6.6 Responsibility to the community

Not only is it important to not harm a community one works with, but one should also try to repay favors by giving something in return (cf. Milroy and Gordon 2001: 84-85). If this is not the case, informants of a community might feel exploited and may refuse to participate in future projects by other fieldworkers. Therefore, researchers should always be sure to show their appreciation in one way or another (cf. Crowley 2007: 34).

There are multiple examples of how this can be done. The easiest is to supply the community with copies of one's work. The problem is that this may be of minimal use to the locals, as an English dictionary of the native language may seem rather pointless to them. Therefore, providing written and recorded versions of stories one has heard may be a better example of expressing ones gratitude, especially since passing them down from one generation to the next is slowly becoming a lost tradition (cf. Crowley 2007: 47). Also, members of a community may enjoy devising a spelling system for their language or developing home-grown terminologies for words borrowed from other languages with a fieldworker's help. They could, for instance, come up with a new word for plane by changing the word bird or making a compound like flying-boat (cf. Crowley 2007: 44, 49-50).

Another way of showing one's appreciation, which is tied less directly to one's work, is to provide aid in political or other public affairs. This can be done by either advising the government or non-governmental organizations on social and language policies and education or by helping them in preserving moribund languages and dialects in telling them how best to engage in the endeavor. Further, advice on fostering public awareness of languages and dialects can be given, and if a fieldworker should find out about any widespread misconceptions regarding a dialect, he/she should try to clarify them as publicly as possible, through national and regional media, non-governmental organizations or even one's own social network. Especially, when it comes to informing a community about possibilities of language maintenance and how to resist socio-economic and cultural pressure, information from a fieldworker, who knows or can find out what worked in other societies, can be very helpful. However, a good researcher should always be aware of his/her limitations and should avoid thrusting his/her help on people. If members of a community, for instance, declare their dialect obsolete, the only thing that can be done is to tell them about the resulting consequences and possibilities (cf. Crowley 2007: 48-51; Milroy and Gordon 2001: 84-86, Bowern 2008: 161-162).

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