Item Details

Communication research ethics and some paradoxes in qualitative inquiry

Issue: Vol 12 No. 1 (2015)

Journal: Journal of Applied Linguistics and Professional Practice

Subject Areas: Writing and Composition Linguistics

DOI: 10.1558/jalpp.36885

Abstract:

Compliance with institutional protocols on research ethics in the practical conduct of research and its dissemination is a prerequisite in empirically grounded studies, including studies undertaken in workplace and institutional/professional settings. However, the communicative dimensions of research ethics remain largely unexplored. Drawing on seminal empirical studies in the social sciences, in this paper I delineate the communicative dimensions of research ethics in terms of ethics of access, ethics of participation, ethics of interpretation and ethics of dissemination/intervention. In the main part of this article I elaborate each of the above dimensions in detail. I relate the ensuing discussion to the three paradoxes underpinning any qualitative inquiry: the observer's paradox, the participant's paradox and the analyst's paradox. Paradoxes, by default, are not resolvable but it remains an imperative for qualitative researchers, including those working in the domain of workplace communication, to be cognizant of the ethical nuances underpinning their research trajectories.

Author: Srikant Sarangi

View Full Text

References :

Agar, M. (1980) The Professional Stranger: An Informal Introduction to Ethnography. New York: Academic Press.

Appelbaum, P., Roth, L. and Lidz, C. (1982) The therapeutic misconception: Informed consent in psychiatric research. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 5: 319–329. https://doi.org/10.1016/0160-2527(82)90026-7

Bailey, F. G. (1996) The Civility of Indifference: On Domesticating Ethnicity. Ithaca, NY: Cor­nell University Press.

Barton, E. and Eggly, S. (2009) Ethical or unethical persuasion? The rhetoric of offers to participate in clinical trials. Written Communication 26 (3): 295–319. https://doi.org/10.1177/0741088309336936

Barton, E., Eggly, S., Winckles, A. and Albrecht, T. (2014a) Strategies of persuasion in offers to participate in cancer clinical trials I: Topic placement and topic framing. Communication and Medicine 11 (1): 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1558/cam.v11i1.16614

Barton, E., Eggly, S., Winckles, A. and Albrecht, T. (2014b) Strategies of persuasion in offers to participate in cancer clinical trials II: Appeals to altruism. Communication and Medicine 11 (3): 223–233. https://doi.org/10.1558/cam.v11i3.17647

Becker, H., Geer, B., Hughes, E. C. and Strauss, A. L. (1961) Boys in White: Student Culture in Medical School. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Benney, M. and Hughes, E. C. (1956) Of sociology and the interview: Editorial preface. American Journal of Sociology 62 (2): 137–142. https://doi.org/10.1086/221953

Bosk, C. L. (1992) All God’s Mistakes: Genetic Counselling in a Paediatric Hospital. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Bourdieu, P. (1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice. Trans. R. Nice. Cambridge: Cambridge University of Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511812507

Braun, V. and Clarke, V. (2006) Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology 3 (2): 77–101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa

Briggs, C. L. (1984) Learning how to ask: Native metacommunicative competence and the incompetence of the fieldworkers. Language in Society 13 (1): 1–28. https://doi.org/
10.1017/S0047404500015876

Briggs, C. L. (1986) Learning How to Ask: A Sociolinguistic Appraisal of the Role of the Interview in Social Science Research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139165990

Brumfit, C. (2004) Coping with change in applied linguistics: David Crystal and Christopher Brumfit in conversation. Journal of Applied Linguistics 1 (3): 387–398.

Bruyn, S. (1966) The Human Perspective in Sociology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Bucholtz, M. (2000) The politics of transcription. Journal of Pragmatics 32: 1439–1465. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(99)00094-6

Chesterton, G. K. (1991 [1930]) Novels on the Great War. In G. K. Chesterton (author) and L. J. Clipper (eds.) The Illustrated London News 1929–1931. Collected Works of G. K. Chesterton 35: 292–295. San Francisco: Ignatius Press.

