The Primary Goals of Forensic Linguistics

Abstract

Forensic linguistics is a rapidly growing interdisciplinary field that applies linguistic knowledge, methods, and insights to the legal and criminal justice systems. This paper explores the theoretical foundations and practical applications of forensic linguistics, including authorship attribution, discourse analysis in legal contexts, and the interpretation of linguistic evidence in criminal and civil cases. Key areas of focus include the analysis of written and spoken texts, such as police interviews, courtroom discourse, threatening letters, and anonymous messages. The study also examines ethical considerations and the challenges of presenting linguistic evidence in court. Through case studies and recent developments, this paper highlights the crucial role linguists play in investigations and legal proceedings, demonstrating how language analysis can support or challenge evidence, protect individuals' rights, and contribute to justice.

This paper investigates the application of linguistic theory and methodology within forensic contexts, offering a comprehensive analysis of how language functions as both evidence and a medium of legal interaction. Forensic linguistics, situated at the intersection of language and law, encompasses a range of subfields, including authorship attribution, forensic phonetics, sociolinguistic profiling, and discourse analysis of legal texts. Drawing on corpus linguistics, stylistics, and pragmatics, the study examines casework involving disputed authorship in threatening letters, deceptive linguistic patterns in witness statements, and power asymmetries in police-suspect interviews. The methodological framework combines quantitative corpus-based techniques with qualitative discourse analysis to assess linguistic variation and speaker-specific markers.