37.2651, Reviews: Applications of Corpus Linguistics: Gavin Brookes; Niall Curry; Robbie Love (eds.) (2026)

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Subject: 37.2651, Reviews: Applications of Corpus Linguistics: Gavin Brookes; Niall Curry; Robbie Love (eds.) (2026)

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Date: 12-Aug-2026
From: Tyler Kimball Anderson [tanderso at coloradomesa.edu]
Subject: Gavin Brookes; Niall Curry; Robbie Love (eds.) (2026)


Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/37-260

Title: Applications of Corpus Linguistics
Subtitle: Established and Emergent Contexts
Series Title: Cambridge Applied Linguistics
Publication Year: 2026

Publisher: Cambridge University Press
           http://www.cambridge.org/linguistics
Book URL:
https://www.cambridge.org/ch/universitypress/subjects/languages-linguistics/applied-linguistics-and-second-language-acquisition/applications-corpus-linguistics-established-and-emergent-contexts?format=PB&isbn=9781009381994

Editor(s): Gavin Brookes; Niall Curry; Robbie Love

Reviewer: Tyler Kimball Anderson

SUMMARY
The edited volume “Applications of Corpus Linguistics: Established and
Emergent Contexts” provides an innovative approach regarding the
impacts of corpus linguistics. After an introductory chapter, the
reader is presented with eleven chapters from a variety of authors,
each dealing with corpora in areas from law enforcement to education.
Each chapter is tied to the theme of the numerous contexts in which
corpus linguistics (CL) can be applied, along with the impacts—both
direct and indirect—of each of these contexts.
In Chapter 1, Gavin Brookes, Niall Curry, and Robbie Love’s “Applying
Corpus Linguistics” explains the overall purpose of the volume, which
is to explore the applications of CL across a range of contexts. After
providing an overview of some of the established arenas where corpora
have historically been used—language pedagogy, research on
less-studied languages, informing media practices, and affecting
social change, to name a few—the authors then delve into the more
emergent contexts, where they demonstrate the impacts that CL has had
on practitioners (such as healthcare professionals) and stakeholders
(such as curriculum developers). Even with the many attested impacts
on a variety of contexts, the authors state that there still remains
much more to be done, both across established and emergent contexts.
The rest of the chapter then introduces the flow of the book, from
established to emergent, from academic to real-world applications.
Peter Crosthwaite and Alicia Gazmuri Sanhueza’s “‘Cutting out the
Middleman’: Doing DDL in the Secondary School Classroom without a
Corpus Linguist” begins the focus on the use of CL in the education
realm. Generally reserved for the tertiary level, the authors look at
how data-driven learning (DDL) provided through CL can aid the
secondary teacher and her students. After presenting an overview of
the literature, they present two case studies wherein CL was used in
the secondary classroom. One of the main challenges that researchers
have confronted when trying to use DDL in the secondary classroom has
been the general lack of understanding on the part of the educator on
how to carry out tasks related to CL. In order to obviate this
challenge, the authors implemented a workshop on the use of the
passive voice at a secondary school for teachers of science and for
teachers of English language learners. These educators were
interviewed both before and after the workshops regarding their
perceptions of the usefulness of the intervention. In their
pre-workshop interviews, the science teachers expressed overall
negative perceptions of DDL while the ELL teachers were much more
optimistic. Looking at post-intervention results, the researchers
found that students improved their understanding and use of the
passive voice. Likewise, interviews showed that both groups of
teachers were much more positive toward DDL, with each expressing a
desire to continue to use these techniques in future classes. In
conclusion, the authors see the need to provide tailored DDL training
for secondary teachers, who will then be able to apply these
techniques in their classrooms.
Chapter 3 continues the line of research in the DDL arena in
“Investigating User Perceptions of a Corpus-Informed DDL Resources:
User Experience of ColloCaid”. Geraint Paul Rees specifically
investigates learner perceptions of the DDL writing assistant tool,
ColloCaid, with the main research question focusing on the usability
of corpus tools. Specifically, Rees investigates the perceptions
toward ColloCaid in helping students improve their academic writing.
After receiving training, the participants were asked to write a short
text using ColloCaid, followed by the completion of a ‘system
usability scale’ questionnaire. Students from around the world
evaluated ColloCaid as ‘good’ trending toward ‘excellent’.  Rees then
turns to a more academic setting, where the author asked twelve
members from a university in Spain—English professors and students—to
keep a diary regarding their use and perceptions of ColloCaid over a
10-day period. While many participants initially used the resource, by
