ABSTRACT
Second Language Acquisition (SLA) is a truly interdisciplinary field at the intersection of psychology, linguistics, applied linguistics, psycholinguistics, and educational science. Given the large number of associated fields and the fact that each of these fields has undergone considerable changes in a time period as short as the last 50 years, it is only natural that SLA is a diverse field in terms of both the theoretical approaches that have been adopted and the data and methodologies that have been applied. The present article looks at SLA at the intersection of the theoretical approach of Cognitive Linguistics-as is obvious from the title of this handbook-and the methodology of Corpus Linguistics-as is obvious from the title of the chapter. After a short introduction, I will first give a very brief overview of those characteristics of Cognitive Linguistics that are relevant in this connection. Then, I will discuss assumptions underlying contemporary Corpus Linguistics and at the same time highlight the large degree of overlap of the two fields. In the main section of this article, Section 4, I will discuss the main three methods of Corpus Linguistics and their application in SLA research. Section 5 will conclude and present some caveats and desiderata.
