The aim of corpus-assisted discourse studies (CADS) is the uncovering, in the discourse type under study, of what we call nonobvious meaning, that is, meaning which might not be readily available to naked-eye perusal. By combining the quantitative approach, that is, statistical overviews of large amounts of the discourse in question with the more qualitative approach typical of discourse analysis, that is, the close analysis of particular stretches of discourse, it may be possible to access such nonobvious meanings. This chapter describes a set of CADS case studies into the facework performed during media and political interaction, from early work on White House press briefings to contrastive examinations of the facework typical of the US State Department and Chinese Foreign Ministry briefings which envisage not just the study of interpersonal im/politeness but also the performance of ‘national facework’. The facework involved in all these settings is multifaceted and complex. Firstly it is not always collaborative, indeed it is often downright competitive, and impoliteness is not uncommon, and it also comprises a mixture of personal, group and vicarious facework. The corpora employed in these studies are also multimedia in that videos of the briefings are also mostly available alongside the transcripts.

This chapter explores how members of the online incel community interact with (presumably) new members on the subreddit r/Braincels. It seeks to explore why new members might stay on a website known for hostility and poor mental health. Through the use of corpus linguistic methods, I explore ways that members of the community might interact with newcomers. I argue that users do not index their identity as new on the forum through lexemes such as new or first, and that there appears to be few repeated and explicit ways that members signal posting on the forum for the first time. As such, I analyse how incels construct their community, by using corpus linguistic methods and Martin and White’s (2005) appraisal framework. I argue that the members of the incel community constructed their group as ‘toxic’, but also as a place where they were able to receive mental health support. Ultimately, I argue that more work needs to be done to explore not only why people might engage with these kinds of forums, but also how members of the incel community convince people to stay engaged.

This chapter provides practical and theoretical insights into corpus-assisted discourse studies (CADS), an increasingly popular framework for studying language-in-use. By drawing upon both discourse analysis and corpus linguistics, CADS combines methods of text analysis commonly perceived as qualitative and quantitative, respectively. Despite challenges, the main appeal lies in CADS’ ability to reconcile close linguistic analyses with the more broad-ranging analyses made possible by using corpus linguistic methods to analyse language. In addition to providing theoretical insights into CADS, this chapter examines what CADS involves from a practical point of view, e.g. by discussing specific corpus outputs, examples of ways in which qualitative and quantitative approaches to discourse analysis are synergized and triangulated, and the extent to which CADS differs from other kinds of discourse analysis relying on one or more non-corpus-informed approaches in discourse analysis. Interdisciplinary applications in CADS are also considered.