The volume contributes to historical pragmatics an important chapter on what has so far not been paid adequate attention to, i.e. historical metapragmatics. More particularly, the collected papers apply a meta-communicative approach to historical texts by focusing on lexis that either directly or metaphorically identifies or characterizes entire forms of communication or single acts and act sequences or minor units. Within the context of their use, such lexical expressions, in fact, provide a key for disclosing historical forms of communication; taken out of context, they build the meta-communicative lexicon.
The articles follow three principal distinctions in that they investigate the meta-communicative profile of genres, meta-communicative lexical sets and meta-communicative ethics and ideologies. They cover a broad spectrum of text types that span the entire history of the English language from Anglo-Saxon chronicles to computer-mediated communication.

Akin Odebunmi, University of Ibadan, Nigeria, in Discourse Studies Vol. 16:6 (2014):
Investigations into the Meta-Communicative Lexicon of English is a masterful and frontline demonstration of the vibrant field of meta-pragmatics in terms of the analysis presented. Its completely engaging style is a testimony to the authoritative scholastic depth both of the editors and of the authors. I strongly commend it to all scholars who are interested in pragmatics and other related disciplines, such as discourse analysis, stylistics, applied linguistics, anthropology, historical linguistics and semiotics.