ABSTRACT
Since the mid-1990s, the speech of asylum seekers (ASs) has been analyzed at the request of some governments (a) as an aid to determining their country of origin, and/or (b) “to deter false claims of origin” (UKBA 2013: 3). This practice, called LADO (Language Analysis for Determination of Origin), was not originally performed by academically-trained linguists – the expertise required to perform it validly and reliably is still a matter of controversy – but has become increasingly visible as an arena for the application of linguistic science (Zwaan et al. 2010; Patrick 2012). Here I investigate the context, process and consequences of LADO from a sociolinguist's perspective, tracing the impact of our field's involvement, through my journey: from a creolist conference in Honolulu in 2003, where I was introduced to a new phenomenon, to a UK Supreme Court decision in 2014 in which I played a role in establishing new standards for linguistic evidence.
