Abstract
This article provides an overview of Douglas Biber’s work on register and his central role in establishing register as both an empirical focus and a theoretical construct in corpus linguistics. I identity four general phases of his work. Each has a slightly different emphasis, but each also advances intertwined threads of research that lead to an increased understanding of register variation. Biber’s work has made major contributions to distinct areas within the study of registers, from cross-linguistic speech-writing differences to English grammar, but he has advanced the field especially by integrating the findings from different areas. He has offered conceptualizations of register that account for findings from multiple areas of study, and he continues to refine the conceptualization as he engages in new lines of inquiry today.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to the guest editors for their helpful comments on drafts of this article.
References
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© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Register variation and corpus linguistics: empirical findings and emerging theories. Special issue introduction of Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory in honor of Douglas Biber
- Register in corpus linguistics: the role and legacy of Douglas Biber
- Clausal and phrasal coordination in recent American English
- Register variation explains stylometric authorship analysis
- A variationist perspective on the comparative complexity of four registers at the intersection of mode and formality
- Linguistic variation within registers: granularity in textual units and situational parameters
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Register variation and corpus linguistics: empirical findings and emerging theories. Special issue introduction of Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory in honor of Douglas Biber
- Register in corpus linguistics: the role and legacy of Douglas Biber
- Clausal and phrasal coordination in recent American English
- Register variation explains stylometric authorship analysis
- A variationist perspective on the comparative complexity of four registers at the intersection of mode and formality
- Linguistic variation within registers: granularity in textual units and situational parameters