This introduction has two aims. Firstly, it offers a working definition of subjectivity as an object of analysis for the volume. Subjectivity is operationally defined as ‘epistemic stance’. The discussion argues that this working definition allows three otherwise distinct lines of research, narratology, discourse analysis and corpus linguistics, to come together. Secondly, it argues that, analytically, these distinct approaches can only inform each other if a specific methodological axiom is accepted. The methodological premise is that analysis must be exclusively text-based. Having established the analytical and methodological link between the three approaches, the discussion, from a corpus linguistics perspective, examines a set of analytical-methodological concerns that are relevant to all text-based research on subjectivity.