Speaking of Language: Reflections on Metalanguage Research in NLP

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Nathan Schneider, Antonios Anastasopoulos

Published: 2026, Last Modified: 26 May 2026CoRR 2026EveryoneRevisionsBibTeXCC BY-SA 4.0
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.