ABSTRACT
Sociolinguistics itself originated as an interdisciplinary endeavor to study language in social context, combining either anthropology with linguistics or sociology with linguistics. Doing multidisciplinary work is not always easy. An example of a multidisciplinary endeavor is the field of language socialization, which draws from both linguistic anthropology and cognitive psychology, but these disciplines remain separate. One must borrow ideas and concepts carefully, bearing in mind their philosophical assumptions. Without a background in the discipline borrowed from, a researcher may not fully understand the implicit contexts within which the concepts are embedded. Such problems can make some syntheses unworkable, leading to superficial results. Alternatively, researchers attempting to fully understand concepts from other disciplines can be overwhelmed with the amount of reading and work involved in using them appropriately. Finally, and more positively, sometimes such borrowed concepts are challenged by analyses of empirical sociolinguistic data, revealing their limitations.
