The Routledge Handbook of Forensic Linguistics

Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of contents
Illustrations
Conventions used
Contributors and affiliations
Notes on editors and contributors
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction
Introduction
What is forensic linguistics?
Contents and organisation
Section I – The language of the law and the legal process
Subsection 1.1 Legal language and legal meaning
Subsection 1.2 Witnesses and suspects in interviews and investigations
Subsection 1.3 Language in the courtroom
Subsection 1.4 Lay participants in the judicial process
Section II – The linguist as expert in the legal process
Subsection 2.1 Expert and process
Subsection 2.2 Multilingualism in legal contexts
Subsection 2.3 Authorship and opinion
Section III – New directions
Concluding observations
References
Section I The language of the law and the legal process
1.1 Legal language and legal meaning
2 Legal talk: Socio-pragmatic aspects of legal questioning: police interviews, prosecutorial discourse and trial discourse
Introduction
Question form and function
Questions and turn-taking
Interrogative syntax
Pragmatics of questions – language at work
Making contrasts
Reporting speech
Lexical signalling
Evaluating, summarising, repeating, formulating and challenging through questions
And- and so-prefaced questions
Formulations
SAY questions
Repeating questions
Conclusion
Further reading
References
3 Legal writing: complexity: Complex documents / average and not-so-average readers
Introduction
Types of documents
Pension plan documents
Credit card disclosures
Literacy issues in the U.S.
Other relevant research
Conclusion
Further reading
References
4 Legal writing: attitude and emphasis: Corpus linguistic approaches to ‘legal language’: adverbial expression of ...
Introduction
U.S. court systems
Expressing attitude and emphasis: justice with an attitude
Emphatic adverbials and their prohibition
Adverbs and adverbials
COSCO-II, CUSSCO and COCA
Adverbs and adverbials in COSCO-II
Attitudinal and emphatic adverbs in COSCO-II, CUSSCO and COCA
Efficacy of emphatics in appellate briefs
Language and thought
Conclusion
Further reading
References
5 Creating multilingual law: Language and translation at the Court of Justice of the European Union
Introduction
Methodology
Language and translation at the CJEU
Pivot translation
Lawyer-linguists and translations with the force of law
Layers of (hidden) translation
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
Notes
Further reading
References
6 Legal interpretation: The category of ordinary meaning and its role in legal interpretation
Introduction
The interpretive culture of law
Technical, trade and scientific meanings
The dictionary and the language expert
What is a sandwich?
Corpus linguistics and legal interpretation
Self-classification and ordinary meaning
Conclusion
Further reading
References
1.2 Witnesses and suspects in interviews and investigations
7 Miranda rights: Curtailing coercion in police interrogation: the failed promise of Miranda v. Arizona
Coercion and confessions
Miranda v. Arizona – an attempt to prevent police over-reaching and to promote reliability of confessions
Miranda as implemented: no remedy for police coercion after all
The language of warning
The language of waiver
The language of invocation
Questioning ‘outside’ Miranda
The Supreme Court reconsiders the Miranda framework
The role for linguists in preventing miscarriages of justice
Further reading
References
8 Witnesses and suspects in interviews: Collecting oral evidence: the police, the public and the written word
Introduction
How do reading and writing figure in interviews?
