Le paradoxe du métalangage

The essay discusses the contributions in vol. n. 4 of "Signata. Annales de sémiotiques / Annals of semiotics entitled Que peut the métalangage? / What Can Metalanguage Do?" based on an approach, such as that of glossematics by Louis Hjelmslev, which deals with the issue of meta-language in the science of language and in a perspective that derives from logical neopositivism. From the beginning of his research, Hjelmslev points out the fact that the language systems are not exclusively logical-mathematical systems, but they also incorporate the "law of participation". A meta-language is not a superior language which is separated from the language-object: there are no words above other words, no languages above other languages, but words deriving from other words, languages deriving from other languages through specifications, enlargements, restrictions of their significatum and their significance. A meta-language cannot say anything because it is subject to reside in the language. This is his paradox