Adam Jaworski, Nikolas Coupland and Dariusz Galasiński (eds.), Metalanguage: Social and ideological perspectives. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2004. Pp 324. Pb Euro 30,79.

It is commonplace in linguistics to argue that human language is unique in being able to represent itself, an insight that has underpinned much of the early work undertaken by sociolinguists in the area of language attitudes and folk linguistics. However, the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of sociolinguistics, informed not least by recent work in (critical) discourse analysis and language ideology studies, has highlighted the extent to which this central metalinguistic function represents more than a mere cognitive ability to reflect on language “as object.” This is because it is through metalanguage (ML) that we are able to convey our ideas not only about what language is, but what we think it ought to be. As such, ML shows itself to be more than simply self-serving: It is inherently ideological. Seen in conjunction with an increasing awareness of the nature of language as not only socially contextualized but also contextualizing, the notion of metalinguistic competence is therefore closely bound up with hegemonic struggle at a particular point in history (late modernity) when many traditional social boundaries might well be being dismantled but where new ones are constantly emerging in their stead – a process to which language and discourse are indisputably central.