ABSTRACT
In the first two decades of the development of forensic linguistics, most expert linguistic evidence was in criminal and civil law. However, the most recent legal area in which linguists are becoming involved concerns immigration, specifically in relation to the use of ‘language analysis’ in the investigation of the nationality claims of asylum seekers who do not have any official documents from their country of origin. This is most commonly referred to as Language Analysis in the Determination of Origin, or LADO (although it has also been referred to as linguistic identification, as in Eades and Arends 2004; and LingID, as in Eades et al. 2003). Language analysis is often sought by immigration departments for use in their administrative processing of claims to asylum, but, given that appeals against decisions of administrators can end up in the legal process, where linguists can be called on as experts to give counter-analyses, then this work comes within forensic linguistics. According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR 2008), at
the end of 2007, there were 11.5 million refugees worldwide and 647,000 new applications for asylum or refugee status. Contrary to the widespread myth that refugees are flooding industrialised countries, the UNHCR estimates that only about 14% of the world’s refugees are living outside their region of origin. That is, most refugees flee to neighbouring countries. Nevertheless, the fear of being ‘swamped’ by asylum seekers is commonly voiced in industrialised countries (UNHCR 2007: 16) and it is in this climate of fear, serious human rights abuses and unprecedented global movement that LADO work is situated. This chapter aims to provide an overview of how LADO work is carried out, and
some of the specific linguistic issues involved. The first section below outlines the way in which LADO works. There follows an introduction to some concerns of linguists about problematic assumptions and practices. A sample report is then presented and discussed in order to exemplify some of the issues involved in language variation, multilingualism and language contact. Of particular concern are the problems which arise from LADO judgements and reports being produced by ‘native speakers’ who have not been trained in linguistics. The chapter concludes with a discussion about the challenges for linguists
who move beyond expertise in individual cases and/or in scholarly research to engage in ‘expert awareness raising’. This chapter draws in part on my earlier work on this topic, namely in Eades and Arends (2004), Eades (2005), Eades (2008a) and Eades (2009).
