ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors provides an overview of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) metalinguistic research, which allows them to highlight general results and to formulate research perspectives. Researchers mainly investigated the relationship between metalinguistic constructs and learning success, whether related to a language skill, language proficiency in general or academic success. The chapter presents most correlational studies which investigastes metalinguistic knowledge operationalized through explicit knowledge tasks such as error identification, correction and explanation tasks. F. Reder investigated the metalinguistic awareness of second language young learners of German compared with that of monolinguals. Metalinguistic awareness was measured through a questionnaire eliciting verbalizations about language. The analyses only revealed one positive correlation between working memory and metalinguistic awareness. One of the earliest correlational studies is Sorace, who examined the relationship between oral production and metalinguistic knowledge, measured using a grammaticality judgement task and an identification, correction and explanation of error task, and found a positive correlation between both variables.
