This volume contains seven synchronic and diachronic empirical investigations into the expression and conceptualization of linguistic action in English, focusing on figurative extensions. The exlored issues are: source domains; the role of axiological parameter, the experiential grounding of metaphors expressing value judgements and the part played by image-schemata, how value judgements come about and their socio-cultural embedding. The graded character of metaphoricity and its correlation with degrees of recoverability/salience. The interaction of metonymy and metaphor. The role of image-schemata in the organization and development of a lexical subfield, the identification of source and target domains and the Invariance Hypothesis.