Metalanguage and Identity: From Narration to Reflection

How does language attain to rear view reflection and then timeless analysis? How does language garner its conceptualisation in order to do this?

This book is an exploration of the process in which everyday narrative language can become reflective and then analytical. Narrative language is viewed as a way of ’becoming’ within the flow of time and therefore life.

Evans and Herat show that there are levels in language that correspond with conceptual structures existing in the mind and in wider society, which shape the formation of a metalanguage. They explore how metaphor is an important creative tool in raising language to a more conceptual level in the constitution of a metalanguage. The book considers the development of different strands of metalanguage, for example, mind-based logic, physically based metaphor and universal grammar, to provide a fuller account of language and identity by challenging sweeping existential accounts of language.

By studying the formation and application of metalanguage, the authors show it can help develop a more questioning, dialogic critical pedagogy in education to accustom students to develop critical awareness.

David Evans is a Fellow in the School of Education Studies at Liverpool Hope University, UK.

Manel Herat is Senior Lecturer in English and Linguistics at Liverpool Hope University, UK.