Additionally, four main related arguments are pursued: the need to see metaphor interpretation, and the criteria used in interpretation, as emerging from the speech event in which hearers understand themselves to be participating (section 2). One consequence of this is that what a metaphor means is only partially predictable when detached from its interactional context. The claims for 'creativity' in metaphor understanding are then discussed (3), before elucidating, in (4), an emphasis on metaphor as risk-taking (where there is particular reference to literary examples). In the final section (5) the possibilities of specifying clines of metaphoricity are explored with reference to the possible usefulness of the concepts of collocation and culturally salient core metaphors.