the end of the ten days, most were using it little to none. One of the
conclusions that the author makes regarding this decline is that it is
difficult to get software users to change their habits. In their
journals and subsequent interviews, one user even expressed a negative
outcome of the resource being that she began to doubt herself and
whether the messages she was writing contained accurate usage of the
English language, even though she had been using the same expressions
successfully in the past. In conclusion, the author proposes greater
integration of DDL software with programs of daily use (i.e., word
processing software).
Cristina Apavaloae and Fiona Farr continue the focus on language
pedagogy in “Applying a Corpus-Based DDL Intervention in the Private
English Language Sector in Ireland.” They discuss one of the main
reasons that corpus-based learning is not implemented in the language
classroom—time constraints associated with the preparation of DDL
materials. Focusing on the private schools in Ireland, they set out to
see what impacts would be seen if teachers implemented mediated DDL
materials in the classroom. Four teachers agreed to use a set of
preprepared corpus-based materials in their classroom, focusing on the
use of the multi-word verb ‘to turn out.’ They then interviewed the
teachers for thirty minutes each, and from the texts of those
interviews, generated a corpus, which allowed a corpus-based discourse
analysis of these discussions. Overall, the authors conclude that the
teachers viewed the use of DDL as a positive contribution in the
English language classroom.
Chapter 5, “Using Corpus Linguistics in Formulaic Language”, then
turns to the use of set expressions. Phoebe Lin describes in detail
the creation of a unique app which uses CL: The IdiomsTube Project.
This app was designed to be used in the English as a Foreign Language
classroom to teach idioms, sayings, speech formulas, and other set
phrases using videos on YouTube. The goal is to provide exposure to
the oral use of a given formulaic expression. From the app, users can
search for a desired term, which then displays a list of videos that
contain that term, along with an indication of the difficulty level of
the video. In addition, students are provided with a cloze task that
raises learners’ awareness of how certain phrases are used. The
remainder of the chapter focuses on the use of the app for language
learners.
In Chapter 6, “Applying Corpus Research Indirectly to Language
Teaching and Assessment Development,” Niall Curry and colleagues
review how CL has had an indirect influence on stakeholders and
practitioners (i.e., teachers and textbook publishers). Some of these
indirect impacts include the development of assessment and classroom
materials, which the authors provide through the framework from two
case studies where CL was indirectly implemented. This is followed by
a critical reflection on these applications and impacts. In part, the
authors conclude that there exists a dichotomy wherein CL is seen as
beneficial by stakeholders, but there is a challenge of translating
research into practical resources. One of the solutions that they
propose is the implementation of more participatory approaches to
research design, which may prove beneficial in advancing indirect
applications of CL, specifically in language education.
Returning more directly to the impact of CL in the classroom in
Chapter 7, Philip Durrant and Debra Myhill discuss in depth a specific
teaching project in their paper “Informing Teaching Practice through
Corpus Research: The Growth in Grammar Project.” The main focus of
this project is to research child writing development through CL. The
researchers collected writing samples of children in grades 2, 6, 9,
and 11, and from these texts created a 767,000-word corpus. From this
corpus, they evaluated the use of different noun phrases across the
years. Their analysis using CL reveals that noun phrases increased in
complexity over the years. From this, they were able to help
stakeholders understand the role of teaching grammar in the classroom
and thus helping educators to change their didactic practices.
Chapter 8 continues with the line of research on language development
and CL, taking an innovative approach through the creation of a sign
language (SL) corpus. In “Building a Longitudinal Learner Corpus for
Swiss German Sign Language: Potential Applications”, Alessia Battisti
and Sarah Ebling discuss the creation and impact of their SL learner
corpus. This corpus is innovative in that it goes beyond the
single-sign level that most extant SL corpora include, extending to
features employed at the sentence level. This is followed by a
description of a case study of eyebrow and head movement
co-occurrence. One of the benefits of this type of corpora is that
teachers can develop teaching methodologies that will more effectively
address the errors that are typical of second language learners of SL.
In the following chapter, “Using CADS Research to Critique
Representations of Muslims in the UK Press”, Paul Baker and Tony
McEnery take the line of reasoning in a different direction by using
CL to provide a critique of how two newspapers represent Muslims in
