Tony McEnery is Professor of English Language and Linguistics and Head of the Department of Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster University, UK.Richard Xiao is a researcher at the Department of Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster University, UK.Yukio Tono is Professor at the Department of Languages and Cultures, Meikai University, Japan.

• Preface Section A: Introduction A1. Corpus Linguistics: The Basics A2. Representativeness, Balance and Sampling A3. Corpus Markup A4. Corpus Annotation A5. Multilingual Corpora A6. Making Statistical Claims A7: Using Available Corpora A8. Going Solo: DIY Corpora A9: Copyright A10. Corpora and Language Studies Section B: Extension B1. Corpus Representativeness and Balance B2. Objections to Corpora: An Ongoing Debate B3. Lexical and Grammatical Studies B4. Language Variation Studies B5: Contrastive and Diachronic Studies B6: Language Teaching and Learning Section C: Exploration C1. Collocation and Pedagogical Lexicography C2. Help or Help to: What do Corpora Have to Say? C3. L2 Acquisition of Grammatical Morphemes C4. Swearing in Modern British English C5. Conversation and Speech in American English C6. Domains, Text Types, Aspect Marking and English-Chinese Translation. Bibliography. Appendix: Useful Internet Links. Index

"This book is by far the most comprehensive introduction to corpus linguistics published to date. It is essentially three books in one: 1) a conceptual overview of analytical issues, techniques, and findings; 2) a collection of key articles published to date 3) and a set of case studies that fully illustrate the most important analytical and design issues. I will certainly be using the book as a required text in my own courses." Douglas Biber, Northern Arizona University