ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how corpus linguistics (CL) can be used to analyse frequency and location according to ad component of accent and dialectal variety, as well as features of intimate discourse in the corpus. The context for the study is established at the outset with a short account of the background and history of Irish radio advertising. The Irish Radio Advertisement Corpus (IRAC) is introduced and a brief economic and social backdrop provided to the time period in which it is based. The chapter examines issues in the design and compilation process of a diachronic corpus in terms of sampling, size, representativeness and balance, and the process for categorising the key variables in the study, accent and dialect. A number of corpus-based options for the analysis of accent and dialect in IRAC are considered, and the chapter provides a justification for the chosen method. The annotation of the corpus is described and issues with regard to quantitative and qualitative analysis are discussed. The second part of this chapter focuses specifically on the process for examining intimate markers in the corpus and on how the Limerick Corpus of Intimate Talk (LINT) is used for comparative purposes.
