Metalanguage

Broadly, any metalanguage is language or symbols used when language itself is being discussed or examined. In logic and linguistics, a metalanguage is a language used to make statements about statements in another language (the object language). Expressions in a metalanguage are often distinguished from those in an object language by the use of italics, quotation marks, or writing on a separate line.

Types of metalanguage

There is a variety of recognized metalanguages, including embedded, ordered, and nested (or, hierarchical).

Embedded metalanguage

An embedded metalanguage is a language formally, naturally and firmly fixed in an object language. This idea is found in Douglas Hofstadter's book, Gödel, Escher, Bach, in a 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." It occurs in natural, or informal, languages, as well—such as in English, where words such as noun, verb, or even word describe features and concepts pertaining to the English language itself.

Language Learning (journal)

Language Learning: A Journal of Research in Language Studies is a peer-reviewed academic journal published quarterly by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the Language Learning Research Club at the University of Michigan. The editor-in-chief is Nick C. Ellis University of Michigan.

Language Learning covers research on "fundamental theoretical issues in language learning such as child, second, and foreign language acquisition, language education, bilingualism, literacy, language representation in mind and brain, culture, cognition, pragmatics, and intergroup relations". The journal has two annual supplements, the Best of Language Learning Series and the Language Learning Monograph Series. It is also published in association with a biennial monograph, the Language Learning-Max Planck Institute Cognitive Neurosciences Series.

According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal has a 2011 impact factor of 1.218, ranking it 26th out of 161 journals in the category "Linguistics" and 42nd out of 203 journals in the category "Education & Educational Research".