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  • Imposed language choice in the Belgian asylum procedure : how to match simultaneity with aspirations of linguistic purity
    Maryns, Katrijn
    In recent discussions on multilingualism, views of linguistic purity have come to give way to notions of simultaneity and multiple code usage as defaults in language use. Research has shown that in ... many instances of multilingual language use no clear boundaries between 'languages' can be drawn. Connections made between such more complex patterns of multiple language usage and identity work lead to the conclusion that simple language-identity relations are no longer tenable. In the context of bureaucratic encounters between applicants and officials in the Belgian asylum procedure however, notions of monolingualism and linguistic purity still dominate current language policies and their prevailing linguistic ideologies. Through public education and procedural training programmes officials have been raised with linguistic perceptions sustaining the univocal nature of language, perceptions which have developed into behaviouralised and established language ideologies. The assumption that every speaker should be able to express him/herself in one single code nourishes procedural practices of imposed language choice. Many asylum seekers' multilingual linguistic competence however poses serious problems for linguistic self-identification. Complex patterns of multiple language use involving language mixing and shifting do not make it possible to draw clear boundaries between the different codes used. The fact that applicants are forced to opt for one single code as procedural language inevitably reduces the set of linguistic resources needed to justify their application. In addition, this simultaneity characterising their linguistic usage tends to be ideologised in terms of fragmentation or even subjectivity. Discrepancies between applicant's competence and required competence are made indexical for the identity of the applicant in the sense that shattered competence tends to be interpreted as an expression of fragmented identity. In this way, the language policies which have become ideologically and institutionally naturalised in the procedure have caused the requirements of linguistic homogeneity to develop into an imposition of homogeneous identities.
    Vir: The School field : international journal of theory and research in education. - ISSN 0353-6807 (Letn. 13, št. 6, winter 2002, str. 61-80)
    Vrsta gradiva - članek, sestavni del ; neleposlovje za odrasle
    Leto - 2002
    Jezik - angleški
    COBISS.SI-ID - 971607

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