ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on exploring the behaviours that are considered to be ethical and decent ways of behaving, and that might be relevant to the kind of data collection sociolinguists are likely to undertake. Because people engage in these behaviours as professionals, it's not surprising that some of the professional organisations that sociolinguists have useful guidelines for ethical conduct in research situations. Most universities or colleges in the West requires people to devise a form or information sheet that explains the purpose of the research and consent form that is signed by everyone who agrees to be recorded. The information sheet stays with the participant; the consent form goes into long-term storage. Video recordings of people using sign language and studies of gesture accompanying speech cannot be anonymised fully without losing vital information encoded around and on the face. These issues are resolved in the British Sign Language Corpus Project, where recordings are available on an open access website.
