The leitmotif of the fourth volume of New Pathways in Linguistics is emotions as cognitive processes.

The recent years have brought a growing scholarly awareness of the nonlinear, dynamic and emergent nature of language processes. Natural language, while having a dual design, which is both mental and physical, is essentially a dynamic, multilayer and momentary process, fed by and co-existing with other life processes within the macroscale of the global ecosystem, as well as within the microscale of the individual communicator's biological-mental constitution. Emotions as cognitive processes are the key mechanisms in the ever-changing, pulsating language process. It is cognitive emotions that individuate language and communication.