Britain. After summarizing their research, the authors discuss the
potential impacts of using CL to analyze use of specific terms and how
to evidence this impact, both inside and outside of academia. Working
with a Muslim non-governmental organization, they were able to effect
changes on the way that these newspapers cover matters relating to
Islam. While these changes were perhaps small in scope—a reduction in
the number of times extremist words were associated with the term
Islam in the given newspapers over time—the authors encourage a look
at how these incremental steps in the right direction might add up in
the ‘long game.’ In the end, their research had a decided impact
beyond academia, which the authors felt was a rewarding endeavor.
Continuing this line of research, Monika Bednarek and colleagues delve
into the world of media guidelines in “Examining the Uptake of Media
Guidelines: A Corpus Analysis of Obesity Representation in Australian
and UK News.”  Using a CL approach, they investigate which
recommendations from such guidelines have been implemented in coverage
of matters related to obesity. It is evidenced that the media
continues to go against suggested recommendations in these guidelines,
and in conclusion the authors indicate that CL provides the potential
to inform these organizations regarding language use.
Chapter 11 turns to online publications, specifically investigating
how certain misogynistic websites—labeled as “the manosphere”—can lead
to violence against women and girls. Mark McGlashan and colleagues’
“Challenging Online Misogyny: The Application of Corpus Linguistics in
the MANTRaP Project” utilizes CL to analyze four websites for use of
misogynistic terms. In this paper, they summarize their published
research from academic journals and then move beyond academia where
they discuss their findings in the media, with hopes of leading to
change in policy and practice. Working with organizations that
challenge misogyny, they focus on the importance of language analysis
in providing safeguards for women.
The final research article “Using Corpus-Assisted Approaches to
Explore UK Police Crisis Negotiation” focuses on the use of CL in
improving crisis negotiation trainings for police. In Chapter 12, Dawn
Archer discusses the creation of a 173-page report and training
materials that were generated based on 42 crisis negotiation
incidents. These incidents were transcribed, annotated, and
subsequently analyzed using CL and other methods. While the content of
the toolkit is not available for specific discussion, Archer is able
to provide some preliminary research that informed the creation and
analysis of the report. After defining crisis negotiation and
discussing traditional models for training negotiators—which address
the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of crisis negotiation—Archer then proposes her
toolkit, which addresses the linguistic ‘how’ of conducting
negotiations. The remainder of the chapter analyzes specific
situations where crisis negotiations took place—some successfully, and
others that had failed.
“Afterword”, the final chapter, serves as a closure to the book, where
Pascual Pérez-Paredes summarizes the main points of each chapter as it
deals with CL, its applications and its impacts.
EVALUATION
Gavin Brookes, Niall Curry, and Robbie Love’s edited volume
“Applications of Corpus Linguistics: Established and Emergent
Contexts” is an innovative contribution to the field of corpus
linguistics. While many CL books focus on the process of using corpora
(e.g., Szudarski 2018 and Egbert, Larsson, & Biber 2020), in this tome
the authors successfully present how corpus linguistics can be applied
to and impact numerous fields. From the expected impact on language
teaching to the innovative development of a sign language corpus to
the development of crisis negotiations materials, this book provides a
diverse look at how CL can be utilized and influence a variety of
contexts.
Intended for those familiar with corpus linguistics, it is
nevertheless overall accessible. With some exceptions, it is written
in a way that the novice in CL can digest the material. These
exceptions include the sometimes overuse of acronyms (Chapter 2 and
8), failure to describe some corpora (e.g., SkELL is presented in
chapter 2 but not described until chapter 4), and at times a
hyperfocus on statistics central to CL (chapter 3 and 8).
The editors have provided a volume that flows from chapter to chapter,
something that is not always achieved in an edited volume. There is an
intentional flow from one topic to another, and when the topic does
shift, it never feels abrupt. Each chapter is adeptly organized,
providing a breakdown of the organization of the paper, which aids
this flow.
Because of the innovative nature of the volume, there are ample
opportunities for further research. Some of these could naturally stem
from extending the research from pilot stage to a more robust research
design. In Chapter 4, for example, the authors report on only four
teachers, all who self-selected to participate in the study. Chapter
12 also seemed light in the scope, starting with 12 participants which
