ABSTRACT

The Routledge Handbook of Forensic Linguistics offers a comprehensive survey of the subdiscipline of Forensic Linguistics, with this new edition providing both updated overviews from leading figures in the field and exciting new contributions from the next generation of forensic linguists.

The Handbook is a unique work of reference to the leading ideas, debates, topics, approaches and methodologies in forensic linguistics and language and the law. It comprises 43 chapters, including entirely new contributions from many international experts, in the areas of Aboriginal claimants, appraisal and stance, author identities online, biased language in capital trials, corpus approaches, false confessions, forensic phonetics, forensic transcription, the historical courtroom, legal interpretation, multilingual law, police crisis negotiation, speaker profiling, and trolling. The chapters include a wealth of examples and case studies so the reader can see forensic linguistics applied and in action. 

Edited and authored by the world’s leading academics and practitioners, The Routledge Handbook of Forensic Linguistics is a vital resource for advanced students, researchers and scholars, and will also be of interest to legal, law enforcement and security professionals.

List of illustrations

List of conventions used

List of contributors and affiliations

Notes on editors and contributors

Acknowledgements

1 Introduction

Section I The language of the law and the legal process

1.1 Legal language and legal meaning

2 Legal talk

3 Legal writing: complexity

4 Legal writing: attitude and emphasis

5 Creating multilingual law

6 Legal interpretation

 

1.2 Witnesses and suspects in interviews and investigations

7 Miranda rights

8 Witnesses and suspects in interviews

9 False confessors

10 Police interviews in the judicial process

11 Assuming identities online

 

1.3 Language in the courtroom

12 Order in court

13 Narrative in the trial

14 Advances in studies of the historical courtroom

15 Capitally speaking: language and bias in capital trials

16 Multimodality in legal interaction

 

1.4 Lay participants in the judicial process

17 Instructions to jurors

18 Vulnerable witnesses

19 Rape victims

20 Defendants’ allocutions at sentencing

21 Aboriginal claimants

 

Section II The linguist as expert in the legal process

2.1 Expert and process

22 The forensic linguist

23 Trademark linguistics

24 Speaker profiling and forensic voice comparison

25 Forensic phonetics and automatic speaker recognition

26 Forensic transcription

27 Consumer product warnings

28 Terrorism and forensic linguistics

 

2.2 Multilingualism in legal contexts

29 Non-native speakers in detention

30 Court interpreting

31 Interpreting outside the courtroom

 

2.3 Authorship and opinion

32 Experts and opinions

33 Forensic stylistics

34 Text messaging forensics

35 Plagiarism

36 Computational forensic linguistics

 

Section III New directions

37 Corpus approaches to forensic linguistics

38 Corpora and legal interpretation

39 Police crisis negotiation

40 Investigative linguistics

41 'Prison has been a proper punishment'

42 Pranksters, provocateurs, propagandists

43 Concluding remarks

 

Index