ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on corpus pragmatics, the coming together of corpus linguistics and pragmatics. Corpus pragmatics usually works from frequencies of forms to their pragmatic function in what is termed a form-to-function approach. This is exemplified through sample analyses. In this approach, the frequency lists and concordance lines ultimately lead us to a conclusion about the use of a form. The opposite approach is to begin with the function, for example a speech act, and to try to narrow down the range of possible forms used to perform this and to use these to find language instances in a corpus. For example, the words and phrases typically associated with a speech act (as a result of experimental research, such as Illocutionary Force Identifying Devices (IFIDs)), can be used to search a large corpus to retrieve examples. This approach is referred to as a function-to-form approach. This chapter addresses the processes of doing corpus pragmatics research in a way that accommodates both form-to-function and function-to-form approaches. It notes that function-to-form approaches are facilitated by pragmatically-annotated corpus data so that all instances of a given pragmatic phenomenon can simply be recalled and that continued work on pragmatic annotation is of great importance.
