In the concert of human expressions - including an individual  human’s expression - the ability to use different modalities, be they bodily based means or artefact-based expressions such as pictures, computer icons, logograms and syllabograms, there will arise needs for cross-referential expressions where one modality is used to ‘tell’ something about expressions in other modalities.

   Intentionally or unintentionally, norms for such translations will appear in the practical work of communicating  due to a need to bridge the tension inherent in paralleling different forms of expression. Metalinguistic awareness could be ascribed both to unintentional practices and to intentionally designed norms. The latter probably also rest on some unconscious presumptions (perhaps simply actions) why the concept of ‘metalinguistic awareness’ itself has to be chiseled out in the individual cases where it is used to constitute a proper characterization and a useful conceptual tool to describe advances (or changes) in metalinguistic awareness.