Forensic linguistics is the application of linguistic knowledge to legal matters, involving voice identification, analysis of discourse, and authorship identification among other areas. It emerged as a field in the 1980s, focusing on the intersection of language and law, and has various applications in criminal investigations. Challenges in forensic linguistics include the quality and reliability of linguistic evidence, particularly in short texts and dialect identification.

1. Forensic Linguistics
Presented by: Abbou Fatima Zahra

2. The Outline
Definition
Applications of Forensic Linguistics
History
Areas of study
Types of Forensic Texts
Different ways to analyse the linguistic
data
Forensic Linguistics in the world

3. Language can solve and prevent
crimes.
Do you agree with this statement?

5. The word « Forensic »
comes from the latin
word « Forensis »
meaning of the forum
where the law courts of
ancient Rome were held.

6. FL is a Branch of applied
linguistics
FL is also called legal linguistics or
language and the law.
 FL is the application of linguistic
knowledge to legal matters. In
other words, it covers all areas
where language and law intersect.
What is forensic linguistics? And what is the
relationship between language and law?

7. Legal
matters
Judicial
matters
Law
enforcement
Testimony
Legislation

8. Questions that FL tries to answer
Who
said
this ?
Who
wrote
this?
And
why?

9. Applications of Forensic Linguistics
"Applications of forensic linguistics include voice identification,
interpretation of expressed meaning in laws and legal writings,
analysis of discourse in legal settings, interpretation of intended
meaning in oral and written statements (e.g., confessions), authorship
identification, the language of the law (e.g., plain language), analysis
of courtroom language used by trial participants (i.e., judges,
lawyers, and witnesses), trademark law, and interpretation
and translation when more than one language must be used in a legal
context.“
(Gerald R. McMenamin, Forensic Linguistics: Advances in Forensic Stylistics. CRC
Press, 2002)

10. Forensic linguists help non-linguists such
as:
Investigators
Judges
Juries
Lawyers
Counter-terrorist groups
To gain more information from language
evidence

11. History of Forensic Linguistics
 law received the attention of psychologists,
anthropologists and political scientists, but
starting from the 1980’s, it has also
received the attention of linguists.
 FL is so new that its history is still being
written.
 The phrase forensic linguistics was coined
by Jan Svartik in 1968.
 It started mainly in UK, USA and Australia.

12. How did it start in the US?

13. The Miranda Warning

14. Areas of study
Legal language
Language as
evidence
Language in the
legal process

15. Legal Language is the language used
by legal professions in the course of
their work.
We can find it in :
National Constitutions, Laws, Statutes
and contractual agreement
Legal language vs ordinary language
Legal language is different because it is full
of wordiness, redundancy, and specialized
vocabulary in addition to complex, lengthy
and unusual sentence structure..
The law is a
profession of words. -
David Mellinkoff

17. Language in the legal process

18. In this process, the objective
is to gather the maximum of
data ( spoken or written) to
analyse it, and try to narrow
the number of suspects.

19. Language as evidence
 Focuses on the study of written or spoken
language.
 Based on the analysis of the corpora
AUTHOR IDENTIFICATION
FORENSIC STYLISTICS
Discourse analysis
LINGUISTIC DIALECTOLOGY
FORENSIC PHONETICS

20. From where do we collect the linguistic
data?
 Types of forensic texts: They can be anything;
however, forensic linguists focus on these things
only for now
 Emergency calls ( the analysis of the voice
of the speaker).
 Ransom demand ( video, audio or written)

21. Hate mail
Suicide letters ( the main
Question is did the author kill
Him/herself?)

22. How can we analyse these texts?
Author profiling also known as Forensic Stylistics
 Language is like a fingerprint.
 People reveal something about who they are through the
use of their linguistic choices.
 Analysis can help identify a writer’s
Nationality, native language, occupation, training,
education, age, experience, etc.
The use of comparative methods ( case of Australian ransom
where the kidnapers pretended to be an Asian gang, and
from their language, Forensic linguist knew that they are
native speakers of English)

23. Authorship
markers
Lexis (
register)
Phrase
choice
punctuation
syntax
What are the linguistic markers?

25. In your opinion, what are the challenges
of forensic stylistics?
 Forensic texts are usually short ( text messages, ransom
notes etc.) therefore we do not have enough data to
establish a solid argument.
 Which linguistic features are reliable? And how reliable
are they?
 Our language change, so how can be sure about the
identity of the author.
 Solution: Forensic linguistics can help in narrowing the
suspects’ list; however, it is not yet able to certainly
identify the criminal.

26. There is also a method called linguistic
dialectology which means that if they
hear a criminal saying ( wah which means
yes in Algerian Arabic) they will conclude
that this person is from the west of
Algeria. But how far is this true? Due to
social media and television, dialects
became more similar than ever, so relying
on this evidence may seem very weak.

27. Voice Identification ( also known as
forensic phonetics)
 Its goal is to produce an accurate transcriptions of
what was being said.
 They use audio recordings to:
 Speaker profiling ( dialect, social background, age
and gender)
 Speaker identification ( to know exactly who is
the speaker)

28. According to you, what are the
challenges of forensic phonetics?
The quality of the recordings because
of the noise which will make it so hard
to have an objective transcription.
The authentication of the recordings (
if there is any change in the
recordings)

29. A video presenting a real case where Forensic
linguists solved the case

31. Forensic linguistics in the world

32. Scholarship to study Forensic Linguistics
 In Cardiff University in the UK
 Some of the modules are:
 Forensic Linguistics I: Language in Legal Processes
 Forensic Linguistics II: Linguistic Expertise in Legal Processes
 Projects in Forensic Linguistics
 Foundation module: Core Skills, Principles and Issues involved in Language and
Communication Research
 Current Issues in Sociolinguistics
 Second Language Development and Pedagogy
 Qualitative Research Methods
 Quantitative Research Methods
 To find out more please visit this website:
http://courses.cardiff.ac.uk/postgraduate/course/detail/p117.html

33. What is the IAFL?
The International Association of Forensic Linguists (IAFL) is an organization that
consists primarily of linguists whose work involves them in the law. Narrowly
defined, this means linguistic evidence in court (authorship attribution, disputed
confessions, etc.), but the association also aims to bring together those working on
all aspects of language and the law (legal language, language in the legal process,
and language as evidence). In addition to linguists, others, particularly members of
the legal profession, are welcome to apply for membership. To find more
information about this association please visit this web-site: http://www.iafl.org/

34. “Forensic Linguistics: Foundations and Future
Avenues” is the first international conference on
Forensic Linguistics/ language and the law to be co-
sponsored by the International Association of
Forensic Linguists (IAFL) in Africa and in the Arab
world. This conference was held on 12th-14th
December 2014
To learn more about this event, please visit this
web-site:
https://forensiclinguisticstunisia.wordpress.com/e
vents-in-2014/presentation/

35. Forensic linguist in famous TV show
Alex Blake

37. References
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forensic_linguistics#Use_of_linguistic_evidenc
e_in_legal_proceedings
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Blake_(Criminal_Minds)
 http://www.languageandlaw.org/FORENSIC.HTM
 http://idiom.ucsd.edu/~schane/law/introduction.pdf
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-01uO3uTrgk
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4wZ-O_f5ds
 The_Routledge_Handbook_of_Applied_Linguistics
 http://www.iafl.org/
 http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/07/23/words-on-trial