Corpus Linguistics 25 Years on. * Facchinetti, Roberta (ed.).

Abstract

From an empirical point of view, linguistics must be one of the easiest sciences around: the object of study only requires ears and eyes to observe and simple means to record. The Chomskyan revolution, however, prompted linguists to ignore this elephant in the room for decades, relying on introspection, rather than true empirical field data to validate their claims. From a computational perspective this makes perfect sense: before the advent of easily accessible digital language archives, the fastest way to efficiently access a critical mass of language data was to scan one's own brain for linguistic evidence. The last few decades however have seen more and more linguists trading in their armchairs for computers. It does not quite have the same level of comfort, but it does make for a more scientifically sound approach to linguistics, since it allows researchers to hold a more detached perspective towards their object of study. Half a century after Chomsky's landmark publication, the book Corpus Linguistics – 25 Years on tries to chronicle the steady come-back of corpus-based linguistics.