Syntactic Rules and Research Ethics: A Critical Exposition

Abstract

It is quite worrisome that syntactic norms and values, which ideally guide the arrangement of words, phrases, clauses and other lexical categories, are not strictly upheld and followed by many researchers and even research bodies. That implies violating some basics of research ethics. This study rises to make a critical exposition of syntactic rules in research ethics, which are often violated. Relying on observation and secondary data, the study demonstrates that poor knowledge and negligence of syntactic rules largely accounts for the violation of syntactic rules in research works by researchers and many concerned research bodies. It shows that unacceptable grammatical structures have grave implications for the overall given research work. Also, phrase structure rules correlate with interpretative rules, just as syntax and semantics also correlate. The study concludes that since language is rule-governed, the violation of syntactic rules in research work implies the violation of language rules and research ethics. The study is anchored on the syntactic theory of Universal Grammar, which explains how standard syntactic rules and research ethics are universal, and must be followed in order to have acceptable and correct sentences and research.