ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the roles and responsibilities of linguists entering the field. We begin with suggestions about how to identify a field site and how to find information on the speech community, their languages, culture and history, as well as the geography of the area. We then discuss the obligations field linguists have to the speech community, in particular the rights of Indigenous minorities to control research involving them. We give some guidance about procedures such as research ethics applications, and give suggestions about ways of recognising contributions which reflect research participant’s intellectual contribution to language documentation projects. We also discuss consent procedures and help students to become aware of issues about intellectual property and copyright. The chapter finishes with suggestions about how to plan for a field trip – what time of year to go, what to bring and how to remunerate participants.
