This new edition of TUFS Studies in Linguistics, we aim to showcase the various linguistics research conducted at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. In this first volume, we report on the international symposium hosted by the Global Center of Excellence Program "Corpus-based Linguistics and Language Education (CbLLE)" throughout 2008.

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.

The Cambridge Handbook of English Corpus Linguistics (CHECL) surveys the breadth of corpus-based linguistic research on English, including chapters on collocations, phraseology, grammatical variation, historical change, and the description of registers and dialects. The most innovative aspects of the CHECL are its emphasis on critical discussion, its explicit evaluation of the state of the art in each sub-discipline, and the inclusion of empirical case studies. While each chapter includes a broad survey of previous research, the primary focus is on a detailed description of the most important corpus-based studies in this area, with discussion of what those studies found, and why they are important. Each chapter also includes a critical discussion of the corpus-based methods employed for research in this area, as well as an explicit summary of new findings and discoveries.

This volume provides a comprehensive overview of the research carried out over the past thirty years in the vast field of legal discourse. The focus is on how such research has been influenced and shaped by developments in corpus linguistics and register analysis, and by the emergence from the mid 1990s of historical pragmatics as a branch of pragmatics concerned with the scrutiny of historical texts in their context of writing. The five chapters in Part I (together with the introductory chapter) offer a wide spectrum of the latest approaches to the synchronic analysis of cross-genre and cross-linguistic variation in legal discourse. Part II addresses diachronic variation, illustrating how a diversity of methods, such as multi-dimensional analysis, move analysis, collocation analysis, and Darwinian models of language evolution can uncover new understandings of diachronic linguistic phenomena.

Corpus Linguistics for World Englishes offers a detailed account of how to analyse the many fascinating varieties of English around the world using corpus-linguistic methods. Employing case studies for illustration of relevant concepts and methods throughout, this book: introduces the theory and practice of analysing World Englishes illustrates the basics of corpus-linguistic methods and presents the vast World Englishes corpora links World Englishes to Learner Englishes and English as a Lingua Franca offers practical, hands-on exercises and questions for discussion in each chapter provides helpful overviews and course syllabi for students and instructors. Corpus Linguistics for World Englishes is key reading for advanced students of English as a World Language and Corpus Linguistics, as well as anyone keen to understand variation in World Englishes with the help of corpus linguistics.

Variation in Time and Space: Observing the World through Corpora is a collection of articles that address the theme of linguistic variation in English in its broadest sense. Current research in English language presented in the book explores a fascinating number of topics, whose unifying element is the corpus linguistic methodology. Part I of this volume, Meaning in Time and Space, introduces the two dimensions of variation – time and space – relating them to the negotiation of meaning in discourse and questions of intertextuality. Part II, Variation in Time, approaches the English language from a diachronic point of view; the time periods covered vary considerably, ranging from 16th century up to present-day; so do the genres explored. Part III, Variation in Space, focuses on global varieties of English and includes a contrastive point of view. The range of topics is again broad – from specific lexico-grammatical structures to the variation in academic English, combining the regional and genre dimensions of variation. This is a timely volume that shows the breadth and depth in current corpus-based research of English.

Corpus Linguistics and the Analysis of Sociolinguistic Change demonstrates how particular styles and varieties of language are chosen and represented in the media, to reveal changing language ideologies and sociolinguistic change. Drawing on a corpus of ads broadcast on an Irish radio station between 1977 and 2017, this book shows how corpus linguistic tools can be creatively employed, in conjunction with frameworks and concepts such as audience and referee design and indexicality, and examines how accents and dialects (vernacular and prestige) are exploited in the ads across the decades. In addition, this book: illustrates the key principles of corpus design for sociolinguistics studies and offers a framework for future diachronic corpus studies of advertising on social media; provides a model for analysing corpus data at both inter-varietal and intra-varietal levels in terms of both accent and dialectal features and explores the efficacy of using particular corpus linguistic tools; identifies key factors which can be used by researchers as evidence for sociolinguistic change and links these factors to relevant theories and frameworks; demonstrates how corpus tools can be used to compare advertising discourse with naturally occurring discourse, with particular reference to markers of (pseudo) intimate discourse. Building on the growing body of research relating to variation and change in Irish English, this book is key reading for researchers and advanced students undertaking research within the areas of sociolinguistics and corpus linguistics.

This volume intends to give evidence of the extraordinary expansion corpus linguistics and language corpora have experienced over the past years. It focuses on emerging types of corpora and corpus techniques and presents corpus-based studies in areas which have benefited from recent develpments in corpus linguistics methods and techniques.

This book focuses on aspects of variation and change in language use in spoken and written discourse on the basis of corpus analyses, providing new descriptive insights, and new methods of utilising small specialized corpora for the description of language variation and change. The sixteen contributions included in this volume represent a variety of diverse views and approaches, but all share the common goal of throwing light on a crucial dimension of discourse: the dialogic interactivity between the spoken and written. Their foci range from papers addressing general issues related to corpus analysis of spoken dialogue to papers focusing on specific cases employing a variety of analytical tools, including qualitative and quantitative analysis of small and large corpora. The present volume constitutes a highly valuable tool for applied linguists and discourse analysts as well as for students, instructors and language teachers.

Variability is characteristic of any living language. This volume approaches the ‘life cycle’ of linguistic variability in English using data sources that range from electronic corpora to the internet. In the spirit of the 1968 Weinreich, Labov and Herzog classic, the fifteen contributions divide into three sections, each highlighting different stages in the dynamics of English across time and space. They show, first, how increase in variability can be initiated by processes that give rise to new patterns of discourse, which can ultimately crystallize into new grammatical elements. The next phase is the spread of linguistic features and patterns of discourse, both new and well established, through the social and regional varieties of English. The final phase in this ebb and flow of linguistic variability consists of processes promoting some variable features over others across registers and regional and social varieties, thus resulting in reduced variation and increased linguistic homogeneity.