| 释义 |
metalanguage|mɛtəˈlæŋgwɪdʒ, ˈmɛtə-|
[See meta- 1, 1 b.]
A language which supplies terms for the analysis of an ‘object’ language; a system of propositions about other propositions.
[1935A. Tarski in Studia Philosophica I. 282 Die Namen der Ausdrücke der ersten Sprache und der zwischen ihnen bestehenden Relationen gehören schon zu der zweiten Sprache, der sog. Metasprache (welche übrigens die Grundsprache als Fragment enthalten kann).] 1936Mind XLV. 486 The concepts analytic and contradictory in the language L, for instance, cannot be defined in L, as Carnap has shown. In order to escape from these restrictions one must build up a new language (a so-called meta-language) disposing of more means of expressing thoughts than the former. 1947H. Reichenbach Elem. Symbolic Logic i. 9 We say that signs of signs constitute a language of a higher level, which we call metalanguage. 1948L. Hjelmslev in Studia Linguistica I. 75 This would mean, in logistic terms, that linguistics is a metalanguage of the first degree, whereas phonetics and semantics are metalanguages of the second degree. 1954A. J. Ayer Philos. Ess. 12 Particulars, considered as occasions, would be referred to only at the level of the meta-language; when it was a question not of using the language, but of talking about its use. 1959Listener 1 Oct. 520/1 We can then avoid the clumsy term ‘meta-language’—the name for the language in which we talk about the terms of any formalized language. 1960E. Delavenay Introd. Machine Transl. vii. 110 Between metalanguage and pure poetry, from the clear and distinct expression of a scientific representation to the synthetic expression of the vibrations of the poet's ego at the centre of his individual universe, there exists a whole vast range of untranslatables. 1962Times Lit. Suppl. 13 Apr. 252/5 Machine translation research may be of value..in that, because one of its basic techniques is the establishment of a meta⁓language or intermediate language of ideas, it is in principle capable of constructing automatically an abstract. 1964C. Cherry in Endeavour Jan. 13/2 A meta-language is a formal language-system for describing language or a linguistic source. Strictly, a book of grammar is written in a meta-language—it defines a syntax but is itself not literature. 1973Computers & Humanities VII. 223 Each segment is analyzed as to content and translated into a ‘meta-language’, which allows unambiguous comparisons among the variant readings.
Hence ˈmeta-ˈmetaˌlanguage, a language used in the description of another language which is itself a meta-language; the universal linguistic or symbolic system from which a particular metalanguage derives.
1954I. M. Copi Symbolic Logic App. B. 341 The first of these is the meta-metalanguage's synonym for the name relation in the metalanguage. 1957N. Chomsky Syntactic Struct. vi. 54 Linguistic theory will thus be formulated in a metalanguage to the language in which grammars are written—a metametalanguage to any language for which a grammar is constructed. 1963H. B. Curry Found. Math. Logic ii. 31 In that case we use a third language, L3, customarily called the metametalanguage. 1967Encycl. Philos. VII. 352/2 A proof of adequacy..requires an inductive argument of the meta-metalanguage. |