ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates the benefits of examining in detail the behaviour of individual words. One of the markers of an interdisciplinary journal might be expected to be the use of different meanings of multi-meaning words, whereas a monodisciplinary journal might include only one meaning. The interdisciplinary journal Global Environmental Change (GEC) has a high proportion of modifiers relating to different aspects of the human experience, including geographic classifications and aspects of human society. The other interdisciplinary journal, Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment (AEE), has the longest list of modifiers and the widest variety. The interdisciplinary journal AEE has 39 instances of the phrase, of which two-thirds have plants, animals or systems as referent, while the other one-third of instances refer to people and communities. The interdisciplinary journals AEE and GEC have a higher frequency than their monodisciplinary counterparts. The two interdisciplinary journals have been shown to use the word with more variety of meaning, indicating the multiplicity of agendas appearing therein.
