Sustainability in linguistics

Sustainability in linguistics can refer to a multitude of phenomena, but most of all it is possibly associated with the sustainable way of practicing it. Many of the aspects to be considered are not limited to linguistics alone (e.g., conferencing and publishing are universal scientific practices), but there are field-specific matters to be discussed for example when talking about collecting data and what kind of effects it might have.

Academic practices

Considerations in different practices

• conferencing
• publishing
• archiving and data access
• research tools
• collecting data

Interdisciplinary linguistics

Scholars agree that sustainability science needs to be interdisciplinary as knowledge, methods, theories etc. from diverse disciplines can be used to better understand sustainable processes and to develop more sustainable ideas and approaches. To integrate sustainability into the field of linguistics, interdisciplinary approaches should therefore be of great help as well. A first step could be to consider findings and methods from the manifold subfields of linguistics as well as those from adjacent disciplines (e.g. cognitive science, computer science, neuroscience, psychology, and social science). If applicable, they can be integrated into existing frameworks.

Interdisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity and linguistics

In addition to working with people who work within the field of linguistics in different subtopics, as explained just above, interdisciplinarity is as much - if not even more - important between fields. This can be the case for collaborations with other researchers such as anthropologists, biologists, politic scientists or other people with other kinds of academic backgrounds.

In addition to interdisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity is also important for successful research for all parties involved. Multidisciplinary work is the collaboration of people from different backgrounds, with and without academic background. This can for example involve local farmers and their knowledge about the landscape, or local shop keepers, storyteller, town leader, etc. All these people have knowledge that the researcher(s) do(es) not have. Such methods (inter- and multidiscilpinarity) are the basis for good collaborations and therefore also good results which have the potential of developing positive impacts for all the participants. This also allows the community members to make decisions about what the aim of the research should be. In the case of a language revitalization project, this can take the form of the creation of educational material in their language, or whatever the community of speakers thinks to be useful in their specific situation.