In this paper, we suggest that changes in the field of linguistics over the last twenty years have raised new ethical challenges in our professional practice. We discuss three specific areas in which there has been change: the rise of documentary linguistics, technological developments, and the new importance of archiving data. We suggest that these changes taken together represent a paradigm change in linguistics. Within this new paradigm, we identify some of the new ethical problems which arise, and the new complications which have been added to previously identified ethical issues. Our discussion focuses on the problem of obtaining informed consent to the collection of language data, especially the extent to which archiving of data is legitimated by existing consent agreements; on the complex problems of ownership and rights over language data and the various knowledge products derived from it; and the problems associated with a commitment to making data available to speaker communities and their descendants. Our aim is not to provide answers to these problems, but rather to contribute to the discipline’s ongoing engagement with ethical issues.

Language Documentation and Description, Vol. 4 (2007)