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Research Guides

Linguistic Corpora

Searchable Text Collections

Definition & Uses

Corpus linguistics approaches the study of language through corpora or text collections and can help answer the following questions:

  • What are the most frequently used words and phrases in English?
  • What are some of the primary differences between spoken English and written English?
  • What tenses do people use most frequently?
  • What prepositions tend to follow particular verbs?
  • How many words must a non-native English speaker need to know in order to participate in everyday conversations?

Additional Resources