علم اللغة العدلي : نقطة التقاء ثالوث اللغة و القانون و الجريمة في معترك التحقيقات الجنائية : دراسة تعريفية

الملخص EN

Forensic Linguistics is one of the most important, yet least known among the late comers to the arena of criminal investigations.

The term ‘Forensic linguistics’ was used for the first time by Professor of Linguistics Jan Svartvik in a book he published in 1968, under the title “The Evans Statements: a Case for Forensic Linguistics”.

In the 1980s, Australian linguists discussed the application of linguistics & sociolinguistics to legal issues.

John Olsson defines Forensic Linguistics as: “the application of linguistics to legal issues”.

Forensic linguistics covers three main areas of work: the language of the legal process, the language of law & language as evidence.

In terms of application, forensic linguistics has been, & is still being used in the field of criminal investigations for a variety of purposes including, but not to the exclusion of, author identification.

For this purpose, several branches of applied linguistics are placed at the disposal of forensic linguists in various legal contexts, including Forensic stylistics, discourse analysis, linguistic dialectology, translation, Forensic phonetics and Forensic transcription.

Forensic linguistics has now grown as a stand alone mature discipline for which university departments have been opened, international associations established & post-graduate degrees offered.

Forensic linguistics has contributed to deciphering the most mysterious crimes all over the world.

The use of forensic linguistics is currently common among key criminal investigation & intelligence bodies including the FBI & the CIA.

Despite the success achieved by forensic linguists, unfamiliarity of some of them with court protocols & evidence rules, & unfamiliarity of judges with techniques & rules of applied linguistics call for more effort to be made to familiarize linguists with court proceedings contexts & judges with forensic linguistics approaches & modes.

This paper aims at introducing forensic linguistics by casting light on its concept, evolution & its most important branches & applications in legal contexts including those pertaining to investigations & those pertinent to trials.

Toward drawing a vivid picture for this science, the paper cites some famous cases in which forensic linguistics was resorted to as a criterion for making judgments.

The paper concludes by making recommendations on the need to disseminate this science by means of its inclusion in university training & teaching curricula.

It is worthy to mention that the importance of this study stems from the fact that it unveils a narrowly known science, especially among law enforcement agencies in our country, and in the vast majority of the third world countries in general, where a meager space is devoted for patterns of criminal communication as part of criminal investigations, due to either ignorance of these agencies about forensic linguistics, or their lack of knowledge about means and skills necessary for the application of forensic linguistic techniques to efforts aiming at crime detection.

Building on the foregoing exposition, it could be said that, this study comes as an endeavor to draw attention to the significance of this science and its role in crime deciphering.