MISSING EVIDENCE-BASED LINK? TOWARDS QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE APPROACHES IN LANGUAGE STUDIES

MISSING EVIDENCE-BASED LINK? TOWARDS QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE APPROACHES IN LANGUAGE STUDIES

Author:  V.E. Chernyavskaya

Affiliation:  Peter the Great St. Petersburg Politechnic University

Abstract:  The article considers contributions of corpus linguistics to the study of meaning in discourse. According to the current state of research and theory, the corpus-based language analysis has been presented as a strong explanatory theory. This has led to a new focus on qualitative analysis with regard to discourse.
The concept of discourse both in linguistics and critical discourse analysis as a social perspective on language-in-use makes it possible to consider discourse analysis as a principled collection of data / texts. Within the framework suggested in the paper, text structure is assumed to be a starting point for a discourse processing analysis. The paper focuses on the question of how corpus approaches could contribute to CDA methods, and in a broader dimension to evidence-based interpretation of linguistic facts. The extent to which the notion of context can be effectively used in discourse analysis is being discussed.
A corpus-based approach is more descriptive and data-driven. Discourse analysis is explanatory and interpretative. The following three main approaches are crucial in comparing a corpus-based and discourse analysis: the textual, discursive, and critical ones. There are limitations for adopting quantitative corpus approaches in discourse analyses due to deep macro-semantic and pragmatic interpretation – a fuller understanding is not obtainable in terms of quantitative methods. The corpus-based analysis is unable to explain the reasons why linguistic choices are made.
The respective merits of corpus tools are in gaining empirical evidence for assertions made in discourse analysis and in complementing the qualitative analysis by strengthening its interpretative basis.

Keywords:  discourse linguistics, critical discourse analysis, corpus, corpus-based language studies.

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Acknowledgments:  The research was carried out within the state assignment of Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation for research work, project No. 27.12848.2018/8.9.

For citation:  Chernyavskaya, V. E. (2018). Discourse analysis and corpus approaches: a missing evidence-based link? Towards qualitative and quantitative approaches in language studies. Voprosy Kognitivnoy Lingvistiki, 2, 31-37. (In Russ.).

Pages:  31-37