This special issue journal is a collection of seven contributions dealing with questions around figurative speech from different perspectives: Benninger deals with metaphorical nominal groups and shows that quantification plays an important role. Marque-Pucheu looks at prepositional groups where the dimensions spatial/non-spatial are predominant. Basing their study on the translation of metaphorical constructions in French, Greek and Japanese Salteri-Cacouros and Tamba show what translation can bring for the interpretation of metaphorical nominal constructions. Watteau looks at how young children understand metaphors. Rumelhart is interested by the difference between literal and figurative speech. Bianchi chooses a contextualist approach to explain and understand metaphorical uses. Rastier focuses on tropes and on their understanding. (Sabine De Knop)