led to interviews with four of the subjects. In both of these cases,
future research could enhance their findings.
One area that has become prevalent in our society is artificial
intelligence (AI). The current research informs the use of large
language models utilized by AI. The quick advancement of this
technology appears to have been missed throughout the volume. In a
variety of these chapters the authors specifically mention AI, whereas
many were silent as to its potential impact on CL. Perhaps this is to
be expected in this quickly changing world, but prior to the book’s
publication in 2026 the writing was already on the wall that AI will
influence CL research and applications. Because of this, much room is
available for researching the mutual impacts of AI and CL.
Another area of future research could be in taking Chapter 11’s line
of thinking on the manosphere in the opposite direction and
investigating the femosphere, or “a gender-flipped version or mirroring
of the manosphere” (Kay, 2026, p. 40). It would be informative to
investigate in what ways the reactive networks compare and contrast
with the findings that McClashan et al present in the current volume.
Throughout the volume, the authors hit on the central themes of CL,
applications, impacts, and emergent contexts of CL. However, at times
CL became lost to the application. For example, chapters 10, 11, and
12 each hit the innovative side of CL, and each showed how CL can be
applied to these emergent settings. However, in each the corpus
portion of the equation seemed to be set to the side. For example, it
took approximately seven pages of Chapter 10 before CL became a topic
of discussion, and then only to be briefly discussed. While it did
take a similarly long time to bring the focus to CL in Chapter 11, the
discussion was much more robust regarding CL. And Chapter 12’s level
of analysis was more qualitative in nature, with little focus on the
quantitative side that CL can provide.
Throughout the book, the authors included ample information on the
instruments that they developed for carrying out the research.
Chapters 3 and 4 both included access to the questionnaires and sample
questions that the researchers used in their interactions with
participants. Authors also provide screenshots of the CL outputs that
they implemented. However, the miniscule size of the font in these
images many times made it impossible to read, including in chapters 4,
5, and 8.
Current viability of some of the resources that have been presented in
this tome is questionable. Lin’s chapter on the creation of an app to
help teach formulaic expressions is both innovative and intriguing.
However, a search for the app IdiomsTube comes up empty. The online
version also leads to a dead link, and the only resources that are
available are three instructional videos on YouTube. At the time of
this writing, other CL resources such as ColloCaid continue to
function, but have perhaps been overtaken by other platforms powered
by AI. While ColloCaid may have been a pioneering program in helping
users complete collocates as they type, today, many word processers
are both more user friendly and more robust in carrying out these
types of processes. So, while perhaps innovative and emergent prior to
publication, sadly the advances in our technology have made ColloCaid
and other such programs antiquated. Will the same be true for other CL
programs?
Recently, some corpora developers have begun embracing AI. For
example, Mark Davis’s english-corpora.org is implementing AI to
generate research findings. Davis (2025) discusses the results of
seven white papers that compare how well AI and Large Language Models
(LLMs) work in comparison with corpora. In conclusion, he suggests
that both “LLMs and corpora have their advantages and the best course
is probably to use LLMs in conjunction with corpus data since in many
cases these two sources of data complement each other quite well.” So,
while “Applications of Corpus Linguistics: Established and Emergent
Contexts” is innovative in the realms that it presents, the fact that
they fail to directly address the use of AI and LLMs is one of the
shortcomings of this volume.
REFERENCES
Davis, Mark (2025, March 18). Corpora and AI / LLMs. YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAzWoNzhZ9A
Egbert, J., Larsson, T., & Biber, D. (2020). Doing linguistics with a
corpus: Methodological considerations for the everyday user. Cambridge
University Press
Kay, J. B. (2026). A tale of two angers: The manosphere, the
femosphere and the gender politics of mediated rage. Feminist Theory,
27(1), 31-49.
Szudarski, Paweł (2018). Corpus linguistics for vocabulary: A guide
for research. Routledge.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Tyler K. Anderson is Professor of Spanish at Colorado Mesa University,
where he teaches courses in language, linguistics and second language
acquisition. His research interests include language attitudes toward
manifestations of contact linguistics, including the acceptability of
lexical borrowing and code-switching in Spanish and English contact
situations. He is currently researching the frequency of Spanish loan
words in English.



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