Abstract Metalanguage, language about language, is one of language's most creative and intriguing properties. Yet it has rarely been crystallised as an analytical focus, nor has its occurrence been systematically described or scrutinised. This paper employs a focus on (explicit) metalanguage as a means to detect the extent to which a term and its denotational norms/indexical links are shared across a subset of language users. It argues that the relative amount of metalanguage focusing on a term, the term's ‘metalinguistic density’, offers insights about the term's status in a particular community. Specifically, it proposes the categories of Contentious, Common, and Unstable Terms to describe the contextually influenced behaviour of terms.

中文翻译：

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作为共享性指标的元语言密度：在线互动中的经济和金融术语

摘要 元语言，即关于语言的语言，是语言最具创造性和吸引力的特性之一。然而，它很少被具体化为分析焦点，也没有系统地描述或审查它的发生。本文重点关注（显式）元语言，以此作为检测术语及其指称规范/索引链接在语言用户子集之间共享的程度的一种手段。它认为，关注一个术语的元语言的相对数量，即术语的“元语言密度”，提供了有关该术语在特定社区中的地位的见解。具体来说，它提出了有争议的、常见的和不稳定的术语的类别来描述术语的上下文影响行为。