Editorial: Reviews in language sciences

During the last decades, language sciences have experienced a notable development that has resulted in a deeper understanding of what language is and how it is put into use for fulfilling different functions. Accordingly, we have gained a clearer view of language within the infrastructure of human cognition, including how it is processed by the brain, how it is impaired in people with pathological conditions, how it is acquired by the child, or how it evolved in our species, to name a few. Likewise, we have also made substantial progress in understanding the principles that govern human interaction through language, as observed in daily conversations, but also in many other speech events. Additionally, we nowhave comprehensive descriptions of thousands of language varieties across the world, from languages to sociolects to registers to styles, as well as detailed characterizations of the physical and sociocultural factors that contribute to regulating such linguistic diversity. Overall, this has notably improved our comprehension of the causes of linguistic diversity, and ultimately, the position of language(s) within human behavior. Methodologically, we nowusemoresophisticated tools and procedures for analyzing language at all levels, which has resulted in richer data about language facts, and ultimately, in more robust theories about language. Finally, we have also made a significant effort at translating all these discoveries to society, which has crystallized in e.g., better speech therapies aimed to help people with language disorders or more accurate language policies intended to regulate language use in complex, multilingual societies.