This book brings together corpus linguistics and pragmatics by extending the emerging corpus analytic framework of local grammar to speech act research, aiming to enrich the toolkit of corpus-based speech act studies. It outlines four directions in which local grammar can be useful for investigating speech acts, namely, a local grammar approach to annotating speech acts, developing local grammars of speech acts, identifying speech act constructions via the lens of local grammars, and applying local grammars into contrastive speech act studies. These directions are illustrated with studies on apology in contemporary spoken British English, which shows that local grammar can be an innovative approach to advance speech act studies and that such research has significant implications and applications. The book should be of interest to researchers and students in corpus linguistics, pragmatics, construction grammar, and L2 speech act research and teaching.
