37.3031, Reviews: Applications of Corpus Linguistics: Gavin Brookes; Niall Curry; Robbie Love (eds.) (2026)

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Subject: 37.3031, Reviews: Applications of Corpus Linguistics: Gavin Brookes; Niall Curry; Robbie Love (eds.) (2026)

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Date: 22-Sep-2026
From: Surayia Mostafa [surayiamostafa at gmail.com]
Subject: Gavin Brookes; Niall Curry; Robbie Love (eds.) (2026)


Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/37-758

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: Surayia Mostafa

SUMMARY
Corpus Linguistics (CL) is a field that is gradually making its mark
beyond academia. Applications of Corpus Linguistics: Established and
Emergent Contexts, edited by Gavin Brookes, Niall Curry, and Robbie
Love arrives at a time when corpus-based research can be
transformative in society, to bring impactful changes. Guy Aston
envisioned the application of corpus linguistics in solving real-life
problems (Viana et al., 2011), and confirming the prediction of the
future of corpus linguistics, this edited volume explores the already
established current applications and emerging applications of corpus
linguistics. The volume presents an overview of the affordances of
corpus linguistics in established fields like pedagogy to emerging
fields such as corpus-based discourse studies that impact media
practices, government policies, and social change. The volume has a
total of thirteen chapters, including the first chapter by the editors
and the afterword by Pascual Pérez-Paredes. The other eleven chapters
are research-based chapters which range from widely recognised
contexts to more unconventional contexts of application of
corpus-based research. The invaluable contribution of the volume is
multi-layered: corpus linguistics as a research methodology emerges as
a new method of research into social science that is not limited to
education but actively expands to make impactful positive changes in
social justice, media discourse, and professional training.
In the opening chapter, “Applying Corpus Linguistics,” the editors,
Gavin Brookes, Niall Curry, and Robbie Love outline a literature
review on the meaning of ‘application.’ They also justify how
“application” functions as the conceptual framework for organising the
chapters of the volume. Firstly, they maintain that “we are unlikely
to share one explanation of what application actually means” (Brookes
et al., 2026, p. 1). Drawing upon a broad spectrum of ‘application,’
they give an account of what application of corpus linguistics has
meant in different contexts: language pedagogy, expanded theoretical
framework in interdisciplinary studies, and demonstrable sociocultural
and economic impact. The first half of the volume explores the
established contexts and the second half explores the emergent
contexts. They also address the challenges of exploring the
application of corpus linguistics, noting that the notion of
application is “culturally situated” and “disciplinary differences”
may influence how the researchers engage with it (Brookes et al.,
2026, pp. 4–5). In many cases, the application of corpus linguistics
works as a methodological process that can be combined with other
methodologies from interdisciplinary studies. They confirmed that the
authors of the chapters were explicitly asked to reflect upon the term
“application and impact.” They also encourage the readers to reflect
on the relational, social, methodological, and institutional
dimensions of application that emerged in the book.
The second chapter, “‘Cutting Out the Middleman’: Doing DDL in the
Secondary School Classroom without a Corpus Linguist” by Peter
Crosthwaite and Alicia Gazmuri Sanhueza, provides insight into
data-driven learning (DDL) for secondary schools. They argue that
their study on DDL is substantial for secondary school settings as it
investigates how secondary teachers who are often novice to the
complications of applied linguistics navigate DDL. “Cutting out the
middleman” is what they refer to the absence of an applied linguist in
the class where four secondary school teachers carry out the DDL
activities on their own. Two case studies focus on English as an
additional language/dialect (EAL/D) and physical science in Year 9. In
the EAL/D class, students were encouraged to use DDL for an enhanced
understanding of cognitive verbs (such as judge, determine, and
discuss), whereas students in the science class intended to use
corpora to improve the use of passive voice in report writing. Despite
having an optimistic start, the EAL/D students ended up using Google
and online dictionaries. On the other hand, post-DDL intervention and
teacher interviews showed that the science students’ writing improved.
