Corpus linguistics has gained prominence in the study of language, both of standard and learner varieties, in the 1990, as technological advances allowed for quick and reliable analyses of large volumes of language data. Computer-aided analyses of large principled collections of authentic texts, known as language corpora, brought about new insights into the nature of language and afforded a more nuanced understanding of linguistic structure, language change, and language development. The chapter provides an overview of the key principles of corpus linguistics methods and of some frequently-used corpus instruments and procedures; it explores the potential benefits of application of corpus linguistics methods and instruments to the study of heritage languages, using the examples of few existing heritage language corpora. Overall, the chapter aims to engage the heritage language community in investing energy in the development of heritage language corpora and in making better use of the existing computational tools in the study of heritage languages.

Chapter 3 describes the fundamental research questions, empirical approaches and findings of language documentation and descriptive linguistics. These are two closely interrelated linguistic subfields concentrating on the collection and/or analysis of primary data for the purposes of documenting and describing languages (corpora and grammars). Methodological issues include considerations on research objects, fieldwork, as well as techniques and procedures of data collection, editing, and analysis such as transcription, annotation, and elicitation. The chapter ends with recommendations for further reading and a list of short exercises and ideas for small research projects.