Intertextuality and literacies in police interviews
Writing that is brought into interviews
Writing that is taken from interviews
Conclusion
Further reading
References
9 False confessors: The language of false confession in police interrogation
Introduction
The cause of false confessions
The psychology of false confession
The decision to falsely confess
Voluntary false confessions
Interrogation-induced false confessions
Linguistic form/content of false confession discourse/statements
Linguistic content of false confessions
Discourse features of false confessions
Lexico-grammatical and syntactic features of false confessions
Linguistic form/content of police interrogation in cases of false confession
Leading questions and statements
Presupposition-bearing questions
Confession contamination
Conclusion and suggestions for further research
Further reading
References
10 Police interviews in the judicial process: Police interviews as evidence
Introduction
The role of police-suspect interviews
Some problems
Format
Context
Audience
Data analysis
Prosecution v. defence
Discussion: interviews as evidence
Further reading
References
11 Assuming identities online: Authorship synthesis in undercover investigations
Introduction
The policing of online child sexual abuse
Training linguistic analysis and synthesis
Theorising language and identity
Conclusions
Acknowledgement
Further reading
References
1.3 Language in the courtroom
12 Order in Court: Talk-in-interaction in judicial settings
Introduction
Key themes in Order in Court
The pre-allocated turn-taking system for courtroom interaction
Questioning
Social actions
Strategy and the micro-analysis of ‘power’
Limitations of Order in Court
Recent developments in research into social interaction in judicial settings
Future directions
Further reading
References
13 Narrative in the trial: Constructing crime stories in court
Introduction
Narrative and the trial process
Jury selection and emplotment
Preliminary instruction, the legal framework and story negotiation
Opening statements, narration and character navigation
Witness examination and mediated narration
Cross-examination and character navigation
Closing arguments, the trial story and character navigation
Jury instruction and narrativization
Jury deliberation, emplotment and narrative decision-making
Sentencing and beyond: a moral coda
Conclusion
Note
Further reading
References
14 Advances in studies of the historical courtroom: (Con)Textual, ideational and interpersonal dimensions
Introduction
(Con)Textual dimension
Recent discoveries in historical courtroom discourse
Ideational dimension
Interpersonal dimension
Analysis of ideational and interpersonal aspects in early opening statements
Conclusion and future directions
Further reading
References
15 Capitally speaking
Language and bias in capital trials
Introduction
Jury selection
Death qualification
Racial imbalance
Evidentiary phase
California’s language diversity & capital trials
Language errors mar the proceedings
A case study
Juror deliberations: questions and confusion
Conclusion
Further reading
References
16 Multimodality in legal interaction: Beyond written and verbal modalities
Introduction
Multimodality
Gesture
Gaze, facial expression, posture and movement
Materiality
Data in legal contexts
Multimodal conduct in the courtroom
Closing argument
Cross-examination
Conclusion
Acknowledgement
Notes
Further reading
References
1.4 Lay participants in the judicial process
17 Instructions to jurors: Redrafting California’s jury instructions
Background
Developments in California
Old v. new: some civil instructions
Criminal instructions
The problem of death penalty instructions
Conclusion
Further reading
References
18 Vulnerable witnesses: Vulnerable witnesses in police investigative interviews in England and Wales
Introduction
Vulnerable witnesses in the legal system in England and Wales
Vulnerable witnesses: children
The phased interview – building rapport
The phased interview – free narrative account phase
The phased interview – questioning
The phased interview – closure
Adult witnesses with intellectual disability (ID) and/or communication disorders
The role of the registered intermediary
The role of communication aids
Vulnerable witnesses in the courtroom
Conclusion
Further reading
References
19 Rape victims: The discourse of rape trials
Introduction
The adjudication of rape cases
Questions in trial discourse
The power of questions to control information in acquaintance rape trials
Syntactic repetition: intensifying the control of questions in acquaintance rape trials
Integration of gesture and speech
Contesting cultural mythologies surrounding rape
Conclusion and future directions
Further reading
References
20 Defendants’ allocutions at sentencing: Courtroom apologies
Introduction
The context of the courtroom
Historical context of courtroom apologies
Allocution at sentencing today
A study of 52 courtroom apologies
Patterns in the genre of allocution at sentencing
Defendants talk about the offense
Defendants offer mitigating information
Defendants talk about the future
Defendants refer to their sentences
Conversational styles of defendants
Paralinguistic indexes: wavering voice and crying
Conclusion
Further reading
References
21 Aboriginal claimants: Adjusting legal procedures to accommodate linguistic and cultural issues in hearings in ...
Introduction
The Land Rights Act
Aboriginal law
Knowledge
Kinship systems
Names
Languages
Aboriginal English
Cultural considerations
Conclusion
Further reading
References
Section II The linguist as expert in the legal process
2.1 Expert and process
22 The forensic linguist: The expert linguist meets the adversarial system
Science in the adversarial system
The challenge facing forensic identification sciences
The need to make forensic science more scientific
Cognitive biases in forensic science
Judicial reactions to expert evidence in the U.S. and the U.K.
The Daubert standard in American courts: The judge as gatekeeper
Expert certification of neutrality in the U.K.
