Using Corpora to Explore Linguistic Variation illustrates the ways in which linguistic variation can be explored through corpus-based investigation. Two major kinds of research questions are considered: variation in the use of a particular linguistic feature, and variation across dialects or registers. Part 1: “Exploring variation in the use of linguistic features” focuses on the study of specific words, expressions, or grammatical constructions, to study variation in the use of a particular linguistic feature. Part 2: “Exploring dialect and register variation” describes salient characteristics of dialects or registers and the patterns of variation across varieties. Part 3: “Exploring Historical Variation” applies these same two major perspectives to historical variation. One recurring theme is the extent to which linguistic variation depends on register differences, reflecting the importance of register as a key methodological and thematic concern in current corpus linguistic research.

Table of Contents

Introduction vii•xi Part I: Exploring variation in the use of linguistic features 1 Cross-disciplinary comparisons of hedging: Some findings from the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English Deanna Poos and Rita Simpson 3•23 Would as a hedging device in an Irish context: An intra-varietal comparison of institutionalised spoken interaction Fiona Farr and Anne O'Keeffe 25•48 Good listenership made plain: British and American non-minimal response tokens in everyday conversation Michael McCarthy 49•71 Variation in the distribution of modal verbs in the British National Corpus Graeme Kennedy 73•90 Strong modality and negation in Russian Ferdinand de Haan 91•110 Formulaic language in English academic writing: A corpus-based study of the formal and functional variation of a lexical phrase in different academic disciplines David Oakey 111•130 Lexical bundles in Freshman composition Viviana Cortes 131•145 Pseudo-Titles in the press genre of various components of the International Corpus of English Charles F. Meyer 147•166 Pattern grammar, language teaching, and linguistic variation: Applications of a corpus-driven grammar Susan Hunston 167•183 Part II: Exploring dialect or register variation 185 Syntactic features of Indian English: An examination of written Indian English Chandrika K. Rogers 187•202 Variation in academic lectures: Interactivity and level of instruction Enikó Csomay 203•224 Part III: Exploring historical variation 225 The textual resolution of structural ambiguity in eighteenth-century English: A corpus linguistic study of patterns of negation Susan M. Fitzmaurice 227•247 Investigating register variation in nineteenth-century English: A multi-dimensional comparison Christer Geisler 249•271 Index 273