Routledge Applied Linguistics is a series of comprehensive textbooks, providing students and researchers with the support they need for advanced study in the core areas of English language and Applied Linguistics. Each book in the series guides readers through three main sections, enabling them to explore and develop major themes within the discipline. Throughout the book, topics are revisited, extended, interwoven and deconstructed, with the reader’s understanding strengthened by tasks and follow-up questions. Corpus-Based Language Studies : The accompanying website to this book can be found at
The book’s key merits are the balance between, on the one hand, theoretical reflection and practical applications, and between scholarly discourse and accessible explanation on the other. These are part of the professed series format, it is true, but it is clearly the authors’ personal achievement that they have made the format work particularly well for this book. The style of writing is clear and approachable throughout, guiding readers through arguments step by step, without unduly reducing the intellectual rigor of the argument. For sociolinguists it should prove a mine of information, opening up new vistas on quite a few areas of their work, and significantly extending their methodological toolkit. In short, it is the sort of book one can see running to many editions, and deservedly so.
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