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An Introduction to Forensic Linguistics: Language in Evidence An Introduction to Forensic Linguistics ‘Seldom do introductions to any fi eld offer such a wealth of information or provide such a useful array of exercise activities for students in the way that this book does. Coulthard and Johnson not only provide their readers with extensive examples of the actual evidence used in the many law cases described here but they also show how the linguist’s “toolkit” was used to address the litigated issues. In doing this, they give valuable insights about how forensic linguists think, do their analyses and, in some cases, even testify at trial.’ Roger W. Shuy, Distinguished Research Professor of Linguistics, Emeritus, Georgetown University ‘This is a wonderful textbook for students, providing stimulating examples, lucid accounts of relevant linguistic theory and excellent further reading and activities. The foreign language of law is also expertly documented, explained and explored. Language as evidence is cast centre stage; coupled with expert linguistic analysis, the written and spoken clues uncovered by researchers are foregrounded in unfolding legal dramas. Coulthard and Johnson have produced a clear and compelling work that contains its own forensic linguistic puzzle.’ Annabelle Mooney, Roehampton University, UK From the accusation of plagiarism surrounding The Da Vinci Code, to the infamous hoaxer in the Yorkshire Ripper case, the use of linguistic evidence in court and the number of linguists called to act as expert witnesses in court trials has increased rapidly in the past fi fteen years. An Introduction to Forensic Linguistics provides a timely and accessible introduction to this rapidly expanding subject. Using knowledge and experience gained in legal settings – Coulthard in his work as an expert witness and Johnson in her work as a West Midlands police offi cer – the two authors combine an array of perspectives into a distinctly unifi ed textbook, focusing throughout on evidence from real and often high profi le cases including serial killer Harold Shipman, the Bridgewater Four and the Birmingham Six. Divided into two parts, The Language of the Legal Process and Language as Evidence, the book covers the key topics of the fi eld. The fi rst part looks at legal language, the structures of legal genres and the collection and testing of evidence from the initial police interview through to examination and cross-examination in the courtroom. The second part focuses on the role of the forensic linguist, the forensic phonetician and the document examiner, as well as examining in detail the linguistic investigation of authorship and plagiarism. With research tasks and suggestions for further reading provided at the end of each chapter, An Introduction to Forensic Linguistics is the essential textbook for courses in forensic linguistics and the language of the law. Malcolm Coulthard is Professor of Forensic Linguistics at Aston University, UK and Alison Johnson is Lecturer in English Language at the University of Leeds, UK. An Introduction to Forensic Linguistics Language in Evidence Malcolm Coulthard and Alison Johnson First published 2007 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2007 Malcolm Coulthard and Alison Johnson All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Coulthard, Malcolm. An introduction to forensic linguistics : language in evidence / Malcolm Coulthard and Alison Johnson. p. cm. 1. Forensic linguistics. I. Johnson, Alison, 1959– II. Title. K2287.5.C68 2007 363.25—dc22 2007040179 ISBN 0-203-96971-5 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 10: 0–415–32024–0 (hbk) ISBN 10: 0–415–32023–2 (pbk) ISBN 10: 0–203–96971–5 (ebk) ISBN 13: 978–0–415–32024–5 (hbk) ISBN 13: 978–0–415–32023–8 (pbk) ISBN 13: 978–0–203–96971–7 (ebk) This book is dedicated to our families Carmen Rosa and David Simon and Zel, Richard, Flavio and Bela, Catherine, Robert and Regina, Rebekah and Chris, Adam and Jayne, Robert, Sylvia and Wob, Michael and Geraldine Josh, Sam, Luc, Zander, Sienna, Max, Joe and Rory Contents Acknowledgements xi Introduction 1 Introduction – falsifi cation, plagiarism, trademarks and hoax 1 A brief history of forensic linguistics 5 On forensic discourse analysis 7 Organisation of the book 8 Reading and research tasks and how they function 9 PART I The language of the legal process 11 1 Approaching a forensic text 13 Introduction 13 Approaching a forensic text – discourse and text analytic tools for forensic contexts 14 The texts 17 Text analysis 24 Some contrastive observations on the texts 32 Conclusion 33 Further reading 33 Research tasks 34 2 The language of the law 35 