Forensic linguistics analyzes spoken and written materials using linguistic techniques to determine authorship and speaker identification. It is useful in threat assessment, investigating false allegations, and analyzing confessions. Forensic phonetics analyzes voice and language patterns to identify a speaker’s background, ultimately establishing a linguistic “fingerprint” for guilt or innocence.
Forensic linguistics, sometimes referred to as forensic stylistics, is a branch of linguistics that focuses on taking the analytic techniques of that field and applying them to far-reaching legal and criminal matters such as trial, investigation, rehabilitation, and punishment. As a discipline, forensic linguistics reviews spoken and written materials and, using the scientific techniques of linguistics, analyzes them. This branch of linguistics deals with things like determining who is the author of a written document and identifying speakers of oral material, such as recorded conversations. Forensic linguistics measures and determines both the content and meaning of both spoken and written material.
In deciding authorship, the technique used in the field of forensic linguistics is to study a written communication and compare its spelling, grammar, vocabulary, tone and sentence structure with known writings of the suspect to determine if he wrote it him or her. An example would be a suicide note whose legitimacy is in question. This type of analysis is especially useful in threat assessment, when a ransom note or a threatening email, letter, or text message has been received. For example, in the event of a threat of violence in the workplace or school, the use of specific words can provide law enforcement with information about the likelihood that the action will be followed up.
These same forensic language tools are useful in investigating false allegations, as well as analyzing statements and confessions. In these cases, forensic linguistic analysis is used to establish the veracity of the writer’s or speaker’s words, the information that is conveyed by the choice of words, and the mention of any little-known information. By studying these things, forensic linguistics can suggest the most effective approach to take with an individual suspect, witness, or victim.
An analysis of oral communications can also be carried out through the use of forensic linguistics. Forensic phonetics is a subfield of forensic linguistics and deals with the analysis of voice or speaker identification. The tools used in this type of forensic linguistic analysis are not only the acoustic sounds of speech, but also special patterns of language use such as vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar, which can reveal a speaker’s national, regional and social background. In short, in both written and oral communications, forensic linguistics develops a collection of indicators that marks a specific speaker or writer as unique and ultimately establishes a kind of linguistic “fingerprint” that can be used to determine guilt or innocence.
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