A CORPUS APPROACH TO SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEWS

Advances in computer technology have made it possible to create and use large electronic text collections, often called language corpora, in linguistics and applied linguistics for several decades now. Pioneers in corpus linguistics focused on natural language use to identify linguistic patterns with the help of corpus analysis software. A more recent development in the field is applying corpus-based approaches to a wide range of areas in applied linguistics and social sciences. This chapter will demonstrate how quantitative and qualitative corpus analysis techniques, such as keyword analysis and the analysis of collocations, concordance lines, and frequent multiword items, can be used to identify and examine key themes when conducting systematic literature reviews. The chapter will take a critical approach and, while highlighting how to harness the largely untapped potential of corpus-based techniques for systematic reviews, will also put corpus methods into perspective.