The authors set out to demonstrate that metaphorical extension is pervasive in technical and scientific texts. In fact, corpus analysis shows that its presence is significant, and that it plays an important role at levels of the text, such as the following: (1) Terminographic meaning: new terminological units are often created through metaphorical extension. (2)Phraseological meaning: many of the phrases in specialized texts are directly related to the OBJECT image schema, instantiated in terminological hierarchies. (3)Propositional meaning: predicates in scientific and technical texts can generate frames which include arguments with specific selection restrictions or semantic characteristics. This in turn activates specific parameters of meaning. (4) Textual meaning: metaphor also appears at a more generic level as a text structuring mechanism, and are instantiations of the EVENT-STRUCTURE system. (Pamela Faberand Carlos Marquez)