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Convenors:
Prof. Peter L. Patrick
Language & Linguistics
University of Essex
Wivenhoe Park
Colchester
CO4 3SQ
Essex, UK
+44 (0) 1206 872088

Dr. Diana Eades
University of New England
Armidale
New South Wales
Australia

E-mail: larg@essex.ac.uk

Katrijn Maryns

Katrijn Maryns photoExpertise:

  • Forensic Linguistics - Ethnography - Discourse Analysis - Intercultural Communication

Qualifications:

  • BA, MA Germanic languages

  • PhD Linguistics (Ghent)

Dr. Katrijn Maryns is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Ghent, teaching courses on discourse analysis and interpreting studies. Dr. Maryns's research investigates discourse practices in procedural settings. She is particularly interested in the discursive construction of evidence and identities across widely divergent contexts of socio-legal inquiry. Her approach combines ethnography with sociolinguistics and discourse analysis to analyse the critical role language plays in legal-administrative procedures, with a particular focus on:

  • Intertextuality, entextualisation and textual trajectories
  • Discursive resources and ideologies of language
  • Language and the determination of national origin
  • Multilingualism, translanguaging and flexible language use
  • Legal interpreting & intercultural communication

From 2000-2004 she did ethnographic work on communicative practices in asylum and migration contexts (Belgian asylum procedure). She was a founding member of the Language & National Origin Group who authored the 2004 Guidelines. From 2006-2009 she examined issues of diversity and performance in the highest criminal court procedure (Belgian Assize Court).

In October 2010, she started a research project on multilingualism and trans-languaging in asylum settings. In early 2011, she conducted ethnographic fieldwork at the asylum agencies in Brussels in order to revisit the issue of language and identity in the Belgian asylum procedure, ten years after her PhD. In this project, she focuses on the use of English as a vehicular language and as a medium of interpreted interaction in asylum hearings. Her research project also addresses LADO practices and involves close cooperation with the recently appointed LADO officer of the Belgian Immigration Department.

Katrijn Maryns's webpage

Email:

katrijn.maryns        Please add:    @ugent.be

Related Publications

2011 (in press). Multilingualism in legal settings. In M Martin-Jones, A Blackledge and A Creese (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Multilingualism. London: Routledge.

  • This paper investigates the functionally organized repertoires of multilingual speakers in legal-administrative settings. It focuses on the way monolingual ideologies inform institutional assessments of multilingual performances and argues that given the variability which characterises languages and their users, one should be very cautious establishing a link between language, origin and identity.

2009. Versluierde meertaligheid in de Belgische asielprocedure. In Jaspers, J. De klank van de stad. Stedelijke meertaligheid en interculturele communicatie. Leuven: Acco, 81-101.

2006. The asylum speaker: Language in the Belgian asylum procedure. Manchester: St. Jerome.

  • Drawing on first-hand ethnographic data, field interviews with interpreters, interviewers and decision-makers, observations and off-record comments, The Asylum Speaker examines discursive processes in the asylum procedure and the impact these processes may have on the determination of refugee status. The book starts from the assumption that far-reaching legal decisions often have to be made on very limited grounds. Unable to submit any evidence to substantiate their case, the only chance that many asylum seekers have is to argue their case during the oral hearings with public officials at the different asylum agencies. Maryns investigates the performance of the asylum seeker during these interviews and analyzes the relationship between narrative structuring and gradations of linguistic competence. She explores a number of related questions: first, how the interaction between applicants and public officials proceeds; second, how this interaction forms the discursive input into long and complicated textual trajectories, and third, how the outcome of these discursive processes affects the assessment of asylum applications. Maryns demonstrates how propositional aspects play a crucial role in the asylum procedure, whereas little attention is paid to narrative-linguistic diversity and multilingual speaker repertoires. Her analysis reveals how insufficient insight into the linguistic structure and narrative features of the asylum account often results in a deficient processing of important details.

2005. Monolingual language ideologies and code choice in the Belgian asylum procedure. Language & Communication 25: 299-314.

  • When refugee claimants enter the Belgian asylum procedure, they have to motivate their application during one or more interviews with public officials. This paper examines the limitations of the procedural imposition of a monolingual standard code for a clear understanding of narrative accounts. Drawing on the case of a West African asylum seeker, it is shown how the applicant is forced to assimilate to English and how the imposition of this code acts as: (a) a catalyst to widen the gap between intended meanings and interactional uptake, and (b) a filter on the subsequent entextualisation of the case.

2005. Displacement in asylum seekers narratives. In M Baynham and A De Fina (eds.), Dislocations/ Relocations: Narratives of displacement. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing: 174-193.

  • This analysis demonstrates how the asylum seekers' narratives can routinely be found wanting in the face of the interviewer's sustained probing to elicit confirming detail to substantiate a claim. The normative constraints of the interview context and the expectations of the interviewers work against the contextualization that would allow interlocutors to make sense of the stories they are told. Maryns' analysis shows how these processes have ample potential for putting asylum seekers at a disadvantage and for allowing authorities to discard their claims.

2004. Identifying the asylum speaker: Reflections on the pitfalls of language analysis in the determination of national origin. International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law 11(2): 240-260.

  • This article investigates the extent to which linguistic expert vision can anticipate practical problems related to language and identity in the Belgian asylum procedure. Given the enormous demand for linguistic expertise, this article calls into question the reliability of linguistic methods in determining nationality.

2004. (coauthor) Guidelines for the use of language analysis in relation to questions of national origin in refugee cases. The International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law: Forensic Linguistics, 11(2): 261-266. Available at http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/