This paper explores how linguistic research – particularly corpus and discourse linguistics – can address the challenges of contingency, complexity, and transparency. It explains how recurring patterns in language use help to reduce contingency problems in society. However, digital methods create new non-transparency and thus also experiences of contingency through selection and reduction of complexity. The study reflects on the epistemological implications of corpus design and documentation, especially in the context of Open Science and FAIR data principles. By analyzing linguistic representations of contested concepts like ,sustainability’, the paper highlights methodological tensions between transparency and complexity, and proposes a dual perspective on corpus data: as a basis for scientific propositions and as part of a ORD-system.