Although the chapter effectively tries to make an impact of the
application of DDL in secondary school settings, it lacks the full
impact of application due to interruption by COVID-19. The study lacks
the face-to-face interaction, one-to-one feedback, and continuous
teacher intervention needed to encourage students to continue using
DDL.
The third chapter, “Investigating User Perceptions of a
Corpus-Informed DDL Resource: User Experiences of ColloCaid” by
Geraint Paul Rees, also deals with DDL, more specifically ColloCaid,
which is a DDL academic writing assistant tool. He argues that DDL, as
a direct application of corpus linguistics to language learning and
teaching, should be more efficient with a high degree of usability.
Thus, the study fills the research gap in two ways: (a) researching
opportunities and limitations of DDL in language learning and (b)
researching ColloCaid, providing insight into users’ perception
through maintaining a diary. The participants were 12 university staff
and students who were instructed to write academically with the help
of ColloCaid and maintain a diary for a period of ten days.
Participants revealed that keeping a diary was tedious, and
unfamiliarity with the writing-assistance tool caused them to drop out
at some point. They preferred to use already familiar tools, such as
Grammarly, as it was convenient. The chapter reveals how DDL works in
the practical field compared to school systems, where they are
instructed on how to approach DDL. The insights of the chapter address
the limitations of ColloCaid and give researchers the ability to
incorporate DDL with familiar writing tools already available.
The fourth chapter, “Applying a Corpus-Based DDL Intervention in the
Private English Language Sector in Ireland” by Cristina Apavaloae and
Fiona Farr, interrogates teachers’ perceptions of the impacts of
applying a corpus-based DDL intervention in the private English
language sector in Ireland. The study provides insight into the
perceptions of the teachers despite having varying knowledge about
corpus linguistics. Four English language teachers in the private
sector agreed to use a corpus-based DDL intervention for 30 minutes in
class. The study fills the research gap not only in terms of the
private sector but also enables teachers in the private sector by
providing them with the materials and opportunity to use DDL in the
classroom. Sketch Engine for Language Learning (SKELL) 3.9 was used
for the study. The teachers taught the multi-word verb “to turn out”
in online classes during COVID-19 to multilingual learners aged
between seventeen to the thirties, and corpus-based materials were
prepared for the teachers beforehand. The inductive learning gave the
opportunity to students to learn from 18 concordance lines that the
researchers prepared from them. The teachers’ post-intervention
interviews were transcribed and formed into a corpus of 18,587 words.
The results show that the teachers confirmed that they would use the
materials again. Even though they benefited from the materials, they
found it time-consuming to employ them.
In the fifth chapter, “Using Corpus Linguistics in Formulaic Language
Learning,” Phoebe Lin draws on the use of corpus linguistics in
formulaic language. English as a foreign language (EFL) learners
struggle with mastering formulaic language, and the IdiomsTube project
helps the students to learn and use formulaic language. The study
evaluates the IdiomsTube project that applies the corpus linguistics
method to bridge the gap between theory and practice. The
functionality of multimodal concordancing is presented as opposed to
traditional concordancing, which is believed to have less impact on
learning formulaic language. The IdiomsTube App helps students to
select videos and learn from a real-time corpus being built from
YouTube videos while they are being played, unlike the pre-built
corpus. EFL learners can select videos according to the trends,
recommendations, and save bookmarks. While the project lists 40,000
formulaic expressions, they are said to be the lesser-known ones, as
these are harder to master. The project and the app work in favour of
the learners, which should be the goal of any learning app.
In the sixth chapter, “Applying Corpus Research Indirectly to Language
Teaching Materials and Assessment Development,” Niall Curry, Geraldine
Mark, Hyoshin Lee, Tony McEnery, Graham Burton, Tony Clark, and
Dongkwang Shin present four case studies on applying corpus research
indirectly to language teaching materials and assessment development.
