Introduction [ CLAVIER 09 – Corpus Linguistics and Language Variation]

Corpus-based research is not in opposition to other methodologies of language investigation, such as those favoured by researchers studying language as a system or an ability. The analysis of corpora can shed light on language used as a medium of communication, especially where it successfully manages to relate the patterns and regularities it identifies to accurate descriptions of users and situations. At the same time, corpus research can also provide insights into some systemic aspects of a language. In this respect, the way has been shown (as in so many other areas of language research) by the work of the late John Sinclair (see, in particular, Sinclair 1991; Sinclair, Mauranen 2006), who never hesitated to draw implications from corpus studies that were of significant relevance not only for applied linguistics but also for the description of language as a whole.
Individual papers are briefly summarized and discussed in order to unveil the potential of corpus linguistics for the study of variation across languages and language varieties, genres and time.