Frontmatter -- Preface -- Contents -- Contributors -- Introduction -- Metalanguage: Why now? -- Part 1. Approaches to metalanguage -- Introduction to Part 1 -- Sociolinguistic perspectives on metalanguage: Reflexivity, evaluation and ideology -- Notes on the role of metapragmatic awareness in language use -- Folk metalanguage -- Part 2. Metalanguage and ideological construction -- Introduction to Part 2 -- Metalanguage in social life -- Restoring the order: Metalanguage in the press coverage of Princess Diana's Panorama interview -- Lying, politics and the metalinguistics of truth -- Part 3. Metalanguage and social evaluation -- Introduction to Part 3 -- Social meaning and norm-ideals for speech in a Danish community -- Adolescents' lexical repertoires of peer evaluation: Boring prats and English snobs -- Teachers' beliefs about students' talk and silence: Constructing academic success and failure through metapragmatic comments -- Part 4. Metalanguage and stylisation -- Introduction to Part 4 -- Stylised deception -- Metadiscourses of culture in British TV commercials -- Retroshopping: Sentiment, sensation and symbolism on the high street -- Commentary -- Out of the bottle: The social life of metalanguage -- Index