This volume provides a state-of-the-art overview of the intersecting fields of corpus linguistics, historical linguistics, and genre-based studies of language usage. Papers in this collection are devoted to presenting relevant methods pertinent to corpus-based studies of the connection between genre and language change, linguistic changes that occur in particular genres, and specific diachronic phenomena that are influenced by genre factors to greater and lesser degrees. Data are drawn from a number of languages, and the scope of the studies presented here is both short- and long-term, covering cases of recent change as well as more long-term alterations.

A comprehensive and accessible introduction to statistics in corpus linguistics, covering multiple techniques of quantitative language analysis and data visualisation.

English historical linguistics is a subfield of linguistics which has developed theories and methods for exploring the history of the English language. This Handbook provides an account of state-of-the-art research on this history. It offers an in-depth survey of materials, methods, and language-theoretical models used to study the long diachrony of English. The frameworks covered include corpus linguistics, historical sociolinguistics, historical pragmatics and manuscript studies, among others. The chapters, by leading experts, examine the interplay of language theory and empirical data throughout, critically assessing the work in the field. Of particular importance are the diverse data sources which have become increasingly available in electronic form, allowing the discipline to develop in new directions. The Handbook offers access to the rich and many-faceted spectrum of work in English historical linguistics, past and present, and will be useful for researchers and students interested in hands-on research on the history of English.

This multidisciplinary volume offers new insights into the development of genres of medical discourse in changing socio-cultural contexts.

This volume encompasses the range of research questions on language-related problems that arise in language teaching, learning and assessment. The [150] chapters are written by experts in the field who each offer their insights into current and future directions of research, and who suggest several highly relevant research questions. Topics include, but are not limited to: language skills teaching, language skills assessment and testing, measurement, feedback, discourse analysis, pragmatics, semantics, language learning through technology, CALL, MALL, ESP, EAP, ERPP, TBLT, materials development, genre analysis, needs analysis, corpus, content-based language teaching, language teaching and learning strategies, individual differences, research methods, classroom research, form-focused instruction, age effects, literacy, proficiency, and teacher education and teacher development. The book serves as a reference and offers inspiration to researchers and students in language education. An important skill in reviewing the research literature is following a study’s “plan of attack.” Broadly, this means that before accepting and acting upon the findings, one considers a) the research question (Is it clear and focused? Measurable?), b) the subjects examined, the methods deployed, and the measures chosen (Do they fit the study’s goal and have the potential to yield useful results?), and c) the analysis of the data (Do the data lead to the discussion presented? Has the author reasonably interpreted results to reach the conclusion?). Mohebbi and Coombe’s book, Research Questions in Language Education and Applied Linguistics: A Reference Guide, helps budding researchers take the first step and develop a solid research question. As the field of language education evolves, we need continual research to improve our instructional and assessment practices and our understanding of the learners’ language learning processes. This book with its remarkable 150 topics and 10 times the number of potential research questions provides a wealth of ideas that will help early career researchers conduct studies that move our field forward and grow our knowledge base. Deborah J. Short, Ph.D., Director, Academic Language Research & Training, Past President, TESOL International Association (2021-22) As a teacher in graduate programs in TESOL I frequently come across the frustration of students at centering their research interests on a particular topic and developing research questions which are worth pursuing so as to make a contribution to the field. This frustration stems from the fact that our field is so vast and interrelated, that it is often impossible to properly address all that interests them. Hence, I wholeheartedly welcome this most relevant and innovative addition to the research literature in the field of TESOL and Applied Linguistics. Coombe and Mohebbi have created a real tour de force that stands to inform budding researchers in the field for many years to come. Additionally, the cutting-edge depiction of the field and all it has to offer will no doubt update the research agendas of many seasoned researchers around the world. The 150 chapters are organized in a most powerful, yet, deceptively simple way offering a positioning within the topic, suggesting questions that might direct inquiry and offering a basic set of bibliographic tools to start the reader in the path towards research. What is more, the nine sections in which the chapters are organized leave no area of the field unexplored. Dr. Gabriel Díaz Maggioli, Academic Advisor, Institute of Education, Universidad ORT del Uruguay, President, IATEFL

This book showcases eleven studies dealing with corpora and the changing society. The contributors in this volume use a variety of corpus methods to address the two patterns of change.

From Data to Evidence in English Language Research draws on diverse digital data sources alongside more traditional linguistic corpora to offer new insights into the ways in which they can be used to extend and re-evaluate research questions in English linguistics. This is achieved, for example, by increasing data size, adding multi-layered contextual analyses, applying methods from adjacent fields, and adapting existing data sets to new uses. Making innovative contributions to digital linguistics, the chapters in the volume apply a combination of methods to the increasing amount of digital data available to researchers to show how this data – both established and newly available - can be utilized, enriched and rethought to provide new evidence for developments in the English language.

This collection sheds light on the ways in which corpus linguistics and the use of learner corpora might be applied to the study of academic discourse, revealing linguistic and rhetorical patterns and insights into variation across a range of disciplinary genres. Organized into three sections, the book highlights key tools and methodologies in corpus analysis to study such features as discourse markers, lexical bundles, linguistic complexity, lexico-grammatical conventions, and modality in case studies in studies of academic discourse, both in a second language and in English for specific purposes. The volume features examples from disciplinary genres not often covered in the existing literature, including MA theses, academic book reviews, and online student forums. Taken together with the study of learner corpora, the book demonstrates the impact of corpus linguistic tools in better understanding linguistic patterns of specific languages and language use and in turn, their role in helping to identify the needs of language learners. The book will be of interest to students and scholars in corpus linguistics, applied linguistics, and English for Specific Purposes.

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.

Linguists have typically studied language change at the aggregate level of speech communities, yet key mechanisms of change such as analogy and automation operate within the minds of individual language users. Drawing on lifespan data from 50 authors and the intriguing case of the special passives in the history of English, this study addresses three fundamental issues relating to individuality in language change: (i) how variation and change at the individual level interact with change at the community level; (ii) how much innovation and change is possible across the adult lifespan; (iii) and to what extent related linguistic patterns are associated in individual cognition. As one of the first large-scale empirical studies to systematically link individual- and community-based perspectives in language change, this volume breaks new ground in our understanding of language as a complex adaptive system.