The first two cases focused on Arabic-speaking learners’ spelling
errors and Korean learners’ language proficiency, using the Sejong
Korean Language Assessment (SKA) to align with the Common European
Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). The other two case
studies focused on the challenges and attitudes of thirteen English
language teaching authors in using corpus linguistics for the
production of coursebooks. The last case study focused on publishers,
in particular Cambridge University Press, and investigated whether
they would incorporate the results of adverb usage from the British
National Corpus (BNC) 1994 and 2014. Despite the potential
applications of CL, the impact remains limited in language teaching
and assessment due to the incongruity between real-world language and
idealised language.
In the seventh chapter, “Informing Teaching Practice through Corpus
Research: The Growth in Grammar Project,” Philip Durrant and Debra
Myhill focus on Growth in Grammar, a corpus project on the changes in
children’s school writing until they become sixteen. The texts are
from English, science, history, geography, and religious studies
classes. They reframed the controversial status of “grammar teaching”
in England. The corpus linguistics research addressed the question of
teaching grammar and indicated at which stage and which grammatical
patterns should be taught. The impacts on professional understanding
and pedagogical practices include training and workshops in the UK,
Scandinavia, and Australia, as well as collaboration with educational
organisations, such as Pearson. However, the risk of involvement with
the government, policy endorsement, and the difficulty of illustrating
direct impact are some of the limitations mentioned.
>From the eighth chapter onward, the book shifts its focus towards the
unconventional research trends in CL. This chapter, “Building a
Longitudinal Learner Corpus for Swiss German Sign Language: Potential
Applications” by Alessia Battisti and Sarah Ebling, is on building the
first longitudinal learner corpora of Swiss German Sign Language
(Deutschschweizerische Gebärdensprache, DSGS). Considering the number
of people who use DSGS as L1 and L2, the aim was to enrich linguistic
research and equip the corpora with training materials. Particularly,
the learner corpus would help to monitor learning progress and provide
automatic feedback on the accuracy of sentence-level sign productions.
The chapter provides an overview of the existing sign language corpus
research and then introduces sign language linguistics. The chapter
elaborates on how the DSGS learner corpus was compiled to make it
valuable for linguistics research. Despite having difficulties due to
manual transcriptions and annotation of hand gestures, eye, and head
movements, the study of sign language situated itself in the centre of
emerging contexts in CL.
The ninth chapter, “Using CADS Research to Critique Representations of
Muslims in the UK Press” by Paul Baker and Tony McEnery, deals with
the research on the representation of Muslims in the UK press through
Corpus-Assisted Discourse Studies (CADS). Funded by different
stakeholders at different periods of time, through a series of
interlinked studies, the research on the representation of Muslims
from 1998 to 2019 was documented. The study is impactful in revealing
how Muslims and Islam are represented in the UK press. Non-academic
impact and engagement were visible in collaborating with iENGAGE,
which seeks to raise media awareness and political participation among
British Muslims. iENGAGE launched an exhibition on Islamophobia at the
British Parliament in 2012. The research project presented the
findings to the journalists at an event hosted by the Society of
Editors. Hence, this kind of applied CL research paves the way for
future corpus-assisted studies examining prejudice and bias against
specific religious or ethnic communities.
The tenth chapter, “Examining the Uptake of Media Guidelines: A Corpus
Analysis of Obesity Representation in Australian and UK News” by
Monika Bednarek, Carly Bray, Tara Coltman-Patel, and Catriona
Bonfiglioli, examines the uptake of media guidelines focusing on the
discourse of obesity on the news in Australia and in the UK. The
project is an international research collaboration which is also
interdisciplinary. The research team consists of linguists/journalism
scholars from Australian and UK universities along with the Australian
Obesity Collective. The researchers draw on a subset of the Australian
Obesity Corpus that has at least one mention of obese or obesity from
twelve national Australian newspapers from 2008 to 2019 and on the
Obesity in the British Press (OiBP) Corpus to investigate whether the
media guidelines for language use are implemented in newspapers. They
used the Corpus Query Processor on the web (CQPweb) for analysis, and
used exact searches instead of collocation analysis to trace
dis/preferred language. The results show that identity-first language
is more prevalent than person-first language. For example, “obese
people” is more common than “people with obesity”. The newspapers tend
to use pejorative words rather than euphemisms.
