Some quotes on using corpus linguistics methods
You shall know a word by the company it keeps.
J.R. Firth, A Synopsis of Linguistic Theory
There can be no ‘correctness’ apart from usage.
C.C. Fries, An American English Grammar
Usage cannot be invented, it can only be recorded.
(Sinclair, 1987a: xv). One of the main uses of a corpus is to identify what is central and typical in the language.
(Sinclair, 1991a: 17). Linguistic variation is highly systematic
(Biber & Conrad, 2009: 4)