Message for high school students

It would probably be no exaggeration to say that the world is built out of language. Language does not just have a role in communication between one person and another; language is what is used to record history, weave literature, and lay down rules and laws. Thus, language is tied to every aspect of our lives and the field of sociolinguistics contains a variety of approaches, including cognitive semantics, pragmatics, and sociolinguistics.

At the same time, rather than having you decide on your research topics after studying linguistics (=after you’ve set your boundaries), the School of Interdisciplinary Science and Innovation’s approach takes issues and questions—for example, why do misunderstandings occur?—as its starting point and then seeks to provide you with the knowledge and skills required to answer those questions. While you’ll need a knowledge of linguistics, of course, you might also require knowledge from other fields, such as sociology and psychology. Starting from an issue in this way naturally leads you into an interdisciplinary approach and enables you to add your own individual perspective, without being confined to just a single solution. I’m looking forward to being able to discuss language with innovative thinkers such as yourselves.