Linguistics Research Training - Assignment Example

Linguistics Research Training Task Situation One: Internet dis research You choose to investigate the interactional patterns of a young person’s website. What ethical issues need to be resolved (if any)? The first consideration in this situation is the possibility that the website might belong to a person who is young enough to be considered vulnerable and therefore in need of extra special ethical consideration. Normally the age of 16 or less is considered the definition of a child, and if this is considered, then parental approval would have to be gained before any research could be done. Over 18 year olds are considered adults in the U.K. and normal rules would apply. The ages between 16 and 18 are a grey area, and here care would have to be taken to ensure that the subject is mature enough to understand what is being proposed. If there is any doubt here, more stringent ethical decisions would have to be taken. Once the age issue is resolved, there are important questions about how public or private a website is intended to be. One way to decide this is to ask the question: “Are participants in this environment best understood as “subjects” (in the senses common in human subjects research in medicine and the social sciences) – or as authors whose texts/artifacts are intended as public? (AoIR, 2002, p. 7). In some blogs and homepages the author is offering material for public view, with no password or other restrictions on viewing. In this case informed consent to research the website would have to be obtained from the owner. If there is a community involved, which assumes some kind of small group privacy, then permission from the whole group needs to be obtained: ““… the greater the acknowledged publicity of the venue, the less obligation there may be to protect individual privacy, confidentiality, right to informed consent, etc.” (AoIR, 2002, p. 5) Another factor which might be relevant is the occurrence of videos, images and other identifying features. This can bring further risks to individuals and the extent to which they are used must be clarified at the outset: “Research involving respondents through the internet, in particular where visual images are used, and where sensitive issues are discussed.” (ESRC FRE, undated, p. 9) Participants must have the right to withdraw at any point, and to see the results of any research which involves them. Task 2. Situation Two: Radio discourse research You choose to analyse a politician’s discourse as produced during a radio program. What ethical issues need to be resolved (if any)? Radio is a public medium and so there is no need to obtain the politician’s permission to study the discourse that is produced on the radio. Privacy or anonymity is not a concern in this case. The radio company is a business, however, with rights such as copyright over the material it produces, and normally there are restrictions on what can be recorded from the air. Permission would have to be sought from the radio company either to use their recordings (preferable) or to make private recordings. Task 3. Situation Three: library research You choose to do a study on the discourse of SIN during the 2nd World War. What ethical issues need to be resolved (if any)? This is a tricky ethical issue because it involves contrasting moral definitions which are hard to pin down and analyse. Depending on the method used, the researcher would need to disclose his/her own position either formally or implicitly. One way of doing this is to define the terminology of analysis very carefully, and contrast this with other definitions which are used in various sources. The data found in the library needs to be referenced thoroughly, to ensure that sources are acknowledged, but the researcher needs to reflect very carefully on the way that the topic is approached, the vocabulary used, and any hidden bias or prejudice that might creep in to the use of heavily loaded terms such as “sin.” Matthews and Ross give good advice on this point, which should be heeded when planning the research, and kept in mind throughout: “Most research texts do not include any discussion of diversity or cultural difference even though there is a growing body of evidence that suggests that researchers do not pay enough attention to cultural difference and diversity when they undertake their projects…It is a good idea to remember that people may not have had the same experiences as you and, because of this, their view of the world may not be the same as yours” (Matthews and Ross: 2010, p. 82) Task 4. Situation Four: fieldwork research You choose to collect live discourse as it occurs naturally during a courtroom trial. What ethical issues need to be resolved (if any)? Because of British concern for the transparency of the justice system, most courtroom trials are public events and this implies that their dealings can be studied: “Research in a public setting is sometimes described as field research … Perhaps the most significant ethical problem when conducting research in such settings is the extent to which people are entitled to privacy. A related question is the establishment of a demarcation line between private and public settings. (Oliver: 2003, p. 86) The court and everyone who works there are also part of an organisation and this has implications too: “P 89 “institutions and organizations, just as much as individuals, may be participants in research projects” (Oliver: 2003, p. 89). One researcher describes how she obtained written permission to use official court transcripts, but there are drawbacks in this method: “On the basis of many years of observing courtroom hearings and reading official court transcripts, as well as a small empirical study I concluded … that there is a fundamental difference between transcriptions for sociolinguistic research and transcriptions for official court records” (Eades, 2010, p. 36). Many items of data such –body language, overlapping talk, changes in volume were not recorded, since the court was interested only in facts. She was granted permission to use official audio-recordings and this is a better approach because it gives fuller data. In this study, as indeed with all of the others mentioned above, there are issues of data gathering, storage and dissemination which are covered by British and European data protection laws. The ESRC summarizes the main points of these laws as follows: “Data: • must be obtained for a specified and lawful purpose • shall not be processed in any manner incompatible with that purpose • shall be adequate, relevant and not excessive for those purposes • shall be kept up to date • shall be kept for no longer than is necessary for that purpose • must be processed in accordance with the data subjects rights • must be kept safe from unauthorised access, accidental loss or destruction • shall not be transferred to a country outside the European Economic Area unless that country has equivalent levels of protection for personal data. “ (ESRC (FRE), undated, p. 22) If complete anonymisation is possible, then some of these points may be less stringently applied, but researchers should always be aware of the possibility that others may come later and make further use of the results of the research, with possible harm to participants. This is a case where very careful adherence to the ethical regulations of both researcher’s organisation and the relevant court needs to be ensured. References AoIR (Association of Internet Researchers) and C. Ess. 2002. “Ethical decision-making and Internet research: Recommendations from the AoIR ethics working committee. Available online at: http://aoir.org/reports/ethics.pdf Eades, D. 2010. Sociolinguistics and the Legal Process. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. ESRC undated. “Framework for Research Ethics (FRE)”. Available online at: http://www.esrc.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/Images/Framework%20for%20Research%20Ethics%202010_tcm6-35811.pdf Matthews, B. and Ross, L. 2010. Research Methods: A Practical Guide for the Social Sciences. Harlow: Pearson Education. Oliver, P. 2003. The Students’ Guide to Research Ethics. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Read More