Research on metaphor, metonymy and application of cognitive linguistics has been moving into deeper territories. Classic topics of cognitive linguistics, i. e., categorization, prototypes and center-periphery radiations, conceptual metaphor, polysemy, constructions, meaning-driven and usage-frequency-based learning, are being increasingly intertwined with second-language pedagogy while simultaneously expanding toward social, cultural and interdisciplinary concerns. Building on introspective and psycholinguistic experimentation, new methods now include discourse analysis, corpus techniques and cognitive-neuroscientific approaches. With cognitive-linguistic inquiry situated in second-language teaching and the “real world” (see Low, Todd, Deignan & Cameron 2010; Cameron & Maslen 2010), this interview with Jeannette Littlemore, Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, President of the International Association for Researching and Applying Metaphor (2023-2027), and Professor of English Language and Linguistics at the University of Birmingham, foregrounds two key insights: (1) language is formed, developed, varied and innovated in use, governed by multi-dimensional factors beyond fixed rules; (2) cognitive linguistics can be an invisible yet powerful operational tool to understand lived experience and solve real-world problems, provided that its methodological and interdisciplinary boundaries continue to be pushed. Current international advances on construal, categorization, conceptual transfer, embodiment, resemblance, metonymy and gesture stand in contrast to China’s still-lagging scene marked by dispersion, redundancy and fragmentation; a stronger interdisciplinary research community is to be built up in urgency. Beyond the scholarship, Professor Littlemore’s reflections on academic life and her advice to doctoral students and early-career scholars offer timely inspiration.