Qualitative Considerations for Building Corpora of Business-Related Texts

Corpus linguistics is commonly thought of as a quantitative method, but qualitative decisions are equally important. In this article, we describe the importance of qualitative decision-making when using corpora to carry out business communication research. Through the use of two comparative case studies, we highlight how two important qualitative decisions—language-domain operationalization and corpus balance—can affect the findings of the research. We conclude with three recommendations for business communication scholars who use corpus data in their research.