Corpus-Based and Corpus-driven Analyses of Language Variation and Use

Corpus linguistics is a research approach that has developed over the past few decades to support empirical investigations of language variation and use, resulting in research findings which have much greater generalizability and validity than would otherwise be feasible. Corpus studies have used two major research approaches: 'corpus-based' and 'corpus-driven'. Corpus-based research assumes the validity of linguistic forms and structures derived from linguistic theory. The primary goal of research is to analyse the systematic patterns of variation and use for those pre-defined linguistic features. Corpus-driven research is more inductive, so that the linguistic constructs themselves emerge from analysis of a corpus. This chapter illustrates the kinds of analyses and perspectives on language use possible from both corpus-based and corpus-driven approaches.