Introduction

Abstract

The evidence that Sinclair considers to be inadequate is naturally occurring language. Since 1990, the amount of, and accessibility to, computing power has certainly made it easier to process huge amounts of text. The one area, however, where only a comparatively little amount of text evidence is available is spoken language. Amongst spoken language, there is little research evidence of how words are used within a particular group of speakers and in how far it does or does not differ from the usage amongst a more ‘general’ speaker. While dialectologists have focussed on differences in sound production and the use of characteristic words or grammatical constructions, in this book I will focus on the differences in the use of highly frequent words and clusters of words.

The argument I would like to put forward is that linguistics has been formed and shaped on inadequate evidence (…). There has been a distinct shortage of information and evidence available to linguists, and this gives rise to a particular balance between speculation and fact in the way in which we talk about our subject. (Sinclair 1990 [2004]: 9)