The ESRC LADO Network is a network of researchers
established through the UK Economic and Social
Research Council grant no. RES-451-26-0911 to
Prof. Peter L.
Patrick of the University of Essex
Dept. of Language & Linguistics
and Human Rights Centre,
in order to conduct a series of Research Seminars. The theme is "Language
Analysis of Asylum Applicants: Foundations, Guidelines & Best Practice", and the
meetings are being held in 2011-12 at the
University of Essex.
The membership of the ESRC LADO Network initially consists of
the LARG Convenors
and Advisory Panel.
The four meetings reach beyond this membership to involve a broad range of
academics and practitioners, as well as postgraduate students and young
scholars. They will assemble linguists and professionals involved in Language
Analysis for Determination of Origins (LADO),
as well as participants from legal, government, academic, NGO and other
backgrounds engaged in refugee status determination.
ESRC LADO Network Seminar #2:
"The Role of Native Speakers in LADO "
Fri 26 November 2011
University of Essex Colchester campus, Square 1, Room 4SB.5.3
Description:
A central issue dividing the field of LADO practice is summed up in the
questions:
- What role should the concept of Native Speaker play in
developing and testing hypotheses in Language Analysis for
Determination of Origin (LADO)?
- What role should non-expert native speakers (NENS) play in
the linguistic analysis of speech data, in the context of status
determination?
This workshop considered what the tasks required in LADO work typically are,
and what they should be. Its remit was to:
- take into account the literature on the role of NENS as
sources of data and insights in general linguistics; r
- eview the contributions of perceptual dialectology research,
which investigates folk linguistic views on the categorization
of language varieties, alongside findings from
- ...language attitude testing, in which NENS attempt to
characterize unknown speakers;
- consider relevant phonetic research on accent identification
and speaker recognition;
- draw on work in language attrition and complex
multilingualism; and
- consider the problematisation of the notion of ‘native
speaker’, and its relevance for LADO work, in light of its
reformulation and negotiation in terms of language expertise,
affiliation and/or inheritance.
Based on these appraisals, discussion focused on identifying common ground
and problematic areas among linguists of relevant areas, and developing a
research agenda, concerning the refinement or abandonment of the notion ‘native
speaker’ for developing and testing LADO hypotheses - as well as the abilities,
training and qualification of NENS for conducting LADO analysis, and for
appropriate collaboration between NENS and linguistic experts in LADO.
Participants: