Mentioning

Mentioning is the act of referring to something in speech or writing. In linguistics and philosophy of language, mentioning is distinguished from using a term to refer to its ordinary denotation. When you mention a term, you talk about the term itself rather than about what the term stands for.

A typical distinction is illustrated with examples. The sentence “The word ‘tree’ has four letters” mentions the word tree; it uses the term in a metalinguistic sense to discuss the word as a linguistic object. By contrast, “Trees provide oxygen” uses the word to refer to the plants themselves. Quotation marks, italics, or other devices often help signal that a term is being mentioned rather than used.

Mentioning plays a central role in metalinguistic discourse, linguistic analysis, and philosophy. It enables speakers to discuss language, terms, and meanings without committing to the denotation of the terms in question. The act can be explicit, as in direct quotations, or implicit, as when a term is referred to in a descriptive or analytic context. Related concepts include quotation, references to words as objects, and the distinction between mention and use operators in semantic theories.

In digital communication, the term mentions also has a practical sense: mentioning a user typically means directing a message to that user by tagging or notifying them (for example, using an @ symbol). This usage differs from general content mentions by prioritizing social notification and attribution.