This book owes a great deal to a great many people. To Dr. John Kearns, I am greatly indebted for untiring proofreading, expert editorial guidance and supporting the book from its inception. I am deeply grateful to Prof. Aleksander Szwedek and Prof. Piotr Stalmaszczyk for reading the entire manuscript and generously off ering advice, without which the completion of this work would have been diffi cult, if not impossible. My warm thanks go to my closest friends, who provided help in various forms, much needed during the four years of work on the project. In particular, my gratitude is due to Agnieszka Krzemień, whose careful reading dramatically improved the quality of the work, and Szymon Marciniak, who with patience and enthusiasm executed the almost one hundred fi gures contained in this book. I would also like to thank all my colleagues from the English Department at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń for creating an atmosphere of inspiration and encouragement. I owe the greatest debt to Prof. Tomasz Krzeszowski. First as an M.A. and then as a Ph.D. student, I had the great privilege of listening to him as a teacher and, later, of sharing ideas with him as a colleague. In retrospect, the decisive infl uence on my thinking about values was exerted during a seminar on linguistic axiology given by Prof. Krzeszowski at Nicolaus Copernicus University in the academic year 1995-1996. Th e seeds which were planted at that time, germinated and eventually led to this book.