Introduction 35 Legal style and register 37 Ordinary and special meanings 46 On applying the law 48 Conclusion 50 viii Contents Further reading 51 Research tasks 52 3 Legal genres 54 Introduction 55 Defi ning ‘genre’ – functional hybridity 55 Legal contexts 62 Conclusion 68 Further reading 69 Research tasks 69 4 Collecting evidence: calls to the emergency services and fi rst encounters with witnesses and suspects 71 Introduction 71 First encounters – calls to the emergency services 72 Policespeak, lawyerspeak and listening 76 Police interviews – from talk to text and text to talk 80 Police interviews and social interaction 82 Vulnerable witnesses – on interviewing children and rape victims 87 Conclusion 93 Further reading 93 Research tasks 93 5 Order in court 95 Introduction: into the courtroom 95 The trial as a complex genre 96 Two discourse types: narrative and question–answer 97 Witnesses and evidence in trials 111 Conclusion 116 Further reading 117 Research tasks 117 PART II Language as evidence 119 6 The work of the forensic linguist 121 Introduction 121 Morphological meaning and phonetic similarity 121 Syntactic complexity in a letter 123 Lexico-grammatical ambiguity 124 Contents ix Lexical meaning 125 Pragmatic meaning 128 The recording of interaction in written form – police interview notes 132 Narrative analysis of a disputed statement 135 The challenges for non-native speakers 137 Conclusion 142 Further reading 142 Research tasks 142 7 The work of the forensic phonetician and the document examiner 144 The work of the forensic phonetician 144 Transcription 144 Speaker profi ling 148 Speaker identifi cation by professionals 148 Voice line-ups and Naïve Speaker Recognition 152 The work of the document analyst 156 Conclusion 159 Further reading 160 Research tasks 160 8 Idiolect and uniqueness of encoding 161 Introduction 161 Early interest in authorship attribution 163 Cusum 167 Specifi c analyses 169 A case report 173 Conclusion 180 Further reading 180 Research tasks 180 9 On textual borrowing 184 Introduction 184 The history of plagiarism 185 Universities and plagiarism 186 Do people repeat themselves? 191 The evidential value of single identical strings 196 Coda 198 Further reading 198 Research tasks 198 x Contents 10 The linguist as expert witness 200 On being an expert witness 200 Expressing opinions 201 Admissible evidence 207 Consulting and testifying as tour guides 210 Conclusion 215 Further reading 215 Research task 215 References 216 Index 232 Acknowledgements We are deeply indebted to Krzysztof Kredens, who read and commented in detail on an early draft of Part II and to David Woolls for his superb work in harmonising the varied referencing styles of the authors with that of the publisher. We also thank Peter French who not only produced the spectrogram in Figure 7.1 especially for the book, but has also been a constant source of information and encouragement for the past 20 years. Most of the material in this book has been presented over the past 15 years to literally thousands of students on undergraduate and postgraduate courses at the Universities of Aston, Birmingham, Cardiff and Leeds and has benefi ted immensely from their perceptive observations. We learned a great deal from innumerable colleagues who have discussed texts and responded to ideas following papers at conferences and university research seminars. Particular thanks for insights, stimulation and critical comments must go to our friends in the 1990s Birmingham Forensic Linguistics Research Group: Jenny Ball, Sue Blackwell, Janet Cotterill, Tim Grant, Chris Heffer, Charles Owen, Frances Rock, Jess Shapiro, Anne Smith and Michael Toolan. And last, but by no means least, Roger Shuy, Larry Solan, Diana Eades, John Gibbons, Ron Butters and Peter Tiersma whose friendship, perceptive writings and generous personal communications have infl uenced the whole book. Acknowledgement is due to Troika Talent for their permission to reproduce the excerpts from Little Britain in Chapter 1 of the book. Introduction Shipman jailed for 15 murders Family GP Harold Shipman has been jailed for life for murdering 15 patients, as he goes down in history as the UK’s biggest convicted serial killer. He was also found guilty of forging the will of Kathleen Grundy, one of his patients. (BBC News 31 January 2000) Court rejects Da Vinci copy claim The Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown did not breach the copyright of an earlier book, London’s High Court has ruled. (BBC News 7 April 2006) Google pays the price of common usage There is a risk that the word ‘Google’ could become so commonly used that it becomes synonymous with the word ‘search’.
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