This readable introductory textbook presents a concise survey of corpus linguistics. The first section of the book introduces the key concepts in corpus linguistics and provides a brief history of the discipline. The second section expands the study of language and shows how corpus linguistics can advance our study of words and meaning, the benefits of studying the corpora, and how meaning can best be conceptualised. Explaining corpus linguistics in easy to understand terms, and including a glossary and suggestions for further reading, this book will be useful to students trying to get a grasp on this subject.