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Register and Discourse through the Lens of Corpus Linguistics
Register and Discourse through the Lens of Corpus Linguistics offers a rigorous and engaging exploration of two of the field’s most dynamic areas. Drawing on key frameworks – including Construction Grammar, Corpus-Assisted Discourse Studies, Speech Act Theory, and Local Grammar – the volume showcases how qualitative and quantitative corpus-driven methods illuminate the interplay between linguistic form, communicative function, and contextual embedding. Across eleven chapters, contributors examine a breadth of linguistic features, from swearing, syntactic fragments, prenominal modification, nonstandard forms, and phraseology to interruption and humour, expressive acts, epistemic presupposition, expertise, and predictive stance. The studies span diverse settings – teen talk, Reddit forums, news media, historical newspapers, workplace interaction, political debate, and economic discourse – and incorporate synchronic and diachronic perspectives, as well as cross-linguistic comparisons. Collectively, the chapters demonstrate how register and discourse intersect as mutually informing dimensions of language use, enriching established research traditions and offering practical models for future inquiry. Their insights extend beyond corpus linguistics, resonating with scholarship in sociolinguistics, pragmatics, World Englishes, and applied linguistics.
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 127] 2026. vi, 327 pp.
Publishing status: Printing; Print edition expected April 2026
Published online on 24 March 2026
Published online on 24 March 2026
© John Benjamins
Table of Contents
- IntroductionNuria Yáñez-Bouza, Dolores González-Álvarez and Esperanza Rama-Martínez | pp. 1–12
- Chapter 1. A study of the recent evolution of swearing in British teen talkIgnacio M. Palacios Martínez | pp. 13–42
- Chapter 2. Investigating the role of no(t)-fragments in colloquializationLaura Abalo-Dieste | pp. 43–70
- Chapter 3. A diachronic register approach to complex prenominal modifiersMarcus Callies, Turo Vartiainen and Aatu Liimatta | pp. 71–90
- Chapter 4. Studying the historical enregisterment of ain’t in nineteenth-century American newspapersLieselotte Anderwald | pp. 91–122
- Chapter 5. The function of “normal” in the U.S. COVID-19 news discourse: An interplay between phraseology and quotation marksZuzana Nádraská | pp. 123–157
- Chapter 6. A corpus-based investigation of interruptions and humour in FOMC deliberationsGisle Andersen and Christian Langerfeld | pp. 158–181
- Chapter 7. Beyond the transactional: Identifying and analysing expressive speech acts in workplace emailsRachele De Felice | pp. 182–208
- Chapter 8. Concealed responsibility and implicit meaning: Nonpersonal epistemic stance presupposition triggers in UK Conservative parliamentary and newspaper opinion migration discourseElena Domínguez Romero, Marta Carretero and Mercedes González-Vázquez | pp. 209–240
- Chapter 9. “I’m not a scientist but I did study physics”: Exploring grammatical patterns of expertise on RedditTuro Hiltunen | pp. 241–265
- Chapter 10. Deconstructing economists’ arguments in the twentieth century: A diachronic cross-linguistic study of economic claims through epistemic and attitudinal stance devices in the LexEcon corpusMaria Teresa Musacchio and Dario Del Fante | pp. 266–294
- Chapter 11. The verbal expression of prediction in economics: A diachronic corpus analysis of English and Italian across the twentieth centuryCarla Quinci | pp. 295–321
- Index | pp. 323–327