ABSTRACT
Language awareness, linguistic awareness, and metalinguistic awareness are terms that one comes across repeatedly in the more recent literature related to literacy acquisition skills. The concept denoted by these more or less synonymous terms (Downing & Valtin, 1984) has been described along the dimensions of: (a) a transparent, opaque use of language (Cazden, 1974), (b) implicit or explicit intuitions about language structure and its functional properties (Ehri, 1978), and (c) unconscious to conscious or deliberate manipulation and control over language usage (Ryan, 1980; Tunmer & Herriman, 1984), and has been defined as including “all the capacities and activities concerning language and language judgment which are not themselves a part of (or very closely tied to) production and comprehension processes.” These include “Any reflections, ideas, knowledge, rules etc; concerning language structures, functions or the rules for its use …” (Sinclair, 1981, pp. 44–45).
