This is a chapter about ‘applications’, specifically the application of corpus linguistics to discourse analysis. The main topics addressed are the study of academic English, corpora and critical discourse analysis, and stylistics, with an additional section on specific kinds of discourse: health discourse, legal texts, and academic disciplines outside linguistics. The chapter emphasises the use of complementary methods, in particular the combination of top-down and bottom-up studies. The concepts introduced in previous studies, such as keyness, collocation and multidimensional analysis, are used here to explore areas such as differences between academic disciplines, the representation of people in newspapers, or the language of Dickens or Donald Trump.

There has been growing awareness that refugees profit from being involved in meaningful activities soon after arriving in their new country of residence. Learning the language of the host country seems to be a priority of many initiatives. Yet, in countries like the Netherlands, highly educated refugees might benefit more from initially improving their academic English, as this provides access to higher education and allows them to (re)enter professional life. Drawing on a small-scale needs analysis, this case study showcases the design and implementation of pedagogic tasks that intend to support refugees learning English in the Netherlands for academic or professional purposes.