Chisholm, R. M. (1966) Theory of Knowledge. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Cicourel, A. V. (1964) Method and Measurement in Sociology. New York: Free Press.

Cicourel, A. V. (1974) Cognitive Sociology: Language and Meaning in Social Interaction. New York: Free Press.

Cicourel, A. V. (2007) A personal, retrospective view of ecological validity. Text & Talk 27 (5–6): 735–752. https://doi.org/10.1515/TEXT.2007.033

Clarke, A. (2005) Commentary 1: Professional theories and institutional interaction. Communication & Medicine 2 (2): 189–191. https://doi.org/10.1515/come.2005.2.2.189

Cook, G. (1990) Transcribing infinity: Problems of context presentation. Journal of Pragmatics 14 (1): 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(90)90061-H

Dennett, D. C. (1991) Consciousness Explained. New York: Little, Brown and Company.

Denzin, N. (1970) The Research Act: A Theoretical Introduction to Sociological Methods. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine.

Douglas, J. D. (ed.) (1971) Understanding Everyday Life: Toward the Reconstruction of Sociological Knowledge. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Dunn, J. (1978) Practising history and social science on ‘realist’ assumptions. In C. Hookway and P. Pettit (eds) Action and Interpretation: Studies in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 145–175. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Edwards, J. A. and Lampert, M. D. (1993) Talking Data: Transcription and Coding in Discourse Research. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Ess, C. and Association of Internet Research (AoIR) (2002) Ethical Decision-Making and Internet Research: Recommendations from the AoIR Ethics Working Committee. Available online: http://www.aoir.org/reports/ethics.pdf

Eysenbach, G and Till, J. (2001) Ethical issues in qualitative research on internet communities. British Medical Journal 323: 1103–1105. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.323.7321.1103

Flicker, S., Haans, D. and Skinner, H. (2004) Ethical dilemmas in research on Internet communities. Qualitative Health Research 14 (1): 124–134. https://doi.org/10.1177/
1049732303259842

Geertz, C. (1973) The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books.

Glaser, B. G. and Strauss, A. L. (1967) The Discovery of Grounded Theory. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine.

Goffman, E. (1964) The neglected situation. American Anthropologist 66 (6/2): 133–136. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1964.66.suppl_3.02a00090

Goffman, E. (1974) Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organisation of Experience. New York: Harper & Row.

Goffman, E. (1981) Forms of Talk. Oxford: Blackwell.

Goffman, E. (1983) The interaction order. American Sociological Review 48 (1): 1–17. https://doi.org/10.2307/2095141

Hak, T. (1999) ‘Text’ and ‘con-text’: Talk bias in studies of health care work. In S. Sarangi and C. Roberts (eds) Talk, Work and Institutional Order: Discourse in Medical, Mediation and Management Settings, 427–451. New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Hedgecoe, A. M. (2008) Research ethics review and the sociological research relationship. Sociology 42 (5): 857–870. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038508094567

Humphreys, L. (1970) Tearoom Trade: A Study of Homosexual Encounters in Public Places. London: Gerald Duckworth & Co.

Jenks, C. (2011) Transcribing Talk and Interaction: Issues in the Representation of Communication Data. Amsterdam: Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/z.165

Labov, W. (1972) Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press.

Labov, W. and Fanshel, D. (1977) Therapeutic Discourse: Psychotherapy as Conversation. New York: Academic Press.

Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991) Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cam­bridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511815355

Lazarsfeld, P. (1993) On Social Research and Its Language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Malinowski, B. (1935) Coral Gardens and Their Magic, 2 vols. London: George Allen and Unwin.

Martin, P. and Bateson, P. (1993) Measuring Behaviour (2nd edition). Cambridge: Cam­bridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139168342

Mehan, H. (1993) Beneath the skin and between the ears: A case study in the politics of representation. In S. Chaiklin and J. Lave (eds) Understanding Practice: Perspectives on Activity and Context, 241–268. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511625510.010

Merton, R. K. (1957) Social Theory and Social Structure (revised edition). New York: Free Press.

