ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the different resources that German and English have exploited to categorize the varied aspects of the domain of linguistic action. It notes from the start that, although the two languages tap different grammatical resources, the conceptual processes expressing this domain of linguistic action are very much the same. The chapter concentrates on three aspects: the source of talk, the quality of the message and the effect of talk. It introduces, instead of the terms 'container' and 'contained', the more general terms 'landmark' and 'trajector'. The landmark is the entity to or from which something moves or where something is or the state it is in; the trajector is the entity which moves or which is somewhere or in a certain state. The chapter presents the comparison between the prototypical use of grammatical resources to conceptualize the varied aspects of processes of linguistic action in German and English has revealed a number of interesting facts.
