The metamodel in Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is a model of (primarily) linguistic models that people have.

The metamodel is especially concerned with eliminating the flaws of those models. In the initial formulation of the metamodel, the flaws are categorized into the following general groups:

• deletions, e.g. A bike was stolen -- the agent has been deleted.
• distortions, e.g. You have totally ruined my bike!!! -- distorted if there's only a minor scratch.
• generalizations, e.g. Every time I lend you anything it comes back broken -- generalized over all instances.

Because people's linguistic models of reality guide their behavior (see: the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis), such flaws can have devastating effects in real life. The metamodel contains a set of questions to eliminate the three categories of flaws.

The metamodel was initially developed by Richard Bandler and John Grinder in 1975. Its roots can be traced back to the work of Alfred Korzybski and even further to the nominalistic tradition of William of Ockham.

An effort unrelated by origin but going in the same direction of improving clarity of communication is the constructed language Loglan (and its close cousin, Lojban).

Related topics

• List of NLP topics
• Modeling (NLP)
• General semantics
• E-Prime
• Knowledge representation

References

• Richard Bandler, John Grinder: The Structure of Magic: A Book About Language and Therapy, ISBN 0831400447
• Richard Bandler, John Grinder: The Structure of Magic II: A Book About Communication and Change, ISBN 0831400498

External links

• What is metamodeling?
• Citations from CiteSeer