This work is designed, firstly, to both provoke theoretical discussion and serve as a practical guide for researchers and students in the field of corpus linguistics and, secondly, to offer a wide-ranging introduction to corpus techniques for practitioners of discourse studies. It delves into a wide variety of language topics and areas including metaphor, irony, evaluation, (im)politeness, stylistics, language change and sociopolitical issues. Each chapter begins with an outline of an area, followed by case studies which attempt both to shed light on particular themes in this area and to demonstrate the methodologies which might be fruitfully employed to investigate them. The chapters conclude with suggestions on activities which the readers may wish to undertake themselves. An Appendix contains a list of currently available resources for corpus research which were used or mentioned in the book.

This book brings together a number of empirical studies that use corpora to study discourse patterns in speech and writing. It explores new trends in the area of text and discourse characterized by the alliance between text linguistics and areas such as corpus linguistics, genre analysis, literary stylistics and cross-linguistic studies. The contributions to the volume show how established corpora can be used to ask a number of new questions about the interface between speech and writing, the relation between grammar and discourse, academic discourse, cohesive markers, stylistic devices such as metaphor, deixis and non-verbal communication. The corpora used for text-analysis can also be tailor-made for the study of particular genres such as journal article abstracts, lectures, e-mailing list messages, headlines and titles. A recent development is to bring in contrastive data from bilingual corpora to show what is language-specific in the organization of the text.

This edited collection brings together contemporary research that uses corpus linguistics to carry out discourse analysis. The book takes an inclusive view of the meaning of discourse, covering different text-types or modes of language, including discourse as both social practice and as ideology or representation.

Patterns and Meanings consists of case studies which make use of corpora and concordance technology. Each case study elaborates a problem area, makes reference to both the descriptive and applied literature thus far, and then suggests ways of exploiting corpus data to shed light on the problem. Language phenomena investigated include word sense, phraseology and syntax, metaphor and creative use, text reference, idiom, and translation. Emphasis is given to information that usually cannot be found in dictionaries, grammars, language textbooks or other resources, but which the study of corpus data makes available. This work is particularly important not only for its language description insights, but also for pedagogical application. Further useful suggestions are included on setting up a medium-sized corpus on a personal computer.

An outstanding introduction to discourse analysis of written language in an age that is more and more characterized by multilingual, digital, and generically hybrid texts. In an accessible style, Working with Written Discourse illustrates how these texts can be analyzed employing a wide variety of approaches that are critical, multidisciplinary, and productive. - Professor Jaffer Sheyholislami, Carleton University "Comprehensive and up-to-the-minute in its discussion of areas like multimodality and the new media, without overlooking ‘older’ media and more conventional writing. I will recommend it highly to students at all levels." - Dr Mark Sebba, Lancaster University Addressing the practicalities of research, and embracing the complexity and variety of written forms of language, this book: grounds readers in a broad range of concepts, debates and relevant methods focuses on both theoretical questions and the ‘how to’ of analysis is loaded with practical activities and advice on the design and execution of research highlights computer-mediated communication and new media discourse, from text messages and tweets to mobile phone novels and online encyclopedias draws on data from international and multilingual communities. The perfect companion to Deborah Cameron′s best-selling Working with Spoken Discourse, this book equips readers with practical and conceptual tools to ask questions about written discourse, and to analyse the huge variety of texts that make up our linguistic landscape. It is the essential guide for students of discourse analysis in linguistics, media and communication studies, and for social researchers across the social sciences.

How can you carry out discourse analysis using corpus linguistics? What research questions should I ask? Which methods should you use and when? What is a collocational network or a key cluster? Introducing the major techniques, methods and tools for corpus-assisted analysis of discourse, this book answers these questions and more, showing readers how to best use corpora in their analyses of discourse. Using carefully tailored case studies, each chapter is devoted to a central technique, including frequency, concordancing and keywords, going step by step through the process of applying different analytical procedures. Introducing a wide range of different corpora, from holiday brochures to political debates, the book considers the key debates and latest advances in the field. Fully revised and updated, this new edition includes: - A new chapter on how to conduct research projects in corpus-based discourse analysis - Completely rewritten chapters on collocation and advanced techniques, using a corpus of jihadist propaganda texts and covering topics such as social media and visual analysis - Coverage of major tools, including CQPweb, AntConc, Sketch Engine and #LancsBox - Discussion of newer techniques including the derivation of lockwords and the comparison of multiple data sets for diachronic analysis With exercises, discussion questions and suggested further readings in each chapter, this book is an excellent guide to using corpus linguistics techniques to carry out discourse analysis.

Approaches to Discourse Analysis demonstrates the importance of the diverse perspectives that various approaches to discourse bring to bear on human communication. Linguists and other readers interested in the interplay of language and culture will gain new insight and understanding from this rich compilation.