Abstract

Since 1993, governments have relied on language analysis in asylum claims. Language Analysis for Determination of Origin (LADO; Patrick et al. 2019) has been commercialized and adopted by many governments, through internal bureaux or by outsourcing (primarily to Swedish firms). The key sociolinguistic question concerns the language socialization of native speakers into (multilingual) speech communities. This chapter describes the evolution and practice of LADO, examining actual (anonymized) cases of Arabic-speaking asylum seekers in the UK refugee status determination process. Issues influencing LADO cases include forensic linguistic expertise – its availability, use and reception – and the language beliefs and ideologies of decision-makers.