Miller, J. and Glassner, B. (1997) The ‘inside’ and the ‘outside’: Finding realities in interviews. In D. Silverman (ed.) Qualitative Research, 99-112. London: Sage.

Mishler, E. G. (1986) Research Interviewing: Context and Narrative. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Mishler, E. G. (1991) Representing discourse: The rhetoric of transcription. Journal of Narrative and Life History 1 (4): 255–280. https://doi.org/10.1075/jnlh.1.4.01rep

Myers, G. (1998) Displaying opinions: Topics and disagreement in focus groups. Language in Society 27: 85–111. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404500019734

Myers, G. (2000) Becoming a group: Face and sociability in moderated discussions. In S. Sarangi and M. Coulthard (eds) Discourse and Social Life, 121–137. London: Pearson.

Ness, D., Kiseling, S. and Lidz, C. (2009) Why does informed consent fail? A discourse analytic approach. Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry & Law 37 (3): 349–362.

O’Barr, W. (1983) The study of language in institutional contexts. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 2 (2–4): 241–251. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X8300200210

O’Hanlon, B. and Wilk, J. (1987) Shifting Contexts: The Generation of Effective Psychotherapy. New York: Guilford.

Ochs, E. (1979) Transcription as theory. In E. Ochs and B. Schieffelin (eds) Developmental Pragmatics, 43–72. San Francisco: Academic Press.

Polanyi, M. (1958) Personal Knowledge: Toward a Post-Critical Philosophy. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Rapley, M. and Antaki, C. (1998) ‘What do you think about...?’: Generating views in an interview. Text 18 (4): 587–608. https://doi.org/10.1515/text.1.1998.18.4.587

Roberts, C. (1997) The politics of transcription. Transcribing talk: Issues of representation. TESOL Quarterly 31 (1): 67–71. https://doi.org/10.2307/3587983

Roberts, F. (2002) Qualitative differences among cancer clinical trial explanations. Social Science & Medicine 55 (11): 1947–1955. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0277-9536(01)00323-9

Sand, K., Eik-Nes, N. L. and Loge, J. H. (2012) Readability of informed consent documents (1987−2007) for clinical trials: A linguistic analysis. Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics 7 (4): 67–78. https://doi.org/10.1525/jer.2012.7.4.67

Sand, K., Kaasa, S. and Loge, J. H. (2010) The understanding of informed consent information – Definitions and measurements in empirical studies. AJOB Primary Research 1 (2): 4–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/21507711003771405

Sarangi, S. (2002) Discourse practitioners as a community of interprofessional practice: Some insights from health communication research. In C. N. Candlin (ed.) Research and Practice in Professional Discourse, 95-135. Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong Press.

Sarangi, S. (2003) Institutional, professional and lifeworld frames in interview talk. In H. van den Berg, M. Wetherell and H. Houtkoop (eds.) Analysing Race Talk: Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Interview, 64–84. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sarangi, S. (2007) The anatomy of interpretation: Coming to terms with the analyst’s paradox in professional discourse studies. Text & Talk 27 (5–6): 567–584. https://doi.org/10.1515/TEXT.2007.025

Sarangi, S. (2010) Practising discourse analysis in healthcare settings. In I. Bourgeault, R. DeVries and R. Dingwall (eds) The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Methods in Health Research, 397–416. London: Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446268247.n21

Sarangi, S. (2011) Role hybridity in professional practice. In S. Sarangi, V. Polese and G. Caliendo (eds) Genre(s) on the Move: Hybridisation and Discourse Change in Specialised Communication, 271–296. Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane (ESI).

Sarangi, S. (2015) Experts on experts: Sustaining communities of interest in professional discourse studies. In M. Gotti, S. Maci and M. Sala (eds) Insights into Medical Communication, 25–47. Bern: Peter Lang.

Sarangi, S. (2016) Activity types, discourse types and role types: Interactional hybridity in professional-client encounters. In D. R. Miller and P. Bayley (eds) Hybridity in Systemic Functional Linguistics: Grammar, Text and Discursive Context, 154–177. Sheffield: Equinox.

