ABSTRACT
The notion of 'formulaic language' as an umbrella term embraces all types of phraseological units and it is often attributed to Alison Wray. Sinclair was one of the first scholars who advocated the use of corpora for describing language and gaining insights into the intricacies of natural communication. A substantial part of meaning in naturally occurring discourse is conveyed by means of multiword units and, as a result, phraseological tendencies have become a pivotal topic in linguistic considerations. This chapter introduces phraseology, the study of word combinations, and underlines the usefulness of corpora for exploring the nature of formulaic language. It demonstrates how corpus-based analyses can be employed to identify and classify various kinds of lexico-grammatical phraseological units as important elements of naturally occurring discourse. The chapter shows how corpora are instrumental in studying phraseological patterning and the way meaning is created and conveyed by means of multiword units.
