This chapter introduces the study of politeness metapragmaticsMetapragmatics. We begin by introducing the concept of metapragmatics in Sect. 2.2, before walking the reader through a brief history of how metapragmatics emerged from oblivion to become a key concern in politeness research (Sect. 2.3). In Sect. 2.4, we overview recent literature on politeness metapragmatics, based on Kádár and Haugh’s distinction between four types metapragmatic awareness: metalinguistic, metacommunicative, metadiscursive and metacognitive. Finally, in Sect. 2.5 we identify research opportunities in metapragmatics that we aim to address in the current study, before we conclude the chapter in Sect. 2.6. Overall, this chapter provides an overview of the field of politeness metapragmaticsMetapragmatics and its history, introduces a framework for studying metapragmatics in the context of im/politenessIm/politeness and outlines research opportunities we identified for the current study.