The terms ‘proximity’ and ‘distance’ signify conceptual characteristics of orality and literacy. In that branch of linguistic research dealing with linguistic variation, ‘proximity vs. distance’ is a central area of enquiry along with fields such as dialectology, languages for specialist purposes or text typology. The present volume examines commonalities and differences along the topic areas of ‘proximity and diatopic variation,’ ‘proximity and diachronic variation,’ ‘proximity and diaphasic variation’ and ‘proximity and grammaticalisation.’