Abstract
The Guidelines for the Use of Language Analysis in relation to Questions of National Origin in Refugee Cases (Language and National Origin Group, Int J Speech Lang Law 11(2):261–266. https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsll.v11i2.261, 2004) have been in existence for over a decade now. They have proved important in court hearings considering the quality of Language Analysis for the Determination of Origin (LADO) reports used by governments. However, there is little detailed information on how governments and their agencies are actually responding to and implementing the “Guidelines…”. Lingua, the Swiss government agency responsible for LADO in that country, recently commissioned a quality assurance study carried out by the authors. Large numbers of LADO reports were made available to the researchers, on the basis of which they were able to develop a comprehensive checklist of the kinds of questions to be dealt with in the language analyses, and the kinds of evidence and analytic methods needed to address these questions. This chapter describes the nature of the project, its methods and conclusions, all intended to support the quality and enhance the validity of LADO reports prepared by Lingua. Drawing on theories of validation in language testing research, it presents a framework (or a set of tools) that enables the systematic analysis of the quality of the evidence, of the quality of the interpretation of the evidence, and of the conclusions drawn, and thus ensures the rigour of the argumentation leading to conclusions about the individual concerned.
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Notes
- 1.
Details of the work of Lingua are given in Baltisberger and Hubbuch (2010). See also https://www.sem.admin.ch/sem/en/home/publiservice/service/sprachanalysen/lingua.html. All weblinks accessed 22 July 2017.
- 2.
As far as possible all languages spoken by the claimant are elicited and analysed.
- 3.
Within the Swiss legal system Lingua analyses have a heightened degree of proof but are not considered a formal expert opinion, as neither the identity of the authors (i.e. the experts) nor the analyses themselves are published (Baltisberger and Hubbuch 2010: 12). While Lingua analyses thus do not have the same status as statements from expert witnesses, they nevertheless do have status in the eyes of the court and to that extent may inform the court’s decisions. There are no specific legal requirements for LADO analyses within the Swiss legal system. Over the years Lingua has set and developed standards which have always been confirmed by the courts (see e.g. http://www.ark-cra.ch/emark/1998/9834280PUB.htm; Hubbuch, personal communication, 6 September 2016).
- 4.
I.e. the language analyst’s conclusion, not the final forensic judgement, which is made by case officers, not by the expert linguist nor by Lingua staff.
- 5.
Both the report of the project and the Handbook are intended for internal use only; this paper is intended to make available the procedures recommended in the report and their translation into a Handbook for use by Lingua staff and the experts whose analyses they commission.
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McNamara, T., Schüpbach, D. (2019). Quality Assurance in LADO: Issues of Validity. In: Patrick, P.L., Schmid, M.S., Zwaan, K. (eds) Language Analysis for the Determination of Origin. Language Policy, vol 16. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-79003-9_15
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