Practical in orientation, this module develops a set of methods for examining the links between language and the law in all its forms. The activities listed below reflect a consensus across the published literature in the field and therefore reflect the main duties a forensic linguist can expect to perform. Such activities include:

• Performing expert analysis and commentary on the language of legal documents, courts and prisons.

• Improving translation services in the court system.

• Helping alleviate [linguistic] disadvantage produced by the legal process.

• Providing forensic evidence that is based on professional academic knowledge of language and discourse.

• Offering advice in legal drafting and interpreting, often with an emphasis on the use of 'plain language'.

• Overall, the course promotes the use of forensic evidence that is based on the best expertise in the study of language and ling uistics.

• Overall, the course promotes the use of forensic evidence that is based on the best expertise in the study of language and linguistics.

It is an avowed aim of the International Association of Forensic Linguists (IAFL) that forensic linguistics should seek to alleviate language-based inequality and disadvantage in the legal system, and this module embraces this aim.

(LO1) By the end of this module, students will be able to:
Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the scope and history of forensic linguistics.

(LO2) Demonstrate an ability to apply a range of models in language and discourse to forensic materials, whether those materials be spoken or written.

(LO3) Demonstrate an ability to balance probabilities in linguistic evidence using quantitative data and with reference linguistic corpora.

(LO4) Demonstrate an understanding of the constraints on language use and understanding in the legal process, with particular reference to social and cultural difference.

(S1) Students will acquire skills in close linguistic analysis, of both spoken and written language, with particular skill in forensic document analysis.

(S2) Students will be able to match different theoretical models with different kinds of forensic data.

(S3) Students will be able to perform expert analysis and commentary on the language of legal documents, courts and prisons.

(S4) Students will be trained to offer reasoned forensic-linguistic evidence that is gounded in academic knowledge of language and discourse.

The syllabus for this module is delivered in a variety of ways, using lectures, seminars workshops (exploring case studies) and presentations by student teams.  A provisional week-by-week breakdown of the syllabus is set out below, alongside the references to key reading for that week:

1. Overview: Contemporary Forensic Linguistics. (Main reading: Tiersma 2000; Coulthard and Johnson 2007).

2. The gathering of (and authenticity of) linguistic evidence, including the Electro-static Detection Apparatus (ESDA). ( Main reading: Davis 1994).

3. Interviews, Interrogations and Expert Witness Testimony: Roger Shuy. (Main reading: Shuy 1998, 2002 and 2005).

4. Case Study A: Forensic Phonetics and the Yorkshire Ripper hoaxer.  (Ma in reading: Ellis 1994; Windsor-Lewis 1994; French et al 2007; Watt 2009) .).

5. Communicative difficulties at the legal-lay interface - the ‘Miranda Warnings’. (Main reading: Berk-Seligson, in C otterill 2002).

6. Workshop (online) based on an actual Appeal case heard at Liverpool Crown Court in 2020.

7. Case Study B: ‘Let him have it’: the trial of Derek Bentley.   (Main reading: Coulthard 1992, 2001, 2002).

8. Language and Disadvantage in the Courtroom. (Main reading: O’Barr 1982; Gibbons 2003; Parker et al 2006).

9. Case Study C: Aboriginal Languages and the Law. (Main reading: Eades 2000, 2002).

10. Pragmatics, Irony and the Law. (Main reading: Gavins and Simpson 2015).

11. Case Study D: Humour, Satire and the Law; the case of Alan Clark MP v The London Evening Standard.  (Main reading: Simpson 2003).

12. Summary, Conclusion, and Tying up Loose Ends.

Teaching Method 1 - Workshop
Description: 1 x 120 minute interactive (plenary) workshop in weeks 1-12
Attendance Recorded: Yes

Teaching Method -Tutorial
Description: 1 x 60 minute tutorial in weeks 1-12
Attendance Recorded: Yes

The majority of teaching will be delivered face to face on campus. Online delivery will be used to complement the on campus delivery and where technology affords a better learning experience.