Corpus-Based Sociolinguistics by Friginal, Eric; Hardy, Jack;

Short description:

In the last decade, the availability of corpora and the technological advancements of corpus tools have increased dramatically. Applied linguists have greater access to data from around the world and in a variety of languages through websites, blogs, and social networking sites, and there is a high level of interest among these scholars in applying corpora and corpus-based methods to other research areas, particularly sociolinguistics.

This innovative guidebook presents a systematic, in-depth account of using corpora in sociolinguistics. It introduces and expands the application of corpora and corpus approaches and tools in sociolinguistic research, surveys the growing number of studies in corpus-based sociolinguistics, and provides instructions and options for designing and developing corpus-based studies. Readers will find practical information on such contemporary topics as workplace registers, megacorpora, and using the web as a corpus. Vignettes, case studies, discussion questions, and activities throughout further enhance students’ involvement with the material and provide opportunities for hands-on practice of the methods discussed. Corpus-Based Sociolinguistics is a comprehensive and accessible guide, a must-read for any student or scholar interested in exploring this popular and promising approach to sociolinguistic research.

Long description:

In the last decade, the availability of corpora and the technological advancements of corpus tools have increased dramatically. Applied linguists have greater access to data from around the world and in a variety of languages through websites, blogs, and social networking sites, and there is a high level of interest among these scholars in applying corpora and corpus-based methods to other research areas, particularly sociolinguistics.

This innovative guidebook presents a systematic, in-depth account of using corpora in sociolinguistics. It introduces and expands the application of corpora and corpus approaches and tools in sociolinguistic research, surveys the growing number of studies in corpus-based sociolinguistics, and provides instructions and options for designing and developing corpus-based studies. Readers will find practical information on such contemporary topics as workplace registers, megacorpora, and using the web as a corpus. Vignettes, case studies, discussion questions, and activities throughout further enhance students’ involvement with the material and provide opportunities for hands-on practice of the methods discussed. Corpus-Based Sociolinguistics is a comprehensive and accessible guide, a must-read for any student or scholar interested in exploring this popular and promising approach to sociolinguistic research.

'In sum, A Corpus-Based Approach to Sociolinguistics will serve the undergraduate course on sociolinguistics if supplemented with a manual on sociolinguistic concepts; it will then constitute an original and up to date introduction to the discipline, as well as to the CL methodology. Furthermore, it will be an even more valuable resource for the researcher new to CL that wishes to apply this methodology to sociolinguistics quantitative questions or wishes to know what sociolinguistics questions could be addressed with this methodology. Although not a manual on how to do sociolinguistics with corpus linguistics per se, it will direct the researcher to the right resources. Finally, the thought provoking “reflective breaks” and the numerous examples of studies will stimulate younger students and make sociolinguistic research more appealing, while suggesting new research questions to the more advanced students or researchers.' - Irene Checa-Garcia, University of Wyoming, The LINGUIST List

"This volume constitutes an invaluable resource both for students taking their first steps in the use of corpora as well as for more experienced researchers in the field. Although primarily intended as a guide to the use of corpora in sociolinguistic research, it is also one of the most lucid, well-researched and up-to-date introductions currently available to corpus linguistics itself, especially for those interested in corpus-assisted research into discourse." -  Alan Partington, University of Bologna, International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 20:2

"The volume offers more than it promises: it not only succeeds in providing and up-to-date account of using corpora in sociolinguistic research, but it also succeeds in providing reflective breaks, text samples, sample research questions, case studies, further readings, interviews, trivia, vignettes, discussion questions, activities and applications, which are stimulating resources both for students and non-students. Although it is primarily intended as a guide to corpus-based sociolinguistics in upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses, the book is also a must read for professional researchers who are interested in a current, wide-ranging overview of corpus-based sociolinguistic research. The authors successfully synthesize a representative body of studies, concepts, and tools in sociolinguistic research, as they weave their way through ha variety of topics, devices, and perspectives." - Pierfranca Forchini, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, EuroAmerican Journal of Applied Linguistics and Languages 2:1

Table of Contents:

Section A: Introduction to Corpus-Based Sociolinguistics  Section B: Survey of Corpus-Based Sociolinguistic Studies  Section C: Conducting Corpus-Based Sociolinguistic Studies