For many researchers in the social sciences, including those in applied linguistics, the term ethics evokes the bureaucratic process of fulfilling the requirements of an ethics review board (e.g., in the US, an Institutional Review Board, or IRB) as a preliminary step in conducting human subjects research. The expansion of ethics review boards into the social sciences in the early 2000s has led applied linguistics as a field to experience what Haggerty (2004) termed ethics creep, a simultaneous expansion and intensification of external regulation of research activities. The aims of these ethical review boards are: (a) to evaluate the types and risk of harm to participants as a result of research activities, (b) ensure that participants can give informed consent to be part of the research activities, and (c) provide oversight on researcher procedures to maintain participant anonymity/confidentiality (Haggerty, 2004).

对于许多社会科学领域的研究人员（包括应用语言学领域的研究人员）来说，“道德”一词会让人想起满足道德审查委员会（例如，在美国的机构审查委员会或IRB）要求的官僚程序，作为实现道德目标的第一步。进行人体受试者研究。2000年代初，伦理审查委员会扩展到社会科学领域，导致应用语言学作为一个领域经历了哈格蒂（Haggerty，2004）所说的伦理蠕变。，同时扩大和强化对研究活动的外部监管。这些伦理审查委员会的目的是：（a）评估研究活动对参与者造成伤害的类型和风险，（b）确保参与者能够知情同意参与研究活动，以及（c） ）对研究人员程序进行监督，以保持参与者的匿名/保密（Haggerty，2004）。