Language analysis in the UK Refugee Status Determination system
The Editors received the following note from Dr John Campbell of the University of London’s School of African and Oriental Studies, referring to his recent publication on the use of language analysis by the United Kingdom Border Agency. The article examines claims made about the role of ‘expert knowledge’ in analysing the language of individuals seeking asylum in the UK.
In November 2001, the United Kingdom Border Agency (UKBA) began a policy of language analysis (LA), stating that ‘the purpose of language analysis is to provide expert evidence which helps to identify the place of origin of asylum seekers’. [1]
Dr Campbell’s article, ‘Language analysis in the United Kingdom’s refugee status determination system: seeing through policy claims about ‘expert knowledge’, published in Ethnic and Racial Studies, discusses policy making within UKBA, the language used in policy documents, how officials make use of language analysis (LA) to decide claims, as well as the concerns and arguments of professional linguists about LA.
According to the article, ‘Over the past decade the UK has increasingly introduced policies aimed at preventing and deterring asylum seekers from entering Britain, has reduced the benefits given to individuals waiting for their asylum claim to be assessed, and has stepped up the detention and deportation of failed asylum seekers. These policies indicate the government’s ambivalent attitude toward refugees and growing anti-immigration and anti-asylum concerns among the British public’.
Dr Campbell argues that language analysis, as it is practised by the UKBA, is not an objective tool providing scientific evidence regarding an asylum seeker’s country of origin but is based on flawed assumptions about language use and capricious bureaucratic processes.
Is it time for UKBA to reassess its policy of ‘Language Analysis’ or does it simply allow for better regulation and security of the UK’s international borders?
View our related article in this same issue of the Newsletter: ‘How language testing used to authenticate asylum claims fails to recognise the reality and complexity of language’.
[1] Source: Angela Eagle, Parliamentary Undersecretary, Home Office, Hansard HC Deb, 30 October 2001, 617W.
