A critical examination of the use of language analysis interviews in asylum proceedings: a case study of a West African seeking asylum in The Netherlands

Abstract

This article presents an argument against the use of language analysis interviews in asylum proceedings whenever the case involves questions of dialect, sociolect, closely related languages or distinguishing between languages which are both used in the applicant's claimed speech community. I examine a language analysis interview's interactional constraints and the asylum seeker's response to these constraints. I argues the asylum seeker misreads them as an indication he is participating in a gatekeeping type of interview. Through an examination of the anti-immigrant sentiments in Rotterdam and the defining cultural categories of creole identity in Sierra Leone, I attempt to make sense of his interpretations and subsequent linguistic choies. This exposition is presented as an example of how an asylum seeker's activity constructed response poses problems for the reliability of linguistic identification.