Chapter published in:
Voices Past and Present - Studies of Involved, Speech-related and Spoken Texts: In honor of Merja Kytö
Edited by Ewa Jonsson and Tove Larsson
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics 97] 2020
► pp. 227–246

Chapter 14
Return to the future

Exploring spoken language in the BNC and BNC2014

| University of Oxford
This study explores the use of expressions of future in two spoken corpora: BNC XML, from 1994, and BNC2014. It is a first, explorative venture aiming to identify features that merit further study. For that, the initial focus is placed on examining two features shown to vary between different corpora: frequency and proportions of the different expressions and collocations with personal pronouns. The results lend support to previous suggestions about changes in how future reference is expressed in English. It also shows that the new BNC2014 offers exciting opportunities for studies of Present-day British English. In combination with the demographically sampled component of the original BNC it becomes a useful resource for exploring the development of very recent language change.
Keywords: expressions of future, spoken data, diachronic change, pronouns, BNC1994 and BNC2014
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Background
  • 2.Method and conventions
  • 3.Quantitative findings
    • 3.1Future reference in the corpora
    • 3.2Opportunity for future reference
    • 3.3Proportions of expressions of future
  • 4.Collocations with personal pronouns
    • 4.1 Will
    • 4.2 ’ll
    • 4.3 Going to
    • 4.4 Gonna
    • 4.5 Shall
  • 5.Summary and concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 05 October 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.97.14ber
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