An Empirical Study On Metalanguage In College English Classroom

In the 1930s, Polish logician Alfred Tarski originally presented the notion"metalanguage", which refers to the language used to talk about the language itself and is distinguished from"object language"used to talk about the objective world. For a long period, it has been restrained in the field of philosophy and has not received much attention from the field of linguistics, especially applied linguistics and foreign language teaching. The distinction of philosophical metalanguage and linguistic metalanguage initiated by Li Baojia (2002) accelerates the research on linguistic metalanguage. In light of the related theories of linguistics and language teaching, this study focuses language classroom in which metalanguage is used widely, takes language in college English classroom as the research object to elaborate the form and content of it as one kind of metalanguage so as to generalize its specific model to interpret and describe language. In this way, the paper attempts to prove that classroom language research is an access to evaluate language classroom teaching.Based on the related achievements of the researches on metalanguage, metalinguistics and classroom language abroad and at home, this paper discusses the definition and scope of metalanguage in college English classroom in terms of the concept of metalanguage in general, and elaborates its nature as descriptive and interpretive language, artificial language in the form of natural language and language including metalinguistic knowledge and metalinguistic competence. Under this orientation, the criterion to evaluate metalanguage in college English classroom is established,combined with the discussion about related factors and Input-Output hypothesis. Several aspects concerned about language teaching are analyzed, the metalinguistic nature of language input and output is discussed and the interaction between teachers'input and students'output is emphasized. The paper centers on the empirical study of metalanguage in college English classroom. It collects the data from classroom observation and survey by questionnaire and interview, analyzes actual status of metalanguage and discusses the problems and solutions.Major findings of the research can be generalized into two parts. One part is about the metalinguistic nature of teaching language in college English classrooms, form and content of metlanguage (main expressive forms, organizational models, patterns of sentence and questions, interaction modes and strategies and so on), and the problems of it (e.g. unilateral teaching views lead to static metalanguage which affect students'enthusiasm). The other part is about the implications for metalinguistic research and teaching practice. It is suggested that researchers and educators should notice the trend of research fields, objects and methods of metalinguistic research and understand that metalinguistic theory guides teaching practice while teaching practice provides reference for metalinguistic theory. Besides, teachers'role and their views guided by teaching aims should be emphasized, comprehensive teaching models and various techniques should be developed and metalinguistic competence and awareness of teachers and students should be cultivated in teaching. In the author's opinion, classroom metalanguage is not only an important subject in the research of metalanguage, but also a valid access to evaluate classroom teaching. Deep research in this field will promote the development of the theory and practice of metalanguage and foreign language teaching in China.