Grateful to you for introducing Professor Bob Hodge. I would like to share my views on interdisciplinarity which I agree is a promise. I think it is a promise for those who have the broadmindedness and lack of fear in giving intellectual space to other disciplines and perspectives. While reading Bourdieu (1991) work, I came across Ruquia Hasan piece ‘ The disempoweing game’ and the rejoinder to her piece by other scholars. It was a polite battle to safeguard systemic functionalist linguistic as if it was targeted. In my surface level reading of Bourdieu, I come to realise that he had no such intention. All he was pointing at the inward looking seemingly scientific looks/ attitudes of linguistis. I think which was a very valid observation, not a disempowering game at all. I guess it is more to do with professional insecurities and ignorance/ dogmatism of our friends.
Khan

I can really relate to this statement in so many different ways 🙂

This is just one of numerous examples that show that the study of language has to be, to a large extent, interdisciplinary. To me linguistics as a field should almost always be about the study of language in society, which certainly should go beyond sociolinguistics as subfield of linguistics. Linguists should not only do this because their research has to be of benefit to the society, but also because language is a social phenomenon and to study it, many cultural, sociological, economic, political, historical and other factors have to be taken into consideration before linguists can understand what language is.