Ethics as Morals and Ethics as Regulation

Claire Bowern, Yale University

Abstract

In this talk I will discuss some of the background to ethics (broadly construed), human subjects review, and the state of ethics review among linguists, as revealed by a recent survey (results to be published in Language in December). At any gathering of linguists who work with ‘human subjects’, one is liable to hear complaints about one’s Institutional Review Board (this has been noted in the literature [e.g. Stark 2007]). But how do we define ‘human subject’ anyway? What type of linguistics requires review by an IRB? And what are some of the ethical issues that linguists typically face, beyond what is covered by the forms we fill out for university ethics boards?