Abstract :
[en] Corpus-based Approaches to Construction Grammar presents eight studies whichaim to advance Construction Grammar theory by applying a range of corpus techniques.One of its keywords could be ‘coherent variation’. The book offers variationin the languages and phenomena studied; there are studies on Dutch, English,Italian and Spanish, adult and child language, synchronic and diachronic data.In addition there is variation in the granularity of the methods used, which rangefrom the use of simple corpus examples and frequencies over association measuresto various more advanced multivariate techniques. Finally, language variationitself of course presents a recurrent theme. Meanwhile, the book manages tomaintain coherence in several ways. First, all studies subscribe to the frameworkof Construction Grammar, and the questions posed and answers given by all studiescontribute to theoretical progress within this framework. Second, there is coherencein the type of data source, with all studies drawing on corpora. Finally,there is coherence in coupling each research question to the appropriate choice ofcorpus-based method, which may very well constitute the hardest task of a corpuslinguist. Striking this balance between variation and coherence, i.e. providingenough diversity to be inspiring to the reader and to be representative for the entirefield of corpus-based approaches to Construction Grammar, while not losingall sense of cohesion, is hard, yet this book succeeds in it
