Chapter 5 looks at individual cases of cultural motivation of change in formulaic language. First, the functional paradigm of motivation and the methodology used to identify change are discussed. Nine detailed case studies of cultural motivation of linguistic change in action follow. These examples make a strong case for a very close link between linguistic change and changes in the culture of the speech community. Two issues raised by some of the case studies are also addressed. The first concerns the difference between merely topical fluctuations reflected in language and actual linguistic change – conclusions here show that while there is no clear dividing line, the shape of frequency developments and the type of linguistic item involved can make an intersubjective determination possible. The second concerns the issue of whether the development of MWEs explained by the behaviour of key lexical items they contain. It is shown that this is not generally the case. The case studies show that striking insights into prevailing attitudes and circumstances among the speech community are possible through the study of linguistic data.

The insights gained in Chapter 5 are then contextualised in Chapter 6. This is done in two ways: by investigating instances of non-cultural types of motivation, to contrast with cultural motivation, and by quantifying the extent of cultural motivation among instances of change in the data. For this purpose, the chapter opens by presenting a comprehensive typology of motivations of change (based on research discussed in Chapter 2) and then presents the method used to assess motivation in a random sample of instances of significant change in the corpus. Conclusions from six closely researched instances of non-cultural motivation suggest that there are various other strong motivators of change, but also that some of the commonly applied categories of non-culturally motivated change offer less than satisfactory accounts of motivation. In some of these cases, more interesting but difficult to ascertain social factors play a role. At the end of the chapter, an assessment is made of the relative proportions of the different motivators of linguistic change in the sample. This shows that cultural change plays a greater role than language-internal factors.