Corpus Approaches to Discourse in Forensic and Legal Contexts

This book is the first of its kind to bridge the gap between corpus linguistics and forensic linguistics, illustrating the value of applying corpus linguistic data, tools, and methods in the analysis of language in the law, evidence, crime, and justice. The volume begins by taking stock of the use of corpus linguistics in the field of forensic and legal linguistics over its roughly thirty-year history as a foundation for critically reflecting on the current state-of play within the discipline. Wright uses this discussion as a jumping-off point from which to demonstrate the opportunities and challenges of using corpora and corpus methods to analyse language in legal and forensic contexts and offers possible solutions to collecting and analysing types of data that are typically not in the public domain. The five analysis chapters that follow apply corpus method to both established and emerging areas of forensic and legal linguistics, summarized in a concluding chapter which also looks ahead to future directions for the interface of the two fields. This book will be key reading for graduate students and researchers in forensic linguistics and corpus linguistics methods as well as scholars working across disciplines interested in the intersection between language and the law.