Ethical Considerations in Language Policy Research

Ethics is becoming important in research as well as in policy as one can witness a critical turn in language planning and policy (LPP) and other domains of scholarly inquiry. While the positivistic tradition adopted the stance of objectivity, neutrality, and disinterestedness, the critical tradition engages with the issues of power inequality, value differences, and subject positions as they influence the representation of knowledge, researchers, and participants. This chapter explores the types of questions that one hope researchers ask themselves about the ethics of their work, and model some of the negotiations undertaken by experienced researchers in looking for answers, or, at least, ways of resolving the dilemmas. It provides substantial descriptions of how the researchers managed ethical issues, including the risk-benefit analyses described, the knotty negotiations of positionality, and ways of representing the knowledge of and about minority communities.