The direction of forensic linguistics
Developing valid methodology
Proficiency as a substitute for methodology
Conclusion
Notes
Further reading
References
23 Trademark linguistics: Trademarks: language that one owns
Historical and theoretical perspectives
The rise of linguistic testimony about trademarks
Definitions and terminology
Trademark litigation and the forensic linguist
The two main consulting areas (case studies)
Likelihood of confusion
The category of SIGHT
The category of SOUND
The category of MEANING
Ethics and outcomes
Strength of mark
Definitions
Challenging putatively weak marks
Genericide
The function of trademarks in modern society: uses and abuses of linguistics
Further reading
References
24 Speaker profiling and forensic voice comparison: The auditory-acoustic approach
Introduction
Speaker profiling
Forensic voice comparison (FVC)
Speaker-specific characteristics
Principles of forensic voice comparison
The status of speaker classification in FVC
Notes on semiautomatic speaker recognition
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
Further reading
References
25 Forensic phonetics and automatic speaker recognition: The complementarity of human- and machine-based forensic ...
Introduction
ASR systems
Problems
Conclusions
Acknowledgment
Further reading
References
26 Forensic transcription: The case for transcription as a dedicated branch of linguistic science
Introduction
An auspicious start: the ‘conversation in a car’ case
A dose of reality: the ‘heroin’ case
Getting serious: the ‘don’t worry’ case
Scientific evidence about legal evidence: the ‘crisis call’ experiment
Insight from tragedy: the ‘pact’ case
Legal reasoning about forensic audio: far from naive but still wrong
A failed voir dire and the ‘pact’ experiment
Behind the scenes: the pervasive but unrecognised role of priming in the legal process
Perception of indistinct audio: priming is not the same as bias
Bad in principle, worse in practice: accumulating evidence against the law
The fundamental problem: a web of confident false beliefs
Educating the law: some common but not ideal proposals from linguists
Educating police is not the answer
Educating prosecutors is not the answer
Educating judges is not the answer
Educating defence lawyers is not the answer
Towards a real solution: recognise forensic transcription as a science
Requirement 1: Bring about necessary changes in the law
Requirement 2: Develop transcription studies as a dedicated branch of linguistic science
Conclusion
Further reading
References
27 Consumer product warnings: Composition, identification and assessment of adequacy
Introduction
Definitions
Legal requirements
Nature and function of warnings and warning labels
The nature of warnings and warning labels
Functions of warnings and warning labels
Warning adequacy
Warnings on cigarette packages
Warnings on a manufacturing product
Cleaning product risk, carbon monoxide poisoning, toxic shock syndrome and toxic gas poisoning
Conclusion
Further reading
References
28 Terrorism and forensic linguistics: Linguistics in terrorism cases
Introduction
How linguistic analysis can help
Speech events (what is being talked about)
Schemas (how participants think about what is being talked about)
Agendas (what participants contribute to what is being talked about)
Speech acts (how participants convey their contributions)
Conversational strategies (how participants try to influence each other)
Grammar and lexicon (how participants convey meaning in sentences)
Terrorist case example
Case background
Motivations and intentions
Linguistic analysis
Speech events
Schemas
Agendas
The agent’s agenda
El-Hindi’s agenda
Conflicting agendas
Speech acts
Conversational strategies
Lexicon and grammar
Internal evidence that the agent’s effort failed
Conclusions
Further reading
References
2.2 Multilingualism in legal contexts
29 Non-native speakers in detention: Assessing the English language proficiency of non-native speakers in detention: ...
Introduction
The language question
Language testing
Language testing in applied linguistics
Language testing for forensic purposes
Conducting an assessment
Methodology and materials
Analysing the performance samples
Language assessment samples
Police interview samples
Producing the report
Assessment procedures and rationale
Rationale
The linguistic profile
Contextual information
Giving an opinion
Conclusion
Further reading
References
30 Court interpreting: The need to raise the bar: court interpreters as specialized experts
Introduction
Lack of awareness about the complexity of interpreting and the need for high standards
Court interpreters as highly trained professionals
Court interpreting competence
Prerequisite to becoming an interpreter: high-level bilingual competence
Understanding the interpreting process
Overcoming challenges caused by cross linguistic differences
Understanding the discourse strategies of the courtroom
Understanding the role of the court interpreter
Acquiring the expertise to know when and how to intervene to offer expert opinion
Conclusion
Note
Further reading
References
31 Interpreting outside the courtroom: ‘A shattered mirror?’ Interpreting in law enforcement contexts outside the courtroom
