Language analysis for the determination of origin

Language analysis for the determination of origin (LADO) is an instrument used in asylum cases to determine the national or ethnic origin of the asylum seeker, through an evaluation of their language profile. To this end, an interview with the asylum seeker is recorded and analysed. The analysis consists of an examination of the dialectologically relevant features (e.g. accent, grammar, vocabulary, loanwords, and error patterns) in the speech of the asylum seeker. LADO is considered a type of speaker identification by forensic linguists. LADO analyses are usually made at the request of government immigration/asylum bureaux attempting to verify asylum claims, but may also be performed as part of the appeals process for claims which have been denied; they have frequently been the subject of appeals and litigation in several countries, e.g. Australia, the Netherlands and the UK.

A number of established linguistic approaches are considered to be valid methods of conducting LADO, including language variation and change, forensic phonetics, dialectology, and language assessment.

The underlying assumption leading to government immigration and asylum bureaux's use of LADO is that a link exists between a person's nationality and the way they speak. To linguists, this assumption is flawed: instead, research supports links between the family and community in which a person learns their native language, and enduring features of their way of speaking it. The notion that linguistic socialization into a speech community lies at the heart of LADO has been argued for by linguists since 2004, and is now accepted by a range of government agencies (e.g. Switzerland, Norway), academic researchers (e.g. Eades 2009, Fraser 2011, Maryns 2006, and Patrick 2013), as well as some commercial agencies (e.g. De Taalstudio, according to Verrips 2010).

Since the mid-1990s, language analysis has been used to help determine the geographical origin of asylum seekers by the governments of a growing number of countries (Reath, 2004), now including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

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