Speaking of Language: Reflections on Metalanguage Research in NLP
arXiv:2604.02645
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.
To appear at the Big Picture Workshop at ACL 2026. Camera-ready version