Following that, the eleventh chapter, “Challenging Online Misogyny:
The Application of Corpus Linguistics in the MANTRaP Project” by Mark
McGlashan, Jessica Aiston, Veronika Koller, and Alexandra Krendel, is
a study of online misogyny through the Misogyny And The Red Pill
(MANTRaP) project, which is well aligned with the theme of the impact
of the application of CL beyond academia. MANTRaP, which started in
2019, studies the manosphere, a prominent online network that
expresses misogyny and anti-feminism. Applying keyword analysis,
collocation, and qualitative analysis to the manosphere, the study
revealed that derogatory words were used against women. The chapter is
impactful in revealing how women are seen within the manosphere
communities, and it calls for a change in society. As a further step
to make the research more influential, the authors appeared in media
programmes and engaged in conversation with journalists. They also
sought to work with organisations that provide education and
safeguarding against misogynistic discourse on mainstream media.
The twelfth chapter, “Using Corpus-Assisted Approaches to Explore UK
Police Crisis Negotiation,” is Dawn Archer’s reflection on a project
with the UK Police’s National Negotiation Group (NNG). Archer and
Stott (2020) wrote a 173-page report on the project. The project used
a corpus-assisted approach to explore forty-two crisis incidents with
the intention of helping police negotiators. Since most of the
established models emphasise the psychology of crisis negotiation, she
advocated developing a language-based negotiator’s toolkit. However,
since the submitted report is embargoed, Archer draws upon some
previous accessible work to exemplify the results of the corpus and
pragmatic analysis of the forty-two crisis incidents. Using R and
Wmatrix, the researcher quantitatively investigated the crisis
incidents concerning barricades/sieges, mental health issues, and
suicide interventions. It was established that the words “wanna” and
“gonna” signal the subjects’ desire and intention, respectively. On
the other hand, negotiators overused the word “promise.” The chapter
suggests that CL can improve police negotiation training or any crisis
negotiation training.
In the final chapter, which is the afterword titled “From Applications
to Impact,” Pascual Pérez-Paredes situates the volume in the larger
context of CL informed by the previous call by Guy Aston on the
application of CL to real-world problems. He argues that the
application of CL in different disciplines by the corpus linguists is
validated by the users beyond academia. Moreover, he argues that the
discussion involving the impact of CL research is one of the biggest
assets of the volume. Regarding the future of language-related
research, he points out that it is and will be shaped by “the
emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) and human collaboration in
content creation” (Pérez-Paredes, 2026, p. 281).
EVALUATION
All the chapters of the volume make valuable contributions to applied
CL and introduce  perspectives on the field. The chapters of the book
can be characterised by: (1) CL in pedagogy such as ColloCaid,
IdiomsTube, and Growth in Grammar; (2) CL in interdisciplinary
research projects such as MANTRaP, and the discourse study of obesity.
The chapters that deal with DDL provide insight into secondary schools
and private English language schools. The strength of the chapters is
that they move from the learners to teachers, stakeholders, and
publishers, unlike traditional pedagogical CL research. Given that the
projects have been illustrated in detail, other CL researchers could
adopt the methods to new topics. For example, the research on Muslim
representation by Paul Baker and Tony McEnery in chapter nine could be
used for research on antisemitism. The application of CL in societal
issues such as obesity, misogyny, and racism provides evidence-based
cases and scope for policymakers, governments, politicians, and
stakeholders to address the problems. Responding to the editors’ call,
the researchers developed research topics that are “impactful,” making
an interdisciplinary intersection between corpus linguistics and
pedagogy, sociology, gender studies, pragmatics, and psychology.
The chapters of the book transition from DDL to social issues
smoothly. Although the content of the chapters is interesting in
dealing with a wide range of topics, the scope of the book is limited
to English-speaking countries, more specifically to the UK context.
