This paper presents a description of the tools and methodologies employed in the novel discipline of
modern diachronic corpus-assisted language studies. The main instruments are a set of three ‘sister’ corpora of
parallel structure and content from different moments of contemporary time, namely 1993, 2005 and 2010, along
with a number of corpus interrogation tools. The methodologies are the particular techniques devised by the SiBol
research team1 for employing these interrogation tools to shed light on the various research questions treated in the
paper. The first part of the paper outlines ways in which these tools and techniques can be used to track changes in
the grammar, lexis and discourse practices of UK broadsheet or ‘quality’ newspapers. Given the important role of
newspapers, some of these changes may well be indicative of general changes in UK written English. The second
part, instead, describes a number of studies conducted by the research group into how the reporting of various social and cultural themes and issues, ranging from what is seen as a moral issue, to the rhetoric of appeals to science,
to how antisemitism is debated, has developed over the time period in question. The concluding section discusses
the relationship between the methodologies employed in modern diachronic corpus-assisted language studies and
wider scientific research methodology.
1 SiBol is a portmanteau of Siena and Bologna, the two universities involved in initiating the project. http://www3.lingue.unibo.it/clb