ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the fundamentals of corpus linguistics and demonstrates the core methods to be applied to forms of online communication. It also discusses the basic frequency counts and keywords with respect to non-standard forms in a corpus of Facebook posts approximating the Nottinghamshire dialect; collocation networks in a corpus of online learner comments; key semantic categories in a discussion of ‘super-gonorrhoea’; and n-grams in dating profiles. Corpus linguistics has developed alongside computing technology and the future of the field no doubt continue to run alongside the growth of the Internet. The principles on which the Web was developed attest to the degree of innovation and the key concerns for the continuing development of online resources are Decentralisation, Non-discrimination, Bottom-up design, Universality and Consensus. The Internet is a site of perpetual innovation and in order to continue to make a meaningful contribution to language studies, corpus linguists evolves and continues to develop the tools that facilitate corpus analysis.
