LAW 3100 - Language and the Law: Linguistic Casebook/Language as Evidence
Forensic linguistics—the application of linguistic theory, research and procedures to issues of the law—augments legal analysis by applying rigorous, scientifically accepted principles of language analysis to evidence such as letters, confessions, contracts, and recorded speech. In the same way that biology and physics can play crucial roles in the interpretation of medical and ballistic evidence, the science of linguistics enables a deeper understanding of legal language phenomena.
This course has an interdisciplinary focus: on the intersection of linguistic analysis and the realities of court procedures, police work, intelligence analysis, Daubert and Frye, applicable statutes, case law, and the Constitution. Linguistic theory, concepts, and analytical tools will include: production and communication of meaning in human language, pragmatic inference and context, schemata, the cooperative principle, speech events, conversational strategies, topic management and support, narrative construction, and speech acts.
We encourage students from a variety of different disciplines to enroll. The course will draw on the strengths of the students’ various backgrounds from law, linguistics, criminology, and other fields, and A useful analysis of legal evidence must by definition be of direct applicability to investigations and litigation.
This course provides detailed examination of cases—criminal and civil—in which language itself was crucial evidence: we explore the principles of linguistics that were applied to analyze that language evidence, and the procedures and considerations through which judges evaluated
the admissibility of expertise and testimony on the evidence. These cases—mostly those on which the instructor consulted—involve:
· the language of interrogations and investigative interviews,
· conspiracy to commit murder,
· death threat and suicide letters,
· the concepts of generic, descriptive, and suggestive in trademark cases,
· valid and false confessions,
· authorship investigations,
· the meaning of contracts,
· the language of undercover operations, and
· language crimes—crimes committed by uttering language—such as
· bribery,
· extortion,
· perjury, and
· solicitation to murder.
Warning: some case studies contain very strong language, themes, and distressing, violent, and often gruesome details of crimes and motivations that it will likely not be possible for students to avoid seeing, hearing or analyzing.
Credits: 3
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