Metalinguistic Awareness

Metalinguistic awareness is a cognitive process that allows a person to monitor and control their use of language. It is a type of metacognition, which is an awareness and control of one's own knowledge and cognitive processes (being able to think about thinking). Metalinguistic awareness is the ability to see language as a code and separate it from its symbolic meaning. It is also an ability to think about language and structure objectively. People vary in their metalinguistic awareness capabilities with high levels being a strong predictor of language development and ability to acquire new languages.