Round-up of Resources: Language Analysis in the Asylum Process

The most recent issue of The Researcher, includes an interesting article entitled "Language Analysis for Determination of Origins, in light of the recent UK Upper Tribunal decision" (pp. 4-10). Here is the text of the case which the author analyzes. His intention is to examine the court's endorsement of the methods employed by the Swedish Language Analysis Company (Sprakab) and its "conclusion that language analysis reports and little else besides may be enough to establish nationality" (p. 4).

The article refers to (p. 5) the Guidelines for the Use of Language Analysis in relation to Questions of National Origin in Refugee Cases, which were published in June 2004 in response "to calls for qualified linguists to provide guidelines for use by governments and others in deciding whether and to what degree language analysis is reliable in particular cases." (See also this Many of the linguists who signed the document have continued to write further on this issue; a selection of their studies are referenced below:

• Blommaert, Jan. "Language, Asylum, and the National Order." Current Anthropology, vol. 50, no. 4, Aug. 2009 [full-text]
• Corcoran, Chris. "A critical examination of the use of language analysis interviews in asylum proceedings: a case study of a West African seeking asylum in The Netherlands." International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law, vol. 11, no. 2 (2004) [full-text]
• Eades, Diana. "Testing the Claims of Asylum Seekers: The Role of Language Analysis." Language Assessment Quarterly, vol. 6, no. 1, Jan. 2009 [abstract]
• Eades, Diana. "Applied Linguistics and Language Analysis in Asylum Seeker Cases." Applied Linguistics, vol. 26, no. 4, Dec. 2005 [abstract]
• Eades, Diana and Jacques Arends. "Using language in the determination of national origin of asylum seekers: an introduction." International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law, vol. 11, no. 2 (2004) [abstract]
• Jacquemet, Marco. "Transcribing refugees: the entextualization of asylum seekers' hearings in a transidiomatic environment." Text & Talk: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Language, Discourse & Communication Studies, vol. 29, no. 5, Sept. 2009 [abstract]
• Maryns, Katrijn. "Identifying the asylum speaker: reflection on the pitfalls of language analysis in the determination of national origin." International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law, vol. 11, no. 2 (2004) [abstract]
• McNamara, Tim and Elana Shohamy. "Language tests and human rights." International Journal of Applied Linguistics, vol. 18, no. 1, March 2008 [abstract]
• Patrick, Peter. Linguistic Human Rights: A Sociolinguistic Introduction. University of Essex, updated Nov. 2008 [web site]
• Singler, John Victor. "The 'linguistic' asylum interview and the linguist's evaluation of it, with special reference to applicants for Liberian political asylum in Switzerland." International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law, vol. 11, no. 2 (2004) [abstract]

The issue of language analysis in the asylum process has also been the subject of a number of workshops and symposia, including those described here and here.

More recently, debate has arisen over the use of native speakers to judge the origin of asylum seekers from recorded interviews. The following articles discuss the pros and cons:

• Cambier-Langeveld, Tina. "The Role of Linguists and Native Speakers in Language Analysis for the Determination of Speaker Origin." International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law, vol. 17, no. 1 (2010) [abstract]
• Fraser, Helen. "The Role of 'Educated Native Speakers' in Providing Language Analysis for the Determination of the Origin of Asylum Seekers." International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law, vol. 16, no. 1 (2009) [abstract] [preprint]
• Muni Toke, Valelia. "La linguistique légale à la recherche du locuteur natif : de la détermination de l’origine des demandeurs d’asile." Langage et société, no. 132 (2010) [abstract]

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