BIAS AND FAIRNESS IN CORPUS LINGUISTIC RESEARCH: ETHICAL ISSUES IN ISLAMIC CORPORA

Abstract

This research work is intended to explore the problem of bias and objectivity in corpus-linguistic studies, especially in the context of the question of Islamic corpora. With the increased role of computational techniques in the design of religious text analysis, there arise ethical issues pertaining to the choice, annotation and meaning of data. The Islamic texts must be taken as sacred, complex and contextual, and the issues of accuracy, representational competence and moral responsibility should be given priority. The research paper describes the processes according to which bias can be added at every next stage of the process of corpus building, such as the design of the corpus, multilingual translation alignment, and analytical interpretation. It is based on traditional Islamic concepts of authenticity, justice and reliability, and emphasizes the importance of ethical considerations to guide the modern corpus studies to avoid misrepresentation and to ensure scholarly integrity. Nevertheless, the problems of multilingual Quranic corpora and the online Islamic discourse where the process of translation can, in its turn, influence the idea of justice are highlighted. The research work suggests a number of best practices, combining the methods of the corpus of computation with the ethical principles that have been laid down in Islamic scholarship with the aim of clarifying, cultural sensitivity and methodologically correctness. It states that ethically informed corpus linguistics not only makes linguistic analysis more precise and reliable but also leads to responsible and respectful interaction with the Islamic texts in the digital age.