6.3 Informed consent

Informants must always sign a consent form confirming that they have participated in research voluntarily and that they have been extensively informed about what their participation entails. This form should contain short descriptions of the project, the applied procedures, of what can be expected of the project and of what risks may be involved. Furthermore, the fieldworker must give an assurance that all information concerning the informants will be kept anonymous and confidential. Also, the participants must be provided with ways of contacting either the researcher or the sponsoring institution's review board at all times. But not all research needs consent. Everything taken from mass media, published written works, anonymously gathered written surveys or analysis of publicly gathered speech is free for use (cf. Milroy and Gordon 2001: 79; Tagliamonte 2006: 33; Crowley 2007: 24, Bowern 2008: 153, 181-182).

Seeking informants' consent is, of course, easier said than done as there are a few issues that might arise. One obvious problem is that asking for consent clearly invokes the observer's paradox. For strategies to get around the paradox look at tapping into the vernacular. It may be acceptable to gain consent from representative persons or institutions, for example chiefs or community councils, as long as they have the community's approval and are not dictatorial; but one must always check with his/her Ethics Committee or Internal Review Board. If an informant is illiterate or unwilling to sign a written document due to previous bad experience with written forms, it may be possible to record the consent. Actually, it is always advisable to record a verbal consent in addition to the written form, just in case anything happens to the latter (cf. Crowley 2007: 28-29; Milroy and Gordon 2001: 80).

Further problems may arise through miscommunication between interviewer and interviewee. The informant could fail to comprehend various points of what his/her contribution entails due to language-related communication problems, which would obviously profoundly complicate the issue of obtaining his/her informed consent. Or, the fieldworker may choose to purposely withhold detailed information in order to overcome the observer's paradox or to keep the informant from constructing a hypothesis about the exact aim of the research, as this could lead to the distortion of the data. However, one must be sure never to mislead a participant by, for instance, intentionally providing false information (cf. Crowley 2007: 27; Milroy and Gordon 2001: 79).

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