Abstract
In this article, I attempt to embed corpus linguistics in a framework of social constructionism and hermeneutics. Corpus linguistics, as I see it, has a unique approach to meaning. It aims to describe the meaning of a unit under consideration exclusively through usage and paraphrase. These units can be seen as objects of the discourse, and their meaning is what has been said about them within the discourse. While over the last forty years corpora were mainly used to find out what is common to different occurrences of such units, for instance a lexical item such as friendly fire, we should now turn our attention also to what make each occurrence a singular event, somehow building on paraphrases before the event and the traces this particular event leaves in subsequent texts. I am not interested in what is going on in the minds of speakers and hearers, and I am not interested in how what is said may refer to reality. Meaning as seen here is only found within the discourse, negotiated in a never-ending flow of contributions to the discourse, in which what has been said so far is continuously rearranged in and permuted in new contributions to the discourse. The discourse is therefore autopoietic and self-referential.
Highlights
In this article, I attempt to embed corpus linguistics in a framework of social constructionism and hermeneutics
As I see it, has a unique approach to meaning. It aims to describe the meaning of a unit under consideration exclusively through usage and paraphrase
These units can be seen as objects of the discourse, and their meaning is what has been said about them within the discourse
Summary
Dass sie immer gleich erzählt werden können, ist nur möglich, wenn die Inhalte für den Erzähler Sinn machen, das heisst mit seinen Ich-Erlebnissen verknüpft werden können. An die Stelle der Wirklichkeit tritt der Diskurs, die Gesamtheit all dessen, was zwischen den Mitgliedern einer Gesellschaft an verbalen Äusserungen ausgetauscht worden ist und ausgetauscht wird. Womit ich in einer literalen Gesellschaft sprachlich operiere, bezieht sich nicht mehr direkt auf die Wirklichkeit, sondern konstituiert sich in Abstraktionen, die immer schon die Wirklichkeit interpretieren und mich dadurch von der Wirklichkeit entfremden. Anders als der kognitiven Linguistik geht es der Korpuslinguistik nicht darum, zu verstehen, was der Sprecher will, wie wir von einer sprachlichen Äusserung auf die Intentionen des Sprechers schliessen können. Nur der Diskurs, verstanden als die vergangene und gegenwärtige Kommunikation zwischen den Diskursteilnehmern, ist ihr Gegenstandsbereich.
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