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Describe vs Metalanguage - What's the difference?

describe | metalanguage |

As a verb describe

is to represent in words.

As a noun metalanguage is

any language or vocabulary of specialized terms used to describe or analyze a language or linguistic process.

describe

English

Verb

(describ)
  • (label) To represent in words.
  • * November 2 2014 , Daniel Taylor, " Sergio Agüero strike wins derby for Manchester City against 10-man United," guardian.co.uk
  • Yet the truth is that City would probably have been coasting by that point if the referee, Michael Oliver, had not turned down three separate penalties, at least two of which could be accurately described as certainties.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1959, author=(Georgette Heyer), title=(The Unknown Ajax), chapter=1
  • , passage=
  • (label) To represent by drawing; to draw a plan of; to delineate; to trace or mark out.
  • * 1826 , (James Fenimore Cooper), (The Last of the Mohicans)
  • Uncas described an arc in the water with his own blade, and as the canoe passed swiftly on, Chingachgook recovered his paddle, and flourishing it on high, he gave the war-whoop of the Mohicans.
  • To give rise to a geometrical structure.
  • To reveal a new species by scientifically explaining its characteristics and particularly how it differs from other species.
  • (label) To distribute into parts, groups, or classes; to mark off; to class.
  • * Bible, (w) xviii. 9
  • Passed through the land, and described it by cities into seven parts in a book.

    Synonyms

    * (to represent in words) portray, betell, depict, report * (to represent in writing) bewrite

    metalanguage

    Noun

  • (linguistics, translation studies, critical theory) Any language or vocabulary of specialized terms used to describe or analyze a language or linguistic process.
  • * 2005 , Michael Cronin, Training for the New Millennium: Pedagogies for translation and interpreting , edited by Martha Tennent, Benjamins Translation Library, p. 255:
  • In order to talk or theorise about phenomena, one inevitably uses a language that is in effect a metalanguage , a special instance of language that allows the theorist to stand back and describe what is happening.
  • (computing) Any similar language used to define a programming language.
  • See also

    * object language