Spoken language, identity and belonging
Sociolinguistic perspectives on LADO tests and language requirements for permanent residence and citizenship in Norway
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7557/17.5926Keywords:
migration tests, LADO, asylum, language requirements for citizenship, language ideology, nationalismAbstract
During the 2010s, a series of changes were introduced in Norwegian legislation and case law, in which the assessments of spoken language competence are used as legal evidence or documentation in the questions of immigrants' rights to asylum, residence and citizenship in Norway. This paper highlights two such examples: Language analysis in connection with application for protection, which is used to assess the origin of asylum seekers, and the introduction of language requirements for permanent residence and citizenship, where immigrants living permanently in Norway are now required to document oral language skills at a certain level in order to obtain a number of legal and democratic rights. The article provides an overview of the criticisms of these two examples from various fields of linguistics and applied linguistics and shows how the examples have been criticized, both in academic literature and public debate, of reflecting decision-makers' outdated views about linguistic variation and change, language acquisition and belonging, and outdated views about the relation between language, nation, ethnicity and geographical space.
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