This paper introduces a strand of linguistic discourse analysis that is not much known both in Germanic discourse linguistics and in inter-disciplinary discourse research: sociolinguistic language ideology research or metapragmatics. The paper sketches the basic concepts of this approach, it shows how (communicative) ideologies are discursively negotiated and describes how metapragmatics models and analyzes the reinforcement of ideological concepts. Furthermore, the paper discusses socio-pragmatic functions of language ideologies. The theoretical and methodical elaborations are exemplified by means of a linguistic case in point: the invention of ›the Internet language‹ as a discursive and interpretive phenomenon.