Editorial

Inter/trans/post-disciplinarity and the study of

language and/in politics

Ruth Wodak

The present issue of the Journal of Language and Politics provides an excel-
lent example of interdisciplinary research into the many subjects of the field of
‘politics and political institutions’. Contributions by political scientists (Gün-
ther Sandner, Florian Oberhuber, Christoph Bärenreuter), sociologists (Heinz
Schönbauer) and linguists from different schools and paradigms in Linguistics
(Functional Pragmatics — Michael Warner; Sociolinguistics — Michael Clyne;
Corpus Linguistics — Paul Baker, Tony McEnery; Critical Discourse Analysis
(Discourse-Historical Approach) — Michał Krzyżanowski, Ruth Wodak; and
Creolists — Nicholas Faraclas) are all contained in one issue. Viewing such
an extraordinary assemble of traditional academic disciplines and even more
complex theoretical frameworks, one could certainly pose the question: what
relates all these papers with each other?
This question is even more salient if the diverse topics would be taken into
account: racist immigration rhetoric in Australia and in the UK; debates on
European identities and on the Draft Constitutional Treaty; conflict resolu-
tion in Northern Ireland; the influence of Austro-Marxism on discourses of
nationalism; and the development of pidgins and creoles in times of ‘linguistic
imperialism’.
The most trivial answer would be to suggest that in our globalized world,
all the listed phenomena are related in complex ways: studying immigration
issues and racist argumentation patterns is not far removed from the analysis
of resistance and struggles against dominance and power through nationalistic
and globalizing ideologies. All these phenomena take place in old and new
public spaces, in the media as well as in virtual spaces, thus transcending tradi-
tional boundaries of time and space, as well as local, regional and national pub-
lic spheres. Moreover, such developments manifest themselves in various and

Journal of Language and Politics 4:2 (2005), 69–7.

issn 1569–2159 / e-issn 1569–9862 © John Benjamins Publishing Company
70 Ruth Wodak

very precise ways on the micro-levels of conversations and language choice.

When applying such a perspective and argumentation, it is possible to con-
struct a consistent and logical narrative throughout this volume.
Nevertheless, I would like to propose a second, more sophisticated an-
swer: problems or issues of such far-reaching relevance and consequence as
analyzed in this volume need inter/trans- or even post-disciplinary approaches
to be able to grasp the complexity of the phenomena involved. This necessarily
implies various theoretical frameworks as well as methodologies to allow for
understanding and explanation (Verstehen und Erklären). I would even claim
that innovation in the Social Sciences simultaneously means collaboration and
co-operation across disciplinary boundaries, thus achieving integrated new
theoretical approaches and developing new methodologies. At the same time,
however, we need to be aware of the dangers of unjustified eclecticism and
superficiality (Weiss and Wodak 2003; Wodak and Chilton 2005; Van Leeuwen
2005; Sum and Jessop 2003; Wodak 2005).
Hence, the focus of the contributions is the range of possible approaches
and their adequacy and explicit justification. For example, while studying ‘talk
about talk’ and ‘talkback’ in Northern Ireland broadcasts, Warner draws on
Functional Pragmatics, media theories, Sociolinguistics, Critical Theory, and
Psychoanalysis. These approaches are not only added to each other, but rather
integrated into a new framework which attempts to explain on-going conflicts
and lastly to propose ways of negotiating peace in Northern Ireland.
Such a post-disciplinary approach is also true of the other articles, with
varying emphasis on more or less precise and detailed linguistic analysis on the
micro-level. Moreover, all papers succeed in addressing various research tradi-
tions from different academic cultures in different languages. Integrating these
levels allows transcending even more traditional boundaries in the academic
community which is widely dominated by English and research written up in
English.
In sum, this issue opens up old-new questions about the definitions of aca-
demic disciplines and their possibilities, perspectives, and limitations. More
and more, it is, and will become, difficult to define disciplines and fields. Al-
though such definitions imply much power by and for those who define them
(in — inter alia — constructing curricula, writing textbooks, advertizing jobs,
and allocating research grants), the research processes seem to overtake them
and to make the definitions obsolete. The complexity of problems and phe-
nomena under investigation points to new inter/trans/post-disciplinary modes
of research which seem to be more adequate and more successful.
 Editorial 7

References

Sum, Ngai-Ling and Jessop, Robert. 2003. Pre- and post-disciplinarity perspective in (cul-
tural) political economy. Économies et Societés 39, 993–1016.
Van Leeuwen, Theo. 2005. Three models of interdisciplinarity. In: Ruth Wodak and Paul
Chilton (eds). 2005. A New Agenda in (Critical) Discourse Analysis. Theory, Methodol-
ogy and Interdisciplinarity. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 3–18.
Weiss, Gilbert and Wodak, Ruth (eds). 2003. Critical Discourse Analysis. Theory and Inter-
disciplinarity. London: Palgrave.
Wodak, Ruth. 2005. Gender mainstreaming and the European Union: Interdisciplinarity,
gender studies and CDA. In: Michelle Lazar (ed.). Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis.
Gender, Power and Ideology in Discourse. London: Palgrave, 90–113.
Wodak, Ruth and Chilton, Paul (eds). 2005. A New Agenda in (Critical) Discourse Analysis.
Theory, Methodology and Interdisciplinarity. Amsterdam: Benjamins.