Language Data as Evidence
Alan Durant, Janny H.C. Leung · 2017
This chapter explores some kinds of data that a forensic linguist may work with to illustrate how linguistic evidence is analysed and presented in legal contexts. Despite people&s;s often very careful efforts at linguistic disguise, habits of language use can still expose someone&s;s individual and social identity. Specific features of a speaker&s;s idiolect, or distinctive pattern of language use, can provide a lead. The word authorship suggests written documents. Spoken texts as well as written texts may become data for authorship analysis. Authorship analysis is complicated by the fact that authorship is not a clear-cut, single concept, even setting aside collaborative writing. Courtrooms, which are designed primarily for adults, may baffle a child participant. M. Brennan studied questions put to children in sexual abuse cases in an effort to understand children&s;s comprehension of lawyers&s; questions.