Introduction
Emergency interpreting
The police interview
Sourcing interpreters
Transcript issues
Lawyer–client interaction
Probation offices
Prisons
Conclusions
Notes
Further reading
References
2.3 Authorship and opinion
32 Experts and opinions: In my opinion
Introduction
Giving evidence in court
The expert linguist
Communicating expert evidence
The responsibility of experts
Further reading
33 Forensic stylistics: The theory and practice of forensic stylistics
Introduction
Language and linguistic stylistics
The description of style
The measurement of style
Forensic stylistics
Limitations of forensic stylistics
Conclusion
Further reading
References
34 Text messaging forensics: Txt 4n6: idiolect-free authorship analysis?
Introduction
Authorship analysis and theories of the linguistic individual
Cognitivist theories of idiolect
Stylistic theories of idiolect
A unified approach to the linguistic individual
Text messaging authorship analysis
Forensic psychology and case linkage work
Statistical consistency and distinctiveness
Implications for theories of idiolect
Postscript – Txt4n6 ten years on
Further reading
35 Plagiarism: Evidence-based detection and analysis in forensic contexts
Introduction
Defining plagiarism
The linguistic analysis of plagiarism and textual similarity
Verbatim copying
Copying with alterations
The discriminating power of lexical similarity
Plagiarism and translation
Plagiarised translation
Translingual plagiarism
Textual overlap and plagiarism
Computational plagiarism detection
Detecting contract cheating
Final remarks
Further reading
References
36 Computational forensic linguistics: Computer-assisted document comparison
Introduction
Computational forensic linguistics
Sentences
Sentence structure
Identification of words
Measurements and patterns
Classification
Comparing sentences
Sentence similarity
Reordering
Document similarity
Hapax legomena
Paraphrase
Summary
Program Development
Jangle
Authorship attribution
Other applications
Conclusion
Further reading
Section III New directions
37 Corpus approaches to forensic linguistics: Applying corpus data and techniques in forensic contexts
Corpora in forensic linguistics
Three case study corpora
Corpus collection
Corpus size
Ethical considerations
Applying corpus techniques
Keywords, collocates and concordances
Part-of-speech tagging
Collocation profiles and word clusters
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
Further reading
References
38 Corpora and legal interpretation: Corpus approaches to ordinary meaning in legal interpretation
Introduction
Corpus-linguistic methods and their application to legal interpretation
Corpus linguistics and its potential advantages
Corpus-linguistic methods
Concordances
Collocations
Selected applications
Muscarello v. United States, 524 U.S. 125 (1998)
United States v. Costello, No. 11–2917 (7th Cir. 2012)
Smith v. United States, 508 U.S. 223 (1993)
Pointers to other relevant corpus-linguistic applications
Criticism against corpus-linguistic methods and some rebuttals
Criticism from a legal perspective
Corpora are not representative of anything and in fact unnecessary
Corpus analysis is not objective (either)
Corpus results can be indeterminate, too
Corpus frequencies do not speak to ordinary meaning
Corpus analysis is not practical / too cumbersome
Various more general misunderstandings
Criticism from a (corpus-)linguistic perspective
Concluding remarks
Acknowledgement
Further Reading
References
39 Police crisis negotiation: An assessment of existing models
Introduction
The origins of (modern) crisis negotiation
Crisis negotiation models
BCSM
STEP
S.A.F.E.
A linguistic toolkit for (UK) police negotiators
Marauding terrorist attacks
Concluding comment
Further reading
References
40 Investigative linguistics
Introduction
The Starbuck case
Background
Data
Analysis
Outcome
The inventor of Bitcoin
Background
Data
Analysis
Outcome
Conclusion
Further reading
References
41 ‘Prison has been a proper punishment’: Investigating stance in forensic and legal contexts
Introduction
An appraisal analysis of unsuccessful parole board hearings
Appraisal analysis
Behind the scenes: steps to interpretation
Focus on attitude
Focus on engagement
Focus on graduation
Final behind-the-scenes suggestions
Above-the-scenes: revealed patterns of prosodic meaning
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Further Reading and Resources
References
42 Pranksters, provocateurs, propagandists: Using forensic corpus linguistics to identify and understand trolling
Trolls and tribulations
Acts of aggression
Forensic lexicology
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
Further reading
References
43 Concluding remarks: Future directions
Introduction
Predicted future advances in research
Computer-assisted forensic linguistics
Advances in the preparation and presentation of linguistic evidence
Work on likelihood ratios for the presentation of evidence
The wider implementation of advances already made in some jurisdictions
Concluding observations
References
Index