Several current linguistic approaches converge in rejecting the wide-spread idea that language is an autonomous system, i.e. that it is structured independently from the outside world and the natural equipment of language users. Around the world, semiotically biased linguistics (functionalism, naturalism, etc.) takes this position, which differentiates it very clearly from generative linguistics. One of the basic assumptions of such approaches is that language structure includes some non-arbitrary aspects, from the phonological through the textual level, and a great amount of research has occurred in the last decade regarding the “iconic aspects” of language(s).

This volume contains papers which reflect current discussions in the study of speech actions. The collection was inspired by the papers presented at Meaning, Context and Cognition, the first international conference integrating cognitive linguistics and pragmatics initiated by the Department of English Language and Applied Linguistics of the University of Łódź (Poland) in 2011 and held annually.

The origins of this volume lie in the international conference Cognitive Linguistics in the Year 2012, convened by the Polish Cognitive Linguistics Association. The proceedings of the conference revolved around three major thematic areas: metaphorical and metonymic underpinnings of meaning in language and beyond, prototypical and gradual phenomena pertaining to linguistic categorization across the lexicogrammatical continuum, and the need for advancing theoretical tools. These recurring themes are reflected in the three-part structure of this volume, with contributions from nearly two dozen researchers exploring a broad array of linguistic as well as non-linguistic data.

In Cognitive Linguistics, polysemy is regarded as a categorizing phenomenon; i.e., related meanings of words form categories centering around a prototype and bearing family resemblance relations to one another. Under this polysemy = categorization view, the scope of investigation has been gradually broadened from categories in the lexical and lexico-grammatical domain to morphological, syntactic, and phonological categories.

This volume presents a selection of the best papers from the Fifth International Conference on Historical Linguistics (ICHL), which was held in Galway, April 6–10 1981. These papers provide an overview of work in the field of historical linguistics, covering a wide variety of topics and languages.