of English, Year Three', a textbook used to teach English in Algerian middle schools. The study attempts to answer four research questions pertaining to the amount of general pragmatic information, speech act treatment, explicit metapragmatic cues, and metalanguage functions. The points of strength and weakness in the pragmatic input offered by the textbook under question were identified. To illustrate, a number of speech acts were explicitly mentioned and practised, though most of them appeared in conspicuous absence of adequate metapragmatic and sociopragmatic discussions. In our view, the present findings have important implications for EFL textbook-designers and teachers alike.

Les sémioticiens ont souvent donné pour acquise l’existence d’un métalangage visuel sans en avoir problématisé la légitimité et le fonctionnement jusqu’au bout. Ce texte vise tout d’abord à défendre l’hypothèse selon laquelle le langage verbal n’est pas le traducteur unique et universel de toutes les sémiotiques (visuelles, musicales, audiovisuelles, etc.) comme l’affirment la sémiologie de Roland Barthes (1964 et 1967) et l’approche linguistique. Nous comparerons ensuite la notion de réflexivité à celle de métalangage : si les études sur la réflexivité sont assez répandues dans plusieurs disciplines concernant l’image, il n’en est pas de même pour la notion de métalangage qui implique la supériorité d’un langage sur l’autre.

Abstrakt. Analiza dyskursu naukowego według projektu Scientext. zarów-no pisanie jak i rozumienie tekstów naukowych jest umiejętnością bardzo istotną w środowisku akademickim. Francuska grupa Scientext, w skład której wchodzą trzy zespoły (LIdILEM, LiCorN i LLS) zajmuje się analizą dyskursu naukowego zwracając szczególną uwagę na pozycję autora tekstu, proces jego rozumowania oraz środki językowe, którymi się posługuje. Celem projektu Scientext było zgromadzenie korpusów w języku francuskim i angielskim służących do analizy dyskursu naukowego i pozycji autora w tekście. Korpusy dostępne są na stronie scientext .msh-alpes .fr. Słowa klucze: tekst naukowy, korpus, autor tekstu naukowego, metajęzyk
Abstract. Scientific discourse analysis according to project Scientext. The ability to write and understand scientific texts is very essential in academic environment. A French project Scientext deals with scientific discourse analysis . It brings together a multidisciplinary team including researchers from the fields of linguistics, computational linguistics and teaching methodology . There are three groups which cooperate together: LIdILEM, LiCorN, LLS. This project aims to clarify the characteristics of written scientific discourse. The languages analysed in this project are English and French. A corpus constitutes the basis for each analysis. An important role in a scientific text is assigned to the author. Scientext studies the author's position in a text and the metalanguage used to guide the reader .

This chapter examines the development of teachers’ knowledge about language and metalanguage in an Australian secondary school serving students from low SES and indigenous backgrounds. The central research question addressed is whether a professional learning program to build teachers’ knowledge of the language and literacies of their curricular areas enables them to more effectively integrate language and literacy into discipline instruction and into feedback on students’ written texts. The metalanguage designed for this particular professional learning program draws on the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) model of language, which informs the recently developed national curriculum for English in Australia. Using surveys, written feedback and examples from the KLA of Technology and Applied Sciences, the focus is on how resources within the discourse semantic stratum of SFL have been recontextualised to effectively integrate literacy instruction with what teachers recognise as core business content learning.

On the Metaphor of the Metalanguage from the Perspective of Translation Studies using the Example of “Geschichte der neueren Sprachwissenschaft” (The History of Modern Linguistics) by Gerhard Helbig
The topic of the article is the conduit metaphor of the metalanguage as a problem of translation. The essay is a continuation of a cycle of studies on the metaphor in meta-linguistic discourses. The Polish translation of Gerhard Helbig’s work „Geschichte der neueren Sprachwissenschaft“ (‘The History of Modern Linguistics’) documents similarities in the metaphorics of the German and Polish metalanguages, which confirms the thesis about the congruence of metaphors of Western culture. Theoretical aspects will be discussed that may help in the translation of the metaphor.

This article outlines an agenda for critical discourse studies that reserves a place of honour for the notion of reflexivity. It draws on four concepts of reflexivity developed in the social sciences: reflexivity as a general feature of interaction and subjectivity; as a methodological praxis; as a property of discursive and non-discursive systems; and as a key feature of late modernity. Reflexivity is considered in terms of acts of interpretive movement. Social actors, organizations and systems throw reflexive loops around themselves, around others, as well as around spatial, temporal, linguistic, cognitive, social and historical dimensions of contextual reality. All social entities engage in the Sisyphean task of fixing social reality, trying to grasp it with a porous and amorphous semiotic net, shaping interpretive reality in the process. Reflexive loops can leave ripples on the surface of language and communication for others to pick up and engage with. Through metadiscursive acts, interlocutors can then engage with the meanings that fix who and what they are in an unequal and power-infused world whose boundaries can only be imagined through interpretive and critical praxis. Reflexivity is a precondition for the articulation of critique and should be considered as a key concept in the field of discourse studies. This paper is published as part of a collection on discourse studies.