Even though other countries such as Australia, Germany, and Ireland
are mentioned, a big portion of the subject matter focuses on the UK.
However, it is understandable that many of the projects are funded by
the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), which expects
impactful research in the UK. This might be a reason why the chapters
are UK and English-speaking-centred. The book demonstrates a visible
distinction in the presentation of the Global North, and the Global
South has not been included in any of the chapters. Moreover,
concerning the varieties of World Englishes, the focus of the book is
considerably limited to the Inner Circle Englishes. Corpus research on
well-established English varieties, such as Indian English and
Nigerian English, is prevalent. However, application of CL within the
World Englishes is underrepresented. Interestingly enough,
Arabic-speaking and Korean learners were mentioned in chapter six,
which gives the volume a slight variety in terms of languages or
learners researched. The volume mostly focuses on the English
language. However, chapter eight, which focuses on sign language, is a
noteworthy exception, as it promotes inclusivity and serves deaf and
hearing communities (Pérez-Paredes, 2026, p. 279). Nevertheless, the
book successfully explores a variety of topics, which could be adapted
by researchers around the world, giving them a chance to do impactful
research through application of corpus linguistics to underrepresented
languages and geographic locations.
The edited volume’s target audience is broad and diverse, and spans
multiple disciplines corresponding to the chapters. Each chapter of
the volume is contextualised, giving the readers a full picture of the
context and background. In the first few chapters where corpus
linguistics is applied in pedagogy, it is important for in-service
teachers, English language teachers, or science teachers. Applied sign
linguists can benefit from chapter eight on the learner corpus of
Swiss German Sign Language (DSGS) and can create a similar learner
corpus. The case study on publishers such as Cambridge University
Press will be helpful to other English language teaching publications.
The chapters that discuss social issues such as misogyny, social
inequality, and racism directed towards certain religious or ethnic
groups are important to lawmakers, cybercrime investigators,
policymakers, and the government. Moreover, the failure and success of
accessibility or learner-friendliness in some of the projects and apps
presented in the chapters also facilitate future research. EAL/D
students replaced the DDL tool in favour of Google and online
dictionaries in chapter two, and the limitations and tedious nature of
the ColloCaid tool steered students as well as university staff
towards the familiar Grammarly tool in chapter three. However, the
IdiomsTube project was a success among the learners. These are some
clear examples from the chapters that are not always effective, but
future language researchers can mitigate the limitations in CL-based
language learning apps and projects. The volume fulfils its purpose by
expanding the horizon and continuing to deal with emerging contexts.
Researchers can continue the application of CL in other
interdisciplinary fields to deal with real-world problems. To sum up,
CL poses enormous benefits beyond the classroom even in critical
societal contexts, and curated, segmented research design may serve
the pedagogical and societal objectives better.
Note: Grammarly was used for spelling, punctuation, and grammar
checking during the final editing stage. All analysis, evaluation, and
text are the author's own.
REFERENCES
Archer, D., & Stott, P. (2020). Argument for a language-based
“negotiator’s toolkit” [Project report for the UK Police’s National
Negotiation Group]. Manchester Metropolitan University.
Brookes, G., Curry, N., & Love, R. (2026). Applying corpus
linguistics. In G. Brookes, N. Curry, & R. Love (Eds.), Applications
of corpus linguistics: Established and emergent contexts (pp. 1–13).
Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009382007.001
Pérez-Paredes, P. (2026). Afterword: From applications to impact. In
G. Brookes, N. Curry, & R. Love (Eds.), Applications of corpus
linguistics: Established and emergent contexts (pp. 276–283).
Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009382007.013
Viana, V., Zyngier, S., & Barnbrook, G. (Eds.). (2011). Perspectives
on corpus linguistics. John Benjamins.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Surayia Mostafa is a Master’s student in English-Speaking Cultures:
Language, Text, Media at the University of Bremen, Germany. Her
research focuses on corpus linguistics, sociolinguistics, World
Englishes, and cultural linguistics, with particular interests in
multilingualism and Second Language Acquisition (SLA).



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