What is Forensic Linguistics?
John Olsson
Adjunct Professor, Nebraska Wesleyan University, Lincoln, Nebraska
Director, Forensic Linguistics Institute, www.thetext.co.uk
International consultant to law enforcement agencies and legal professionals
Keywords: Forensic linguistics, forensic phonetics, authorship, authorship attribution, author identification, voice analysis, language, linguistic, linguistics, legal system.
Forensic Linguistics
1.1.1. What is forensic linguistics?
1.1.2. Legal Cases and Proceedings
1.1.3. The investigative stage
1.1.4. The trial stage
1.1.5. The appeal stage
1.1.6. Private disputes
1.2. History and development of Forensic Linguistics to the present
1.3. Forensic Phonetics
1.4. Summary of the development of Forensic Linguistics
1.5. Forensic Linguistics in the Justice System
1.1. Glossary
1.6. Annotated Bibliography and References
Summary: This article discusses the discipline of Forensic Linguistics. It begins by describing what Forensic Linguistics is, namely the interface between linguistics (the science of language) and the law, including law enforcement. It then outlines the history and development of Forensic Linguistics from its beginnings in the 1950’s and 1960’s to the present day. A section on Forensic Phonetics is included, and the article concludes with how Forensic Linguistics works in the justice system and some of the difficulties that linguists and lawyers may have in understanding each others’ viewpoints. The article concludes by suggesting that lawyers and linguists work more closely with each other in the interests of justice, and that linguists seek to widen their understanding of international law, of international human rights issues, and of how law and language relate to each other across the globe. The article suggests that the future of Forensic Linguistics will be bright if linguists work on these issues, and also on acquiring skills, knowledge and qualifications in other disciplines in order to better prepare them for working in and with courts.
What is forensic linguistics?
In ten words or less, what is Forensic Linguistics? Forensic Linguistics is the application of linguistics to legal issues. That is a starting point, but like all answers it is imperfect and serves only to stimulate more questions. For example, what does ‘the application of linguistics’ mean?
When Forensic Linguistics is referred to as an application of linguistics or, more concisely, an applied linguistic science, the word applied is not necessarily being used in the same sense as, for example, in the phrase applied statistics, where what is being applied is a theory underpinning a particular science to the practice of that science. Forensic Linguistics is, rather, the application of linguistic knowledge to a particular social setting, namely the legal forum (from which the word forensic is derived). In its broadest sense we may say that Forensic Linguistics is the interface between language, crime and law, where law includes law enforcement, judicial matters, legislation, disputes or proceedings in law, and even disputes which only potentially involve some infraction of the law or some necessity to seek a legal remedy. Given the centrality of the use of language to life in general and the law in particular, it is perhaps somewhat surprising that Forensic Linguistics is a relative newcomer to the arena, whereas other disciplines, such as fingerprint identification and shoeprint analysis, are much older, having a wellestablished presence in judicial processes.
The application of linguistic methods to legal questions is only one sense in which Forensic Linguistics is an application of a science, in that various linguistic theories may be applied to the analysis of the language samples in an inquiry. Thus, the forensic linguist may quote observations from research undertaken in fields as diverse as language and memory studies, Conversation Analysis, Discourse Analysis, theory of grammar, Cognitive Linguistics, Speech Act Theory, etc. The reason for this reliance on a broad spectrum of linguistic fields is understandable: the data the linguist receives for analysis may require that something is said about how the average person remembers language, how conversations are constructed, the kinds of moves speakers or writers make in the course of a conversation or a written text, or they may need to explain to a court some aspects of phrase or sentence structure.
In summary, we can say that the forensic linguist applies linguistic knowledge and techniques to the language implicated in (i) legal cases or proceedings or (ii) private disputes between parties which may at a later stage result in legal action of some kind being taken.
Legal Cases and Proceedings
In lay terms, for the purposes of this discussion, we can envisage a legal proceeding as consisting potentially of three stages: the investigative stage, the trial stage and the appeal stage. The investigative stage is also sometimes referred to as the intelligence stage. In this part of the process it is important to gather information relating to the (alleged) crime. Not all of the information which is gathered during investigations can be used in court, and so a linguist who assists law enforcement officers during the intelligence stage may, in fact, find that there is no requirement to give evidence at any subsequent trial. Similarly, a linguist whose work is used at trial may not be required to assist the court at the appeal stage, if the content of the appeal does not include linguistic questions. On the other hand if linguistic evidence which was not available at the earlier stages comes to light while the appeal is being prepared, then this may be the stage at which the linguist is called in to give an opinion.