Sarangi, S. (2017) Editorial: En‘gaze’ment with text and talk. Text & Talk 37 (1): 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1515/text-2017-1000

Sarangi, S. and Candlin, C. N. (2001) Motivational relevancies: some methodological reflections on social theoretical and sociolinguistic practice. In N. Coupland, S. Sarangi and C. N. Candlin (eds) Sociolinguistics and Social Theory, 350–388. London: Pearson.

Sarangi, S. and Candlin, C. N. (2011) Professional and organisational practice: A discourse/communication perspective. In C. N. Candlin and S. Sarangi (eds) Handbook of Communication in Organisations and Professions, 3–58. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.

Scollon, R. (2000) Methodological interdiscursivity: An ethnographic understanding of unfinalisability. In S. Sarangi and M. Coulthard (eds) Discourse and Social Life, 138–154. Harlow: Pearson.

Schön, D. (1983) The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. New York: Basic Books.

Shipman, H. E. (2013) Consent-in-interaction. In eLS: Citable Reviews in the Life Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470015902.a0025146

Shipman, H., Clarke, A. and Sarangi, S. (2014) Accounts of consent: Orienting to self-other relations regarding motivation to participate in cancer bio-banking. Communication & Medicine 11 (1): 69–84. https://doi.org/10.1558/cam.v11i1.17324

Shuy, R. (1983) Sociolinguist’s foreword. In S. Fisher and A. D. Todd (eds) The Social Organization of Doctor-Patient Communication. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Silverman, D. (1973) Interview talk: Bringing off a research instrument. Sociology 7 (1): 32–48. https://doi.org/10.1177/003803857300700103

Steiner, G. (1978) On Difficulty and Other Essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Stoddart, K. (1974) Pinched: Notes on the ethnographer’s location of argot. In R. Turner (ed.) Ethnomethodology, 173-179. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Strauss, A. L. and Corbin, J. M. (1990) Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Strauss, A. L. and Corbin, J. M. (1997) Grounded Theory in Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Suchman, L. and Jordan, B. (1990) Interactional troubles in face-to-face survey interviews. Journal of the American Statistical Association 85 (409): 232–241. Reprinted in M. Lynch and W. Sharrock eds. (2003) Harold Garfinkel, Volume 2, 381–400. London: Sage.

Sugarman, J. (2004) The future of empirical research in bioethics. Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics 32 (2): 226–231. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-720X.2004.tb00469.x

Talmy, S. and Richards, K. (eds) (2011) Qualitative Interviews in Applied Linguistics: Discursive Perspectives. Special issue of Applied Linguistics 32 (1).

Wade, J., Donovan, J. L., Lane, J. A., Neal, D. E. and Hamdy, F. C. (2009) It’s not just what you say, it’s also how you say it: Opening the ‘black box’ of informed consent appointments in randomised controlled trials. Social Science & Medicine 68: 2018–2028. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2009.02.023

Watson, T. J. (1997) Languages within languages: A social constructionist perspective on multiple managerial discourses. In F. Bergiela-Chiappini and S. Harris (eds) The Languages of Business: An International Perspective, 211–227. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Widdicombe, S. (1998) ‘But you don’t class yourself’: The interactional management of category membership and non-membership. In C. Antaki and S. Widdicombe (eds) Identities in Talk, 52–70. London: Sage.

Wilson, J. (1987) The sociolinguistic paradox: Data as a methodological product. Language & Communication 7 (2): 161–177. https://doi.org/10.1016/0271-5309(87)90006-1

Witchells, C. (2006) One man’s experience of a clinical trial. The Observer, 19 March. Available online: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2006/mar/19/health.medicineandhealth

Wolfson, N. (1976) Speech events and natural speech: Some implications for socio­linguistic methodology. Language in Society 5: 189–209. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404500007028

Wolfson, N. (1982) CHP: The Conversational Historical Present in American English Narrative. Dordrecht: Foris Publications. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110851694