Writing in English, German, or French, more than 300 authors provide a historical description of the beginnings and of the early and subsequent development of thinking about language and languages within the relevant historical context. The gradually emerging institutions concerned with the study, organisation, documentation, and distribution are considered as well as those dealing with the utilisation of language related knowledge. Special emphasis has been placed on related disciplines, such as rhetoric, the philosophy of language, cognitive psychology, logic and neurological science.

The second international Chromatiques whiteheadiennes conference was devoted exclusively to the exegesis and contextualization of Whitehead's Science and the Modern World (1925). In order to elucidate the meaning and significance of this epoch-making work, the Proceedings are designed to form "companion" volume. With one paper devoted to each of its thirteen chapters, the Proceedings aim, on the one hand, to identify the specific contribution of each chapter to Whitehead's own research program - that is to say, to put its categories into perspective by means of an internal analysis- and, on the other hand, to identify its global impact in the history of ideas.