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Forensic Language Analysis in Asylum Applications of African Refugees:
Challenges & Promises

Fallou Ngom, Western Washington University
Fallou.ngom@wwu.edu

Asylum applications have increased in many Western countries as the result of the wars, poverty, population displacements and migrations from Africa and other parts of the world. While many people apply for asylum for genuine reasons, some use the asylum procedure to immigrate to the West by claiming that they come from a country whose citizens are normally granted asylum. In cases where the applicants’ origin and claims are doubtful, many Western governments now use language analyses to determine whether the (socio) linguistic features in the applicants’ speech are consistent with the patterns typically found in the speech communities where they claim to be from. However, this type of forensic language analysis is faced with serious problems: 1) Very often, there are extremely limited research conducted on the applicants’ speech communities or languages, and 2) experts specializing in the given language(s) are difficult to find. This has lead many governments to resort to native-speakers with limited or no training and expertise in linguistics to conduct such language analyses. Because these native-speakers often lack the necessary academic linguistics training, their conclusions are often scientifically unfounded. In this paper, I focus on the case of some Pulaar asylum seekers who claim to be from Guinea Bissau, and to have fled the country during the 1998-1999 civil war. First, I address the major challenges facing language analysts in such cases. Second, I discuss the key forensic (socio)linguistic evidence that needs to be established in order to reach an objective conclusion on such cases.

Abstract

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Africa Conference 2006: Movements, Migrations and Displacements in Africa
Convened and Coordinated by
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