Corpus linguistics and sociolinguistics have a great deal in common in termsof their basic approaches to language enquiry particularly in terms ofproviding repr... » 

Corpus linguistics and sociolinguistics have a great deal in common in termsof their basic approaches to language enquiry particularly in terms ofproviding representative samples from a population and analyzing quantitativeinformation in order to study its variety. Therefore its surprising that theseareas arent utilized in concert more often. This book covers the range of waysin which corpora can be gainfully employed in sociolinguistic enquirycritically discussing corpus analytical procedures such as frequenciescollocations dispersions keywords key keywords and concordances. Aimed atundergraduate and postgraduate students of sociolinguistics or corpuslinguists who wish to use corpora to study social phenomena this volumeexamines how corpora can be used to investigate synchronic variation anddiachronic change by referring to a number of classic corpusbased studies aswell as the authors original research. «