This book collects the results of an investigation that examines the interplay between linguistic structures and cognitive process involved in the construal of illocutionary meaning; More specifically, the author focuses on directive, commissive and expressive speech acts. The analysis of these three speech acts is carried out by referring to the Cost-Benefit Cognitive Model, a recent theoretical framework that is circumscribed within Cognitive Linguistics and Golbergian Construction Grammar. According to this model, illocutionary meaning is instantiated by illocutionary constructions, i.e. entrenched and replicable lexico-grammatical configurations that activate relevant parts of the illocutionary scenario in connection to the situational context. By referring to the Cost-Benefit Cognitive Model, the author proposes a deep analysis of what illocutionary meaning is, demonstrating her research outcomes by generously referring to three corpus-based case studies of English.