Forensic Linguistics in Australia
Origins, Progress and Prospects

Presents Australian linguists' engagement in the law through research, expert evidence and practical applications, highlighting contributions to legal understanding of language.

Diana Eades (Author), Helen Fraser (Author), Georgina Heydon (Author)

9781009168106, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 22 June 2023

75 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 0.5 cm, 0.155 kg

This Element presents an account of forensic linguistics in Australia since the first expert linguistic evidence in 1959, through early work in the 1970s-1980s, the defining of the discipline in the 1990s, and into the current era. It starts with a consideration of some widespread misconceptions about language that affect the field and some problematic ideologies in the law, which underly much of the discussion throughout the Element. The authors' report of forensic linguists' work is structured in terms of the linguistic, interactional and sociocultural contexts of the language data being analysed, whether in expert evidence, in research, or in practical applications of linguistics in a range of legal settings. The Element concludes by highlighting mutual engagement between forensic linguistic practitioners and both the judiciary and legal scholars, and outlines some of the key factors which support a critical forensic linguistics approach in much of the work in the authors' country.

Series Preface
Abbreviations
1. Introduction
2. Misconceptions and Problematic Ideologies
3. Linguistic Contexts
4. Interactional Contexts
5. Sociocultural Contexts
6. Engangement, Expansion, and Expectation
Appendix
Cases Cited
References.

Subject Areas: Linguistics [CF]