Please note: This is a new edition of a previously announced text.

Corpus linguistics uses large electronic databases of language to examine hypotheses about language use. These can be tested scientifically with computerised analytical tools, without the researcher's preconceptions influencing their conclusions. For this reason, corpus linguistics is a popular and expanding area of study. "Contemporary Corpus Linguistics" presents a comprehensive survey of the ways in which corpus linguistics is being used by researchers. Written by internationally renowned linguists, this volume of seventeen introductory chapters aims to provide a snapshot of the field of corpus linguistics. The contributors present accessible, yet detailed, analyses of recent methods and theory in Corpus Linguistics, ways of analysing corpora, and recent applications in translation, stylistics, discourse analysis and language teaching. The book represents the best of current practice in Corpus Linguistics, and as a one volume reference will be invaluable to students and researchers looking for an overview of the field.

"The inclusion of Contemporary in the title is no idle boast – all of these papers take corpus linguistics forward in exciting and challenging ways." Michael Hoey, Baines Professor of English language, University of Liverpool, UK

Contents: 1. Introduction, Paul Baker \ 2. Metaphor, Alice Deignan \ 3. Corpora and Critical Discourse Analysis, Gerlinde Mautner \ 4. Corpus stylistics and the Pickwickian watering-pot, Michaela Mahlberg \ 5. The metalanguage of impoliteness: Using Sketch Engine to explore the Oxford English Corpus, Jonathan Culpeper \ 6. Issues in the design and development of software tools for corpus studies: The case for collaboration, Laurence Anthony \ 7. Compatibility between corpus annotation efforts and its effect on computational linguistics, Adam Meyers \ 8. Spoken corpus analysis: Multimodal approaches to language description, Irina Dahlmann & Svenja Adolphs \ 9. Fixed collocational patterns in isolexical and isotextual versions of a corpus, David Oakey \ 10. Corpus linguistics and language variation, Michael P. Oakes \ 11. Integrating learner corpus analysis into a probabilistic model of second language acquisition, Yukio Tono \ 12. English language teaching and corpus linguistics: Lessons from the American National Corpus, Randi Reppen \ 13. The impact of corpora of dictionaries, Patrick Hanks \ 14. Using corpora in translation studies: The state of the art, Richard Xiao & Ming Yue \ 15. Corpus linguistics and the languages of South Asia: Some current research directions, Andrew Hardie \ 16. The web as corpus versus traditional corpora: Their relative utility for linguists and language learners, Robert Lew \ 17. Building and analyzing corpora of computer-mediated communication, Brian King \ Bibliography \ Index