Existing research indicates that instructed learners' L2 proficiency and their metalinguistic knowledge are moderately correlated. However, the operationalization of the construct of metalinguistic knowledge has varied somewhat across studies. Metalinguistic knowledge has typically been operationalized as learners' ability to correct, describe, and explain L2 errors. More recently, this operationalization has been extended to additionally include learners' L1 language-analytic ability as measured by tests traditionally used to assess components of language learning aptitude. This article reports on a study which employed a narrowly focused measure of L2 proficiency and incorporated L2 language-analytic ability into a measure of metalinguistic knowledge. It was found that the linguistic and metalinguistic knowledge of advanced universitylevel L1 English learners of L2 German correlated strongly. Moreover, the outcome of a principal components analysis suggests that learners' ability to correct, describe, and explain highlighted L2 errors and their L2 languageanalytic ability may constitute components of the same construct. The theoretical implications of these findings for the concept of metalinguistic knowledge in L2 learning are considered.

This paper discusses proposed characteristics of implicit linguistic and explicit metalinguistic knowledge representations as well as the properties of implicit and explicit processes believed to operate on these representations. In accordance with assumptions made in the usage-based approach to language and language acquisition, it is assumed that implicit linguistic knowledge is represented in terms of flexible and context-dependent categories which are subject to similarity-based processing. It is suggested that, by contrast, explicit metalinguistic knowledge is characterized by stable and discrete Aristotelian categories which subserve conscious, rule-based processing. The consequences of these di¤erences in category structure and processing mechanisms for the usefulness or otherwise of metalinguistic knowledge in second language learning and performance are explored. Reference is made to existing empirical and theoretical research about the role of metalinguistic knowledge in second language acquisition, and specific empirical predictions arising out of the line of argument adopted in the current paper are put forward.Keywords: categorization; explicit and implicit knowledge; metalinguistic knowledge; second language learning, usage-based model.

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