Forensic Linguistics

 

International Association of Forensic Linguists 9th Biennial Conference on Forensic Linguistics/Language and Law was held successfully from 6th to 9th July 2009
at VU University, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Scholars from many countries (UK, US, Netherlands, Italy, Spain, China - Mainland/Taiwan/Hong Kong/Macao, Japan, etc.) , about more than eighty, participated in this Conference and delivered their speeches. The host, The Department of Language and Communication, worked very hard and made every effort to have provided excellent services, making the Conference smooth and orderly. 

A special workshop at the 24  World Congress of Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy in Beijing, China: www.ivr2009.com  
 
Coordinator:
Karen McAuliffe, University of Exeter, Cornwall Campus
Email: k.mcauliffe(a)exeter.ac.uk 
 
Papers  are  invited  for  a  workshop  on  law  and  language:  making  laws  work  in  a globalised world, to take place at the IVR conference from 15 – 20 September