Thank you, James, for this link. I'm sure many of us can think of students
who have what might be considered atypical knowledge of different languages,
often incomplete and with varying degrees of literacy. One doesn't even have
to look to the refugee community to find this, although many refugees have
linguistic trails to match their journeys. I have a young woman in one of my
current classes who has lived in different countries with her fairly
affluent family, and who has picked up smatterings of a number of languages
as a result.
One would have thought that relatively recent history would have made it
clear that artificial political boundaries often have little to do with
ethnic and linguistic realities.
Children and women seem to be particularly vulnerable to the workings of the
UK immigration system: there seems to be an inbuilt presumption that only
adult males are subject to persecution and danger whereas women and children
are often particularly at risk, as in this case. I believe there have been
other cases in which a child was classified as an adult on little or no
evidence, as well.
The most frustrating point is that the whole system seems to be driven by
political expediency, rather than by humanity or even accurate information.
Cheryl Thornett
ESOL & Literacy tutor
Birmingham Adult Education
----- Original Message -----
From: "James Simpson" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, April 10, 2009 5:52 PM
Subject: paper about language and asylum
Hello all
I am reading the attached paper by Jan Blommaert for something I’m currently
writing, and thought some of you might like to read it too. The reference
is:
Blommaert, J. (2008) Language, asylum, and the natural order. Working papers
in urban language and literacies (Paper 50). London: King’s College London.
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