Solving Cases and Kicking Asses with Forensic Linguistics

If you like watching crime investigation series, you would probably see a lot of suspects or witnesses’ interviews. Usually, the interviews will be done by criminologists or psychologists. These people have been trained to find key evidence concealed within the language used by the interviewee. The skills that these experts use to help solve the case is known as forensic linguistics.

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Forensic linguistics, or also known as legal linguistics, is a subfield of applied linguistics that uses linguistics knowledge to give insights in the context of crime investigation and in judicial or trial procedures. There are three areas where forensic linguistics can approach: language in written law, language in forensic and judicial processes, and language as linguistic evidence.

In its practical application, forensic linguistics are not only limited to interviews of witnesses or suspects, but it can also be used in various discourses like recordings, confessions, disputes, threatening letters, and also modern era social media. The analysis of forensics for these discourses can be done because it is already a nature that different people use language in a different way or also known as the linguistic “fingerprints”. We can clearly see this difference in how our own family and friends use language in daily life.

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Forensic linguistics first appeared in 1968 when Jan Svartvik, a linguistic professor re-analyzed a transcript of statements given by Timothy John Evans, who was accused and hanged to death for murdering his baby and wife in 1949, England. In the reanalysis, Svartvik found that there are different grammatical styles in the statement transcript compared with the recorded interview, and he concluded that Mr. Evans did not actually give the statements to the police as stated in his trial. Thus, Mr. Evans had been wrongly accused all along. Because of the reanalysis, Mr. Evans name was cleared and justice can be achieved. This case was also considered as the earliest major case where forensic linguistics can help society.

As we can see, forensic linguistics can identify the grammatical style of a person and use them as evidence. But, the analysis does not stop there. Forensic linguistics will also identify various linguistics aspects like phonological, semantical, and sociolinguistic aspects^[3] in verbal interviews or written texts. In Phonology, forensic linguists identify subtle differences like vowel or consonant production of a speaker. In semantic analysis, an exploration on how meaning is formed by the speaker and retrieved by the listener can be done. In sociolinguistics, forensic linguists analyze how people from various social groups use language. All of these analyses are then compiled to create a final conclusion.

Other than the case of Mr. Timothy John Evans, forensic linguistics have also contributed in many cases. One of which was a missing person case in Yorkshire in June 2005. Julie Turner, a 40-year-old woman was reported missing since she had not come home after going out to shop. Days after the report, Mrs. Turner’s partner, Danner Akers, received text messages like “Stopping at jills, back later need to sort my head out” and “Tell kids not to worry. sorting my life out. be in touch to get some things”.

After further investigations, police officers approached Howard Simmerson, who was actually having an affair with Mrs. Turner. They found out that Mr. Simmerson’s cell phone messages and written letters have similar linguistic features with the text messages supposedly sent by Mrs. Turner. So, it is concluded that Mr. Simmerson was aware of the sent text message contents. In the end, Mr. Simmerson was found guilty of Mrs. Turner disappearance and murder.

We can see that forensic linguistics has given lots of benefits in crime and law by giving insights on various discourses. The application of this subfield is also very flexible since forensic linguistics can be used in various disciplines like Sociology, Psychology, and Criminology. Because of this, the branch has interested many scholars and academics. How about you, readers? Are you interested in becoming a “language detective” and solving criminal cases? If you do, then good luck to you!

Editor: Clara Nathania