Arabic and contact-induced language change

This project seeks to improve our understanding of how and why languages tend to change when they come into contact, with a particular focus on Arabic and the many languages it has influenced and been influenced by in its 1500 years of written and spoken history.

The project has three strands. First, there is a theoretical strand, in which the aim is to construct a general model of the cognitive processes at work in the minds of bilingual individuals that cause them to introduce changes into one or both of their languages - changes which can then be acquired by children learning their first languages. In my previous work in this area I have focused on contact between languages that are mutually unintelligible to monolingual speakers of each. In this project I will extend the model so that it also accounts for changes that result from contact between related dialects, and I will also show how this model of contact-induced change can be integrated into existing models that focus on linguistic change that is caused by internal factors, not language contact.

The second strand of the project involves collaboration with the project partner, Stefano Manfredi (SeDyL-CNRS), and the project research assistant, to edit a handbook of Arabic and contact-induced language change. Chapters will be contributed by leading experts on this subject, giving accessible summaries of topics including: contact-induced change in the Arabic dialects of various regions, such as Morocco, Malta and Cyprus; the Pidgin/Creole varieties of Arabic spoken in Uganda and South Sudan; Arabic influences on languages such as Aramaic, Swahili and Somali; the influence of different Arabic dialects on each other; and specific areas of Arabic grammar in which contact-induced change has played a role. This handbook will be published by Language Science Press, an open access publisher, so it will be freely available for anyone to read online.

The third strand of the project aims at raising awareness of the importance of language and dialect contact for the practice of 'LADO' (language analysis for the determination of origin) in asylum claims by Arabic-speaking individuals in the UK. LADO is a tool used by some governments to aid in decisions on whether asylum claims are genuine. Typically, claimants are interviewed, in Arabic, and their speech in this interview is then examined to see if it exhibits the known features of the dialect of the claimant's stated region of origin. But there is a problem with how LADO is practiced in the initial stages of an asylum claim. In all such LADO reports that I have seen, produced by commercial organisations contracted by the UK government, no account is taken of the fact that the speech of emigrant Arabic speakers is likely to be influenced by the other languages and Arabic dialects they are exposed to daily, as well as by the speech of their interviewer. The project will address this problem by collecting and publishing data on the speech of Arabic speakers resident in London, with a view to providing concrete evidence that Arabic speakers who have left their region of origin are more likely than not to exhibit influence in their speech from dialects other than their own.

A second use of LADO is at the appeal stage of an asylum claim, where an independent expert is contracted to produce a new LADO report. Here the problem is that experts are producing their reports in virtual isolation, without common standards of best practice, while solicitors seem to be contacting potential experts on a haphazard, word-of-mouth basis. The project will address this problem through consultative workshops with stakeholders in Arabic-based LADO that aim to establish and then promote the necessary best practices, and by producing and maintaining an online register of LADO-active Arabic linguists for solicitors to contact.

The project thus intends to have a genuine impact both in academic linguistics and on the UK asylum system.

The overall theme of this project is how contact between languages causes them to change, with a particular focus on Arabic. The strand of this project that directly targets an impact outside of academia is that concerned with language analysis for the determination of origin (LADO) in asylum cases involving speakers of Arabic.

The problem that this strand of the project seeks to address is that there are flaws in the way Arabic-based LADO is currently being conducted, at least in the UK, both at the initial stage and the appeal stage of asylum cases. At the initial stage, the LADO reports produced by commercial organisations apparently fail to take into account the fact that, when interviewed in the UK, asylum claimants will have had considerable exposure to dialects other than their own, and will feel pressure to accommodate to the (typically relatively prestigious) dialect of their interviewer. This is likely to lead to deviations in the claimants' speech from what one would otherwise expect from someone with their linguistic background. At the appeal stage, legal practitioners solicit a second LADO report from someone they take to be an expert in Arabic linguistics. But the individuals that are contacted are currently writing their reports in the absence of commonly-agreed standards of best practice, or even a sense of which colleagues are engaged in the same activity, while solicitors seem to be contacting potential experts on a haphazard, word-of-mouth basis.

The projects aims to rectify this situation by: i) producing clear empirical evidence that the speech of Arabic speakers resident in the UK will tend to deviate from expected norms for their native dialect, as a result of influence from the other Arabic dialects that they come into contact with in the UK; and ii) hosting two consultative workshops with LADO-active experts on Arabic linguistics, and also with commercial LADO organisations, legal practitioners, and migrants' advocacy groups, with a view to establishing consensus on best practice in Arabic-based LADO, and also by creating a publicly accessible register of LADO-active Arabic linguists.

The evidence gathered (i), and the consensus on best practice established (ii), will be published both as a journal article and as a factsheet on the project's webpages, and publicised further through a press release to be distributed to appropriate media, for which the collaboration of advocacy groups who have attended the workshop (e.g. Asylum Aid, Migrants' Rights Network) will be sought. We know that academic activity of this kind can have a real impact: in 2014 the UK government changed its main commercial supplier of LADO, following a ruling by the Supreme Court ([2014] UKSC 30) citing criticisms by linguists of the standard of LADO produced by their previous supplier. If LADO reports and judges' written decisions in asylum cases start to reflect and acknowledge the evidence-based research of this project, we will have a clear demonstration of its impact.

Anyone with an interest in making the asylum system as fair and efficient as possible stands to benefit from these impacts. Beneficiaries include all the stakeholders to be hosted at the abovementioned workshops, as well as migrants themselves and any section of the UK government concerned with asylum and immigration.

The work of the project has the potential to help make a crucial component of the asylum process fairer and more efficient, at a time when unprecedented numbers of Arabic-speaking refugees are seeking asylum in Europe. If those conducting LADO at both the initial and the appeal stage of asylum cases incorporate an appreciation of the effects of language and dialect contact into their practice, and those judging the cases do the same, there will be significant benefits both to those seeking asylum in the UK, and to the society they are seeking to join.