FORENSIC LINGUISTICS

Catalog description

This course will present an overview of forensic linguistics with an emphasis on the areas where linguistics (i.e., the study of language and its structures) and the law intersect. We will especially focus on these items: the nature of legal language, linguistic methods for determining the meaning of laws and statutes, types of linguistic analysis used for investigating deception and fraud, language used for profiling and identifying suspects in criminal cases, the relationship between language proficiency and defendants' ability to understand their rights, the legal and linguistic complexities of invoking one's rights, the language-related factors that lead to false confessions, the role of linguistic analysis in civil cases, and the challenges faced by court interpreters and other linguistic complexities of the courtroom. (Cross-listed with SPAN 8766 ).