Challenging the Myth of Monolingual Corpora brings new insights into the monolingual ideal that has permeated most branches of linguistics, also corpus linguistics, for a long time. The volume brings together scholars in the many fields of English corpus linguistics from World Englishes, learner corpora and English as a Lingua Franca to the history of English. The approaches include perspectives of corpus compilation, annotation and use.

Despite the fact that transnational movement and intercultural encounter are the signs of our present time, questions of belonging and legitimation of citizenship in most West-European countries still largely depend on monolingual norms and the problematic conflation of the idea of a national language with that of the mother tongue. This volume explores literary negotiations of and challenges to this powerful myth of monolingualism in various, mostly West-European cultural contexts. The focus of these explorations ranges from the ethics of mono- and multilingualism and the persistent ideology of nativity and the native speaker, to multilingual strategies and the trials and tribulations of translating multilingual texts. The volume also contains contributions by awarded literary writers, such as Yoko Tawada, Ramsey Nasr, Chika Unigwe and Fouad Laroui: texts that demonstrate the creative multiplicity of language and the disruptive potential of multilingualism in action.

This book contributes to the discussion of challenges faced in different areas of corpus linguistics, namely the compilation, annotation, and analysis of linguistic corpora. In a field of growing corpus sizes and expanding possibilities of gathering data, some old issues persist, while at the same time new problems have emerged. As the compilation and study of language corpora gets increasingly sophisticated and complex, continuous attention on ways of dealing with the data in question and challenges in text selection and interpretation is needed. The contributions to this volume address problems relating to a variety of areas in corpus linguistic study, including corpus annotation, data variability, learner language, social media texts, and database utilization. The authors provide critical overviews and research-based analyses, discuss the nature of some of the common pitfalls, and offer solutions to existing problems.

The second edition of this successful text provides an ideal introduction for university students of English at the intermediate level. Students planning papers, dissertations or theses will find the book a particularly valuable guide. After introducing corpora and the rationale and basic methodology of corpus linguistics, the authors present a number of recent case studies providing new insights into vocabulary, collocations, phraseology, metaphor and metonymy, syntactic structures, male and female language, and language change. A final chapter shows how the web and social media can be used as a source for linguistic investigations and contains information on how to compile your own corpus. Each chapter includes study questions, exercises and updated suggestions for further reading.

Texts of the past were often not monolingual but were produced by and for people with bi- or multilingual repertoires; the communicative practices witnessed in them therefore reflect ongoing and earlier language contact situations. However, textbooks and earlier research tend to display a monolingual bias. This collected volume on multilingual practices in historical materials, including code-switching, highlights the importance of a multilingual approach. The authors explore multilingualism in hitherto neglected genres, periods and areas, introduce new methods of locating and analysing multiple languages in various sources, and review terminology, theories and tools. The studies also revisit some of the issues already introduced in previous research, such as Latin interacting with European vernaculars and the complex relationship between code-switching and lexical borrowing. Collectively, the contributors show that multilingual practices share many of the same features regardless of time and place, and that one way or the other, all historical texts are multilingual. This book takes the next step in historical multilingualism studies by establishing the relevance of the multilingual approach to understanding language history.

In Corpus Linguistics and Sociolinguistics, Beke Hansen provides an in-depth analysis of variation and change in the expression of modality in second-language varieties of English by adopting an integrated sociolinguistic and corpus-based approach.

Specialised English: New Directions in ESP and EAP Research and Practice provides an authoritative and cutting-edge account of the latest avenues of research and practice in the dynamic field of Specialised English. Ken Hyland and Lillian Wong present 17 specially commissioned chapters by some of the world’s leading experts to offer discussions of key topics in research, theory and pedagogy from a variety of international perspectives. Divided into three sections, which focus on conceptual issues, text and classroom practice, this book: Offers a clear and accessible introduction to current issues in EAP and ESP, including academic interaction, academic lingua franca, second language publishing, workplace talk, practitioner identity, data-driven learning and critical thinking Includes studies of a range of genres such as research articles and student reports, student spontaneous speech, personal statements, builders’ diaries and university tutorials Presents links between theory and practice with a sampling of different research methodologies, practical applications and theoretical approaches Specialised English is essential reading for upper-level undergraduate and postgraduate students and researchers in EAP/ESP and applied linguistics, as well as pre- and in-service teachers and teacher educators.