How the US Oath of Allegiance weakens citizenship, encodes discrimination, and muddies the moment of becoming

Abstract

Swearing a naturalisation oath, such as the US oath of allegiance, is the culminating step of naturalised citizenship and a moment that exposes tensions between linguistic theory and the law. Drawing on speech act theory, discourse analysis, and ethnography, this article exposes these tensions by deconstructing the language and history of the US naturalisation oath, its role in naturalisation ceremonies, and the ways it is taught in citizenship classes. This article describes the exclusionary history of the US oath and its role as a present-day enforcer of English hegemony. We then analyse how the authoritative discourse of the naturalisation oath signals its historical significance, while also imbuing it with a level of lexical and syntactic complexity that can hamper comprehension. Throughout, we notice that policies and practitioners carry different understandings of when the exact transitory moment occurs from non-citizen to citizen, which could be seen as undermining the illocutionary act of promising the oath. We end by offering recommendations for educators to integrate a discussion of the naturalisation oath into their citizenship class curriculum.