Pre-lecture activity No.

6:
Forensic Linguistics

Due Date: Dec. 27, midnight

Student’s Name: Esma Berra Karaman
Total word limit excluding the Bonus question: minimum 400; maximum 600 words.

Below you can see five questions based on Hall et al. (2011) Chapter 12. Read
each question carefully and answer them in your own words. There is also a
bonus question at the end of the document (worth one point). You can collect
these bonus points over the semester and add them to your total final score!

1. Briefly, discuss the distinction between language as a legal medium and language as a
subject matter.
Language as a legal medium is used as evidence by detectives or lawyers during an
investigation and in court. Language as a subject matter involves other things like libel,
slander, or accusation.

2. How is written language used as evidence in criminal investigations?

Written documents including ransom letters, threat notes, warnings, wills or suicide notes,
help forensic linguists to identify the author of the message to prevent intended crimes or find
the criminals. Forensic linguists can determine the computer font, typewriter, photocopying
machine, or the brand of paper; also analyze the handwriting to identify the profile. During
the process, linguists use the forensic stylistics approach, in which they determine the
linguistic style by identifying certain linguistic variables that are used frequently in the
message. Written language has its own problems as well, it is not as accurate as
fingerprinting, some entities in the messages may belong to groups or individuals, and there
may be problems with the sample size.

3. How is spoken language used as evidence in criminal investigation?

A disadvantage of written language is that it can be manipulated to create intended outcomes,
however, speech is less likely to be manipulated throughout a conversation. Also, voice is a
relatively unique part of human beings, thus may not be changed or hidden in some
situations, making it easier to track the suspects. However, it also varies within the person,
which is a disadvantage. Forensic linguists use spectrograms, which demonstrates some
properties of speech such as frequency or amplitude.

4. Why has courtroom discourse become the subject of much research in forensic linguistics?
Provide an example.
It has become an important part of the field largely because of the concern about the justice in
the courtrooms. For example, Susan Philips compared judges’ attitudes guilty pleas by
observing courtroom, analyzing the written requirements and what the judges said, and found
out that judges can be procedure oriented, organizing speech according to the defendant, or
record oriented, mostly ignoring the needs of written requirements and following the law.
Philips measured the linguistic data attained in courtroom from the speech of judge and
defendant.

FLED 201.02 – Survey of Applied Linguistics (Fall 2020)

 Pre-lecture activity No. 6:
Forensic Linguistics

Due Date: Dec. 27, midnight

Student’s Name: Esma Berra Karaman
Total word limit excluding the Bonus question: minimum 400; maximum 600 words.

5. Why is forensic linguistic evidence not treated equal as old-fashioned fingerprinting or

DNA profiling in courtrooms?
There are several reasons causing linguistic evidence to be less reliable. One of them is that
both for written and spoken language, evidence is never hundred per cent accurate because
some aspects of these issues vary both within people and individual. Also, there are other
problems regarding the court and judges; sometimes they tend to avoid accepting the
importance of use of language. Additionally, when a linguist intervenes by taking written and
spoken language into account, some judges may take it as a threat to their role in the court.

Bonus question: (1 point)

The following video contains three well-known crime cases in which forensic linguistics
played an important part.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txGATQany2A

Watch the video and discuss one of the cases. Explain how forensic linguistics helped the
investigators solve the crime.

In the case of Jenny Nicholl, forensic linguists had an influence in understanding the text
messages sent from Jenny’s phone. The forensic linguists Malcom Coulthard compared the
messages sent from her phone with those written by her and with those written by the
suspect. He also evaluated the suicide notes the suspect wrote. He realized certain misspelling
in the 3 messages sent by the victim’s phone and matched them with the suspect’s writing.
After that, the suspect was confirmed to be the murderer. Although forensic linguistics fail to
acquire a steady place in these circumstances, the criminal is identified almost only with the
findings of the forensic linguist in this case, which shows the extent to which this field can be
effective in solving crimes.

FLED 201.02 – Survey of Applied Linguistics (Fall 2020)