This book is the second volume of the series Studies on Spoken Language by the Institute of Modern Greek Studies (IMGS) and aims, in a way, to make visible one of the underlying assumptions that govern the studies of the first volume (Greek Language & Spoken Communication, 2015). This assumption is that a sufficient empirical description of a language presupposes the existence of recorded primary spoken language – in both auditory/visual and transcribed forms.

This very need is addressed by the Spoken Language Corpus of IMGS, which was developed within the framework of the research program Language Interaction and Conversation Analysis of IMGS. The primary goal of this publication is to present the Spoken Language Corpus of IMGS to researchers and scholars of the Greek language, as well as to a broader audience.

The volume is structured in two parts. In Part A, the general framework for the compilation of text corpora and the basic principles/concepts of Conversation Analysis, which serves as the theoretical foundation of the Corpus, are outlined, and the specific characteristics and components are described.

In Part B of the volume, transcribed samples (complete ‘units’) of natural spoken language from different communication contexts (daily conversations, telephone dialogues, teaching hours, television news bulletins, television interviews) are presented. The current volume – unique in its kind for the Greek language – contributes to an international publishing tradition that through the publication of transcribed texts has helped advance the field of corpus linguistics.

The editor of the volume is an emeritus professor at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.