This first chapter introduces the reader to the central research questions and hypotheses investigated in this book. In particular, it discusses the role that the morphologically and semantically related simple verbs (e.g. notice in the case of take notice of) may play for the semantic evolution of the CPs. It draws on previous literature, showing that not much has been done in the way of studying the role of the simple verb. Further, the chapter introduces other factors that may help predict or explain the evolution of the CPs. The chapter is rounded off by a summary of the book’s structure.

The chapter provides an introduction to the relationship between politics and semiotics, to Cognitive CDA as a framework for studying politics and semiotics, and to shifts in political performance and media landscapes which demand a multimodal approach to political discourse analysis. It starts by highlighting the symbolic nature of politics and the discursive means by which politics is primarily performed. The historical development of Cognitive CDA is described. The practical aims, theoretical commitments and methodological practices of Cognitive CDA are also discussed. The central position of the media in communicating politics is considered alongside the relationship between political and media institutions. Changes brought about by the advent of the internet and digital social media are discussed with a focus on the new genres of political discourse that have emerged as a result and on the more participatory forms of politics that are potentially afforded. The chapter discusses the rise of right-wing populism that has coincided with changes to the media landscape and the shifts in communicative style by which it is marked.

Various factors affecting language learning are introduced, including demographic variables, and learners’ L1, cultural background and the context of language use, noting that the analysis of learner corpora can enable the exploration of language-learning processes during SLA and across different contexts. Practical challenges involved in building extensive learner corpora, especially spoken learner corpora, are discussed (e.g. variable constraints, scale of data, availability of data). The Trinity Lancaster Corpus (TLC), a spoken corpus based upon a language proficiency test, and two other corpora, are then introduced. The chapter then discusses MDA and its adaptation for short texts (short-text MDA). The chapter describes the challenges of analysing short texts within corpora and explains how short-text MDA may make it possible to explore discourse at both the micro-structural (turn) and macro-structural (discourse units) levels. The chapter concludes by noting that this exploration will lead to a deeper analysis of narrative structures as a result of the findings from the corpora studied in the book using short-text MDA.

To develop human capital in the globalized world, governments have implemented policies that require the teaching of some or all school subjects in English. However, the implementation of this policy has faced criticism and challenges in some countries where linguistic and cultural diversity is prevalent. These challenges include school segregation based on the medium of instruction, inadequate English proficiency of teachers and students and less interaction in English Medium of Instruction classrooms. Some researchers have investigated these challenges through international assessments such as the Programme for International Student Assessment and Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study. Others have examined EMI mathematics and science classrooms qualitatively through observations and interviews. These studies showed that teachers and students are more comfortable, and the classroom environment is more interactive when they use their mother tongue. In general, the findings favoured the mother tongue education for both cognitive and noncognitive variables. Researchers recommend either switching to EMI after achieving a certain level of English proficiency or providing language support for students who are already in EMI systems. Finally, a case study from Wales suggested that providing questions in both the mother tongue and English might mitigate unfair linguistic advantages in international assessments.

Liturgical prayer plays a significant role in Anglo-Saxon healing remedies. It is not, contrary to recent studies on prayer, “relatively rare in medical remedies” (Thomas 2020: 224). Chapter 1, “Invoking Baptism,” argues that charms borrow crucial verbal and physical components of the baptismal liturgy in order to invoke the sacrament and its celebration. The most vital of the texts gathered as incantations is the Creed, which lies at the foundation of Baptism. Alongside the Creed appears the Pater Noster, anti-demonic utterances and exorcistic gestures, water and its use for washing, and the Sign of the Cross or Triune blessing. The allusive force of these liturgical artifacts is clear and strong enough, especially when they act as a collective, to evoke the liturgy. The act of recalling the liturgy within the performance arena results in the summoning of the liturgy’s power as a force for healing. Through the manipulation of baptismal forms, charms translate Baptism’s ability to heal the soul into the ability to heal the body. While charms do not exorcize the devil or baptize people in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as is done at Baptism, the sacrament is so essential to the people’s spiritual welfare that healers harness its associations and apply them medicinally in traditional remedies.

Beginning with the Romance philologist Yakov Malkiel, scholars have attempted to construct typologies adequate to the description of dictionaries in all their variety since the 1950s. Typologies are useful tools. They require that we abstract the distinctive features of various dictionary types by close examination and comparison of features, and they help us grasp the dictionary phenomenon by organizing it analytically. But typologies have limitations. For instance, on occasion, dictionaries cross types. Recent typologies tend to view the dictionary as a stable genre of language reference work, but people insist on making dictionaries for other reasons: some dictionaries enregister dialects and slang and other nonstandard language varieties, such that the dictionaries are more about maintaining social boundaries and promoting regional or social identities by means of enregisterment. Still others are facetious or in some other way devoted not to reference but to entertainment, not that the two are always mutually exclusive. Because dictionaries tend to confound attempts to typologize them, some scholars have tried to restrict the categories “dictionary” and “lexicography” to exclude the confounding texts and those who make them.

The chapter briefly introduces the variation and change that has existed in the intensifier area throughout the history of English. It highlights the relevance of the historical courtroom for the study of intensifiers. Finally, it gives an overview of the contents of the book.

This chapter introduces some of the dominant institutional structures through which sexuality in Britain was interpreted. It surveys the relationship between lexicography and the law via buggery and sodomy, perhaps the words most familiarly associated with same-sex intercourse in pre-1900 English. The chapter defamiliarizes them by comparing the diverse explanations given to them across hard-word and general dictionaries, law lexicons, and legal treatises. Lexicographers constructed buggery and sodomy as crimes beyond the bounds of human law, as well as the natural and divine laws on which it was meant to be based; in so doing, they also built for their readers a contrastive model of lawful erotic behaviour. However, the scaffolding of sexual normativity was unstable. Dictionaries ascribed conflicting polysemies to buggery and sodomy, which were variably said to include ‘copulation’ between men, between women, between woman and man ‘unnaturally’, or between man or woman and beast. At the same time, buggery and sodomy were often rendered not only illegal but incoherent, as cross-sex-specific definitions of copulation itself precluded the possibility of same-sex activity.

While the idea of the scientific method has wide currency, in this chapter we point to the difficulties inherent in deciding exactly what that method is. We note some of the key features of the scientific method while also identifying some of the key choices we have made in writing this book.

This chapter introduces the relevance of corpus linguistics to applied linguistics and comments on some of the major changes in the field since the first edition of the book. The most essential terminology used in the rest of the book is explained, and some commonly used resources are described. The chapter ends on a personal note and provides an introduction to the interpretation of concordance lines.

This introductory chapter lays the theoretical and methodological groundwork for the rest of the monograph. It begins by introducing the topic of obesity and by reviewing existing (linguistic) research on it. It then introduces the context of the UK news media in detail. Finally, the chapter introduces the corpus of obesity newspaper articles assembled for this study and the methodological approach we use to analyse this data, which combines corpus linguistics with critical discourse studies.