1 - Introduction to a corpus in use

Summary

What this book is about

It is no exaggeration to say that corpora, and the study of corpora, have revolutionised the study of language, and of the applications of language, over the last few decades. The improved accessibility of computers has changed corpus study from a subject for specialists only to something that is open to all. The aim of this book is to introduce students of applied linguistics to corpus investigation. Its topic is, for the most part, studies that have been carried out on corpora in English, and much of the focus of the book relates to corpora used in English language teaching. Other applications, however, such as translation and investigations of ideology, are also included. Unfortunately, the large amount of work that has been carried out on languages other than English is not covered by this book.

Although the book deals with a range of issues, there are two themes that run consistently through it. One is the effect of corpus studies upon theories of language and how languages should be described. Corpora allow researchers not only to count categories in traditional approaches to language but also to observe categories and phenomena that have not been noticed before. The other major theme is a critical approach to the methods used in investigating corpora, and a comparison between them. Corpus findings can be seductive, and it is important to be aware of the possible pitfalls in their production.