Research in Corpus Linguistics

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 that are have much greater generalizability and validity than would otherwise be feasible. Corpus linguistics is not in itself a model of language. Rather, it can be regarded as primarily a methodological approach; it is empirical, analyzing the actual patterns of use in natural texts. It utilizes a large and principled collection of natural texts, known as a corpus, as the basis for analysis. At the same time, corpus linguistics is more than a methodological approach, because these methodological innovations have enabled researchers to ask fundamentally different kinds of research questions, sometimes resulting in radically different perspectives on language variation and use from those taken in previous research. Corpus linguistic research offers strong support for the view that language variation is systematic and can be described using empirical, quantitative methods.