cs.CLApr 3, 2026
SaveSpeaking of Language: Reflections on Metalanguage Research in NLP
Organizations: Georgetown University · George Mason University
Abstract
This work aims to shine a spotlight on the topic of metalanguage. We first define metalanguage, link it to NLP and LLMs, and then discuss our two labs' metalanguage-centered efforts. Finally, we discuss four dimensions of metalanguage and metalinguistic tasks, offering a list of understudied future research directions.
Figures & tables
| symbolic | natural | |
|---|---|---|
| instance-level | tagging, parsing | answering a question about the grammaticality of a sentence |
| system-level | grammar rule induction | generating a dictionary definition for a word |
Table 1: Examples of metalinguistic description tasks (where the metalanguage is language-system–oriented in nature). The metalinguistic inputs and/or outputs in question may be symbolic or natural, and can be formulated at the level of individual instances (tokens) or at the level of an entire system of language (generalizations).
Figure 1: Workflow for the collaboration of NLP researchers and language-learning curriculum designers, to create pedagogical materials Chaudhary et al. (2023) . The input and intermediate and final outputs include metalanguage.
Figure 2: Screenshots of a page on the English Language Learner Stack Exchange site, which is included in the ELQA dataset ( Behzad et al., 2023 , from) . The source page is https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/12/dates-and-times-on-in-at .
Figure 3: A legal interpretation scenario represented as a QA task with binary questions. The example is based on the case Snell v. United Specialty Insurance Co. and constructed in the style of one of the prompting formats studied by Purushothama et al. (2026a) .
| Category | Definition |
|---|---|
| Focal Term (FT) | Word or phrase used metalinguistically and/or whose meaning is under discussion. |
| Definition (D) | Succinct, reasonably self-contained description of what a word or phrase means. Need not be exhaustive. May also be negative—defining a word by what it’s not. |
| Metalinguistic Cue (MC) | Word or short phrase cueing nearby metalanguage. |
| Direct Quote (DQ) | Span of text inside quotation marks. |
| Legal Source (LeS) | Citation or mention appealing to a legal document or authority. |
| Language Source (LaS) | Citation or mention appealing to an authority on language. |
Table 2: Categories of metalanguage annotated in the CuRIAM corpus ( Kranzlein et al., 2024 , from) .