National university of uzbekistan named after mirzo ulugbek foreign language and literature department

1.2 Phraseological units in discourse and corpus-based analysis
Corpus-based analysis of phraseological units is a powerful and increasingly popular approach to studying language use and meaning. In this method, a large corpus of text is analyzed using computational tools to identify and extract multi-word expressions that exhibit characteristic patterns of lexical and grammatical cohesion, also known as phraseological units. These units include collocations, idioms, proverbs, fixed expressions, and other types of formulaic language that are crucial for effective communication in many contexts.
The use of corpus-based analysis of phraseological units has many advantages. As Nesselhauf argues, "corpus-based research is well-suited to the study of phraseology because it is able to reveal patterns that would be difficult or impossible to detect in small, intuition-based samples".⁴³ By analyzing large amounts of naturally occurring language, researchers can identify not only the most frequent phraseological units, but also their contexts of use, variation across different genres and registers, and changes over time. This helps to provide a more comprehensive and reliable picture of how language works in real-world situations.
Another advantage of corpus-based analysis of phraseological units is that it allows for the testing of hypotheses and the development of theories about language use and meaning. As McEnery and Hardie note, "a corpus-based approach to phraseology provides an empirical foundation for the testing of theories and the development of models of language use"⁴⁴. By using statistical methods and visualization tools, researchers can examine the co-occurrence patterns of words and phrases in the corpus and test their significance and frequency. This provides a basis for making generalizations about language structure and function that are grounded in real-world data.
However, corpus-based analysis of phraseological units also has some challenges and limitations that need to be addressed. One challenge is to define and classify the different types of phraseological units, which can be highly context-dependent and subject to different interpretations. As Gries and Stefanowitsch argue, "there is still much to be done in terms of developing a clear and comprehensive typology of phraseological units that can guide corpus-based research".⁴⁵ This requires a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods that take into account both linguistic and pragmatic factors.
Another challenge is to ensure the validity and reliability of the corpus data and the tools and techniques used for analysis. As Biber and Conrad caution, "corpus-based research can be highly sensitive to the quality of the corpus data, the representativeness of the sample, and the accuracy of the analysis"⁴⁶. This requires careful attention to the corpus design, selection criteria, preprocessing, and annotation, as well as to the choice of software and algorithms for identifying and extracting phraseological units.
Despite these challenges, corpus-based analysis of phraseological units has produced many important insights into the nature and use of language. For example, it has revealed the importance of collocation and semantic prosody in determining the meaning and usage of words and phrases, the role of formulaic language in language acquisition and use, and the effects of culture and context on the use and interpretation of idioms and other phraseological units.