Language Analysis as a Method to Determine National Origin in Asylum Cases

Language analysis is used in asylum procedures by governments in several countries, including The Netherlands. In a language analysis the country or region of origin is established on the basis of (dialectical) characteristics of the asylum seeker's speech. An international group of linguists has responded to the use of language analysis by publishing Guidelines for the Use of Language Analysis in Relation to Questions of National Origin in Refugee Cases. Focussing on Guideline No 5 (which states that language analysis should be based on useful and reliable data), we present several factors that can interfere with reliable data, and look how existing data is evaluated by professional linguists. Our findings show that the current methods are not adequately avoiding the pitfalls, and we conclude that there is an urgent need to further develop language analysis.