AN OVERVIEW OF INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACHES IN LINGUISTICS

Interdisciplinarity, especially in recent years, has been a widely used approach in lin- guistic research. It is seen as an efficient way of answering the ever-growing linguistic questions that span out of the core linguistic fields. Those core fields include phonetics, phonology, mor- phology, syntax and semantics (HUANG 2015: 208). Firstly, the aim is to explain what discipli- narity is and to compare and contrast interdisciplinarity with multidisciplinarity and transdis- ciplinarity. Additionally, an insight into the importance of interdisciplinarity within linguistics is given. Section 2 is based on an overview of approaches in linguistics that have existed for a very long time. Thirdly, more recent developments in interdisciplinary linguistic research are presented. This section is concerned not only with the interface linguistics establishes with other humanities, but also with natural and technological sciences, such as mathematics, computer sciences, and even medicine. Finally, the paper presents the current state of affairs concerning interdisciplinarity in linguistics. It can be concluded that, although interdisciplinary approaches may have been properly defined only recently, the tradition of combining knowledge and meth- ods from distinctive disciplines has, for a long time, been present in the examination of the most burning linguistic questions.