This chapter explores key theoretical frameworks supporting the view that language and cognition are deeply embodied. It offers a synthesis of research related to affordances, affective valence, and the grounding of abstract concepts in the sensorimotor system. We focus on affordances as originally conceptualized by Gibson (Perceiving, acting, and knowing: Toward an ecological psychology. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1977), with a particular emphasis on Bergson’s (Matter and memory, Zone Books, 2007) account in Matter and Memory (1896) linking perception to action. We discuss how object affordances are activated during language processing, and review evidence that language engages affordances and motor systems (e.g., micro-affordances; ACE; motor somatotopy), alongside recent overviews from Borghi and her colleagues (Borghi, Synthese, 199(5–6), 12485–12515, 2021; Psychological Research, 86(8), 2448–2456, 2022; Borghi & Riggio, Brain Research, 1253, 117–128, 2009; Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 9, 351, 2015; Borghi et al., Memory & Cognition 32, 863–873, 2004). Later, we discuss the theory of affective valence as an embodied phenomenon, highlighting research suggesting that emotional valence is mentally represented along spatial dimensions, such as up for positive and down for negative emotions (e.g., (Cian, Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 2, 444–459, 2017; Crawford, Emotion Review, 1(2), 129–139, 2009; Meier, & Robinson, Psychological Science 15, 243–247, 2004). The final section considers whether and how both abstract and concrete language is grounded in sensorimotor systems, reviewing recent studies (e.g., Desai et al., Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 23, 2376–2386, 2011) that investigate the extent to which bodily systems are recruited during language comprehension.