This dissertation identifies and discusses the use of metalanguage in the classical Chinese text of the Laozi. Taking language as a form of life, in a Wittgensteinian – perspectivist rather than relativist – sense, it assumes that encounters between different forms of life/languages do not correspond to mere clashes between incommensurable conceptual schemes or modes of existence. They are, rather, instances where these forms of life may be brought to glimpse, however precariously, at their own unfounded, non-intellectual bases, and furthermore, occasions with potential for transformation, prone to dislocate not only discernible ideologies, but also highly entrenched pre-conceptual convictions. The study presented here elaborates and investigates the premise – called the Metalinguistic Perspectivism Hypothesis (MPH) – that different metalinguistic repertoires do not get to name universal, language independent entities. On the contrary, they testify to cultural and historical circumstances, and ultimately to forms of being in the world that encompass subterraneous propensities and preconceptual certainties, thus having a direct and coercive effect on how we conceive and experience what language is. To advance the investigation of the MPH, we examine a selection of metalinguistic passages in the Laozi, by adopting a comparative approach along two main paths: etymology and translation. The etymological comparative analysis between Chinese metalinguistic terms and their counterparts in the Greco-Western tradition shows ample evidence of the stark contrast between their deep-rooted visions of language and historically motivated categories, reinforced by the alterity of the grapho-etymological activity of the Chinese tradition. Additionally, the comparison of translations/commentaries of contextualized metalinguistic uses in the Laozi (into English, Portuguese, French and modern Mandarin) confirms that the authors are motivated by significantly different underlying metalinguistic repertoires, tacitly - at work in their interactions with the Chinese text: they often employ sharply diverse strategies which testify to how the authors strive to accept and/or reject the practices they construe from the original text. The evidence for the MPH is shown to manifest in the following central axes: the relationship between speech and writing; the role of language in the civilization/nature nexus; the question of the centrality of meaning in language; the relation between metaphor, literality and image; and the problem of names.