Re: A challenge to the definition of metadiscourse

[Caroline Small <caroline -at- WOLFRAM -dot- COM>]

> Metadata is not "more comprehensive" or "more
> fundamental" than other data.  It's data *about* other data--a computer
> model of data formats and data mappings rather than a computer model of
> other sorts of things.  The distinction has to do with the content, i.e.
> what the data represents, not a mode of speaking or level of
> comprehensiveness.

I'll quote, again, the website I originally referred to, which argues that
metadata does indeed have an underlying--or more fundamental--quality, and
which clearly implies a philosophically consistent definition of meta-
across all disciplinary uses.


"The Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) defines rules for how a
document can be described in terms of its logical structure (headings,
paragraphs or idea units, and so forth). SGML is often referred to as a
metalanguage because it provides a "language for how to describe a
language." A specific use of SGML is called a document type definition
(DTD).  A document type definition spells out exactly what the allowable
language is. A DTD is thus a metalanguage for a certain type of document.
(In fact, the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is an example of a document
type definition. HTML defines the set of HTML tags that any Web page can
contain.)

"The Extensible Markup Language (XML), which is comparable to SGML and
modelled on it, describes how to describe a collection of data. It's
sometimes referred to as metadata. A specific XML definition, such as
Microsoft's new Channel Definition Format (CDF), defines a set of tags for
describing a Web channel. XML could be considered the metadata for the
more restrictive metadata of CDF (and other future data definitions based
on XML).

"In the case of SGML and XML, "meta" connotes "underlying definition" or
set of rules..."


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