ABSTRACT
Metalinguistic capacities are regarded as an integral part of metacognition, with metacognition defined as “all knowledge which has as its object, or regulates any aspect of, any cognitive task”. According to Gombert, the set of meta-abilities that is available to an individual includes metalinguistic ability, meta-learning, meta-attention, or the ability to pay attention voluntarily, social metacognition, and meta-memory, or the ability to control one’s own memory. The development from epilinguistic to metalinguistic behaviour can be observed in all linguistic domains, though epilinguistic and subsequently metalinguistic abilities emerge earlier in some domains than others. Researchers have highlighted the apparent link between the development of metalinguistic awareness and the onset of literacy in children who have the opportunity to go to school and learn to read and write. Existing research findings suggest that compared with monolingual children, bilingual children show enhanced metalinguistic abilities, and they are also superior in solving non-verbal problems that require them to ignore misleading information.
