Interdisciplinary Fields

Abstract

Language is humankind’s most distinctive attribute, and linguistics is its systematic study. Because language is its focus of study, linguistics builds intellectual connections with other disciplines in its pursuit of knowledge and insight. Linguistics is a social science that shares common ground with other sciences or intellectual disciplines such as psychology, neurology, sociology, anthropology, literature, law, geography, and ecology. When disciplines interact with each other, usually as a consequence of individual sciences finding it difficult to resolve serious problems, they form interdisciplinary fields. This chapter deals with fields where insights from linguistics have been combined with those of other disciplines and the resultant alliance brought to bear on the study of a particular aspect of language. Each of these interdisciplinary fields has a characteristic thesis, goal, and strategy.