This volume contains papers presented at a symposium in honor of Cornelis H. van Schooneveld and invited papers on the topics of invariance, markedness, distinctive feature theory and deixis. It is not a Festschrift in the usual sense of the word, but more of a collection of articles which represent a very specific way of defining and viewing language and linguistics. The specific approach presented in this volume has its origins and inspirations in the theoretical and methodological paradigm of European Structuralism in general, and the sign-oriented legacy of Ferdinand de Saussure and Charles Sanders Peirce and the functional and communication-oriented approach of the Prague School in particular. The book is divided in three sections: theoretical and methodological overview; studies in Russian and Slavic languages; and applications to other languages, language families, and aphasia.