Corpus linguistics and ELF

Corpus Linguistics and English as a Lingua Franca (henceforth respectively CL and ELF) have been strongly interrelated since their early stages; this is largely due to the assumption shared by scholars in both fields that empirical analysis of natural text(s) is an indispensable prerequisite for theoretical discussion – and viceversa. Such prerequisite is even more cogent if we bear in mind that the majority of the world's English users are non-native speakers of English and largely exploit it as their working language. Hence, sheer intuition-based methodology cannot give adequate account of the manifold actualizations of a language that systematically trespasses its national borders, imposing deep sociological, ethnographic and cultural considerations on everyday real-world language use. In this article I first focus on the common ground shared by CL and ELF; secondly, I illustrate a case study on news-related blogs as a potential instance of online ELF (professional) communication, where mainstream journalists, independent experts and ordinary citizens meet on the online ground to provide content on the same event from all over the world.