Incorporating Sociolinguistic Perspectives in Australian Refugee Credibility Assessments: the Case of CRL18

Abstract

Credibility assessments in asylum visa applications have attracted criticism across diverse research fields. This article builds on existing critical examinations by presenting a case study of a successful appeal in the Federal Court of Australia (FCA) which overturned a decision involving one such problematic credibility assessment. The article establishes that credibility assessments often rely on flawed language ideologies and reasoning that transform the asylum seeker into the sole participant responsible for the texts produced in institutional processes. As a contrast, it then explores the FCA decision, analysing the judge’s treatment of three different premises on which the lower-level rejection relied. It demonstrates how, when dealing with each of these premises, the judge’s approach aligns with sociolinguistic scholarship. The case study demonstrates the potential of sociolinguistic awareness to denaturalize the problematic ideologies underlying credibility assessments. However, the article equally acknowledges and discusses the systemic limitations on challenging credibility assessments, due to the narrow scope for judicial review, and the need for professional legal assistance to argue one’s case successfully. The article concludes that while credibility assessments serve to act as a powerful gatekeeping tool to support increasingly restrictive asylum policy, judicial receptiveness of sociolinguistic understandings of communication can sometimes provide an avenue for successful appeals. It thus provides a powerful example of the potential benefits of communicating sociolinguistic research to law students, legal practitioners and decision-makers.

Marking and unmarking the (non)native speaker through English language proficiency requirements for university admission

“…The university discourses in our data reinforce precisely that association by subjugating a group of applicants who numerically are mostly Asian to the objectivized scrutiny of language testing while exempting others. In the process, it is not only the perception of the ELP of this group that is called into question but also their credibility and moral worth (Piller et al 2021; Smith-Khan 2019, 2022).…”

The Symbolic Life of Courts: How Judicial Language, Actions, and Objects Legitimize Credibility Assessments of Asylum Appeals

“…Sociolinguists have found credibility assessments in asylum determinations to rest on problematic language ideologies, including a belief that oral communication is detached from social categorizations and institutional discourses (Barsky, 1994;Smith-Khan, 2022). Moreover, sociolinguists exploring the interaction between decision-makers, asylum seekers, interpreters, and lawyers during asylum interviews have revealed that asylum narratives are co-constructed by all participants and influenced by the asymmetrical power relations between the professional workers and the applicants (Blommaert, 2001;Maryns, 2006;Määttä, Puumala & Ylikomi, 2021;Jacobs & Maryns, 2021;.…”