Corpus Linguistics: An International Handbook, Volume 1 (handbooks Of Linguistics And Communication Science)

Corpus Linguistics HSK 29.1 ≥ Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschat Handbooks o Linguistics and Communication Science Manuels de linguistique et des sciences de communication Mitbegründet von Gerold Ungeheuer () Mitherausgegeben 19852001 von Hugo Steger Herausgegeben von / Edited by / Edite´s par Herbert Ernst Wiegand Band 29.1 Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York Corpus Linguistics An International Handbook Edited by Anke Lüdeling and Merja Kytö Volume 1 Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York 앝 Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines 앪 of the ANSI to ensure permanence and durability. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Corpus linguistics : an international handbook / edited by Anke Lüdeling and Merja Kytö p. cm. ⫺ (Handbooks of linguistics and communication science ; 29.1 ⫺ 29.2) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. ISBN 978-3-11-018043-5 (hardcover : alk. paper) ⫺ ISBN 978-3-11-020733-0 (hardcover : alk. paper) ⫺ 1. Corpora (Linguistics) 2. computational linguistics. I. Lüdeling, Anke, 1968 ⫺ II. Kytö, Merja. p126.C68C663 2008 410⫺dc22 2008042529 ISBN 978-3-11-018043-5 ISSN 1861-5090 Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.d-nb.de abrufbar. ” Copyright 2008 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, 10785 Berlin, Germany. All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Printed in Germany Typesetting: META Systems GmbH, Wustermark Coverdesign: Martin Zech, Bremen Introduction 1. Why a handbook on corpus linguistics? Corpus linguistics today is often understood as being a relatively new approach in linguistics that has to do with the empirical study of “real life” language use with the help of computers and electronic corpora. In the first instance, a “corpus” is simply any collection of written or spoken texts. However, when the term is employed with reference to modern linguistics, it tends to bear a number of connotations, among them machinereadable form, sampling and representativeness, finite size, and the idea that a corpus constitutes a standard reference for the language variety it represents. While linguistics divides up into many research areas depending on complexes of research questions, corpus linguistics in essence behaves diametrically: it offers a set of methods that can be used in the investigation of a large number of different research questions. For a number of reasons, we think that the time is right for a handbook on this approach: we now have access to large corpora and rather sophisticated tools to retrieve data from them. Over the past few decades, corpus linguists have gained a great deal of experience in dealin