Theorists have argued that the changed nature of contemporary texts to communicate meaning through multiple modes requires students to develop ‘multimodal’ literacy appropriate for engaging with these texts. This Professional Research Project investigates the effectiveness of explicitly teaching film metalanguage using a ‘word wall’ for promoting
the development of Year 7 students’ multimodal literacy. The study population comprised two Year 7 English classes with special learning needs (comprehension difficulties and EAL
students). The first six weeks of action research focused on explicitly teaching targeted vocabulary and students responding to multimodal texts; through a project-based learning pedagogy in the final two weeks, students composed and reflected upon their own multimodal text. Qualitative analysis of cloze activities, spelling tests, metalanguage use
tallies and student composing yielded an indirect existential phenomenology methodology: results focus on how the word wall strategy developed meaning vocabulary regarding the
higher-order metalanguage concepts ‘intertextuality’ and ‘salience.’ While the ‘word wall’ facilitated scaffolding discussion about metalanguage, higher-ability students were more able than mid-range students to accurately use the targeted metalanguage in both responding and composing. However, many students demonstrated understanding of multimodal concepts without using the targeted metalanguage. This raises implications for sequencing
learning to develop multimodal literacy, and appropriately assessing the literacy. It is recommended that future studies of developing multimodal literacy through metalanguage
investigate strategies for targeting specific special learning needs.

Linguistic anthropologists have shown that the way a person reports speech or represents discourse—for example, whether they ‘put on an accent' or merely repeat attributed words—is crucial for understanding what social action that person is undertaking. And yet, our tools for talking about the form of represented discourse are still crude. This paper offers a new tool in the notion of figure composition, defined as the formal semiotic elements that comprise a given voice. Reflecting on figure composition, alongside Agha ’s (2005) notion of figure transparency, invites us to shift from asking what kind of represented discourse any given stretch of represented discourse is to asking (1) What elements of represented discourse appear to be coming from the quoted figure(s)? and (2) How are these elements used to produce interactional effects?

[Postprint] The present paper constitutes a guide through the complex history of the word διάλεκτος/dialectus/dialect from Greek antiquity up to the early modern era with a focus on the latter period and on its fate as a (Neo-)Latin word. It demonstrates that the term evolved from a highly polysemous word in Ancient Greek to a (Neo-)Latin (and, later on, vernacular) term expressing various linguistic meanings, among which the interpretation 'regional variety of a language' rose to prominence. The contribution moreover argues that the Renaissance Latinization of the word is largely due to a twist of fate in the textual transmission of QUINT., Inst. 1.5.29 and sketches how the term dialectus, mistakenly regarded as an 'approved' ancient Latin word, spread across the Republic of Letters. In addition, I discuss the learned and polysemous status of Latin dialectus (and its vernacular counterparts) throughout the early modern era. To conclude, I spell out the history of a number of key early modern derivations and compositions in which the word figures, principally dialectologia and subdialectus.

En las páginas que siguen, al hilo de la caracterización de la historiografía lingüística como actividad metalingüística, nos acercaremos a la cuestión de las relaciones entre metalenguaje e historiografía de acuerdo con un trayecto que nos lleva desde lo más general hasta las cuestiones más específicas. Concretamente, se abordan los siguientes aspectos: lo metalingüístico y la historia lingüística; lengua objeto, metalengua y delimitación de las tradiciones lingüísticas; concepción de la lengua, praxis lingüística e historia de la lengua; los prólogos; el aprovechamiento de los textos metalingüísticos para la historia de la lengua; la terminología lingüística y la explicación de los hechos y, finalmente, metalenguaje y discurso metalingüístico. En el curso de la exposición se deja constancia de la bibliografía más relevante, en el marco de la historiografía lingüística española, en torno a cada uno de los aspectos tratados.
1. Introducción / 2. La historiografía como actividad metalingüística / 3. Lo metalingüístico y la historia lingüística / 3.1 Lengua objeto, metalengua y delimitación de las tradiciones lingüísticas / 3.2 Concepción de la lengua, praxis lingüística e historia de la lengua / 3.3 Los prólogos / 3.4 El aprovechamiento de los textos metalingüísticos para la historia de la lengua / 3.5 ‘Uso descrito’, ‘uso prescrito’ y ‘uso escrito’ / 4. Metalenguaje, terminología y explicación de los hechos / 5. Metalenguaje y discurso metalingüístico / 6. A modo de conclusión: hacia el análisis del discurso metalingüístico.

