LADO and the pressure to draw strong conclusions: A response to Tina Cambier-Langeveld

This paper was written in response to Cambier–Langeveld (2010), ‘The role of linguists and native speakers in language analysis for the determination of speaker origin’ (abbreviated here as RoLaNS).1 As such its first focus is on a discussion of the main conclusion of RoLaNS and the arguments it puts forward. This discussion leads me to conclude that the conclusion that native speaker competence is required for reliable LADO is not justified. I take the view that the crucial issue is not whether an expert is flawless but how reliable the result of the expert’s methods are. In the second half of the paper, I discuss some criteria for valid use of LADO, pointing out some current issues with the formulation of conclusions.