ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explains about the discourse, in published research articles, of academic research that is interdisciplinary. It investigates research articles published in journals related to the study of the environment. The book explores the use of selected words and phrases in the BEE4 corpus: words related to environmental issues; status markers; and code glosses. Some of the journals in the larger BEE11 corpus are drawn from only one discipline, such as biology or economics, others focus on a fairly restricted topic, such as transport or pollution, others cover a broader spectrum, such as rural or urban systems, or environmental change. The BEE4 corpus consists of journals that represent natural sciences and social sciences, monodisciplinary and interdisciplinary research, and disciplines that are proximal or distal.