This paper studies Krzysztof Kieślowski’s portrayals of woman in The Double Life of Véronique. It explores the dialectic between Kieślowski’s ambition to capture the essence of womanhood on the one hand, and his female characters’ survival qua signifiers of a constraining (masculine) cinematic metalanguage on the other. The first part of the paper explores how, through their disembodied voice, the female characters escape the specular and sound regimes of the film. The second and the third parts
analyze the characters of Weronika and Véronique to demonstrate their “ex-sistence” (existing outside) or “exile” vis-à-vis the narrative symbolic of the film. Finally, I look at Kieślowski’s employment of alternative narratives and point out that his need to tell his story repetitively renders his film self-deconstructive in its attempt to express femininity. Briefly, this paper suggests that the male gaze/narrative of The Double Life
of Véronique may, following the topographical logic of the Moebius strip, arrive at its obverse “surface,” showing the underside of a masculine cinematic language and casting into question an attempted male metalanguage.

The dissertation describes the problems of metalanguage and peculiarities of linguistic terminology. Special attention is paid to autonymy, which plays a central role in metalanguage. The dissertation presents the life and work of Eugen Wuster, the founder of traditional terminology, and the principal tenets of his approach to terminology. Traditional terminology is critically evaluated; we show its inability to describe linguistic terminology: it lacks a coherent theoretical apparatus enabling description, its semantic theory is based on classical definition, which in many cases cannot be formulated, which means that traditional terminology is also unable to account for translation of terms and comparison of concepts across different concept systems. A sample of 50 basic linguistic terms from 19 grammars from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries was used to examine the development of Slovenian linguistic terminology and to ascertain who played the most important role in it. The resear...

Starting in the mid-twelfth century, Scholastic thinkers began using a particle that is unknown in classical Latin: "li" or "ly." In its earliest occurrences, the word was typically accompanied by an explanation of its "Gallic" origins. In fact, "li" is the Old French definite article in its masculine form. Originally, Scholastic authors imported it into Latin in order to be able to express the idea of nominalization in Trinitarian theology- such as the difference between "omnipotent" and "the omnipotent." Later, "li" became the marker of mentioned terms, like modern-day quotation marks or italics. This made sense because Augustine had shown, in his dialogue "De magistro" that mentioned terms function syntactically as nouns. The increasingly frequent use of "li" in late Scholasticism indicates a shift of attention from reality to language about reality.

L’attuale reazione antiformalista della semiotica rischia di travolgere quel poco di buono
che si è creato quanto a strumenti per ridurre la complessità testuale. Il quadrato semiotico è
un buon esempio: usato e abusato, è stato utilizzato e condannato. Eco ammette
che certe strutture semantiche profonde vanno postulate per poter indagare certi insiemi di
messaggi; fa notare tuttavia che vi sia una grande varietà di “opposizioni” entro la lingua e che le interpretazioni permesse da strumenti come
il quadrato siano «alquanto povere e scarsamente problematiche». L’implicita
idea che una analisi fosse valida quando terminava con un quadrato ha portato solo a cattive
analisi. Tuttavia non è impossibile pensare diversi tipi di quadrati entro un testo, per rendere
conto della ricchezza delle relazioni logiche profonde di una struttura semantica. Anzi: forse
la ricchezza notata da Eco è la causa per cui il quadrato è stato impiegato con molta libertà e
senza problematizzare le sue relazioni interne.
Tuttavia, il quadrato è un compromesso improntato all’operatività. Secondo Greimas esso è
una semplificazione rispetto a modelli semantici più complessi, indagati da Bröndal e più sfumati rispetto alle secche
opposizioni binarie di Jakobson.

This chapter considers the scope of metalanguage during English language instruction undertaken directly before tertiary studies. While past studies of metalanguage have tended to privilege the analysis of spoken language in the classroom, with particular attention to linguistic terminology, this chapter explores both language and body language.  Methods of classroom discourse analysis focus on interaction between teachers and students during a collaborative writing lesson. Analysis draws on new developments in the theorisation of body language in Systemic Functional Linguistics theory. Findings illustrate how metalanguage may be expressed phonologically as spoken wording and also kinaesthetically as gestures. The gestures in this study, however, appear to initially be dependent on language for meaning, before gradually being used as an alternate and independent form of expression. These findings contribute to a broader conceptualisation of metalanguage that acknowledges a fuller range of semiotic resources used to share and develop knowledge about language in the classroom.

Supervisor: Helen Gasti
Professor of Ancient Greek and Latin Literature

Εxamination Committee
H. Gasti, E. Karakasis, K. Synodinou

MA Thesis Defense: May 13, 2019
Grade: 10/10 (A)

Classics Department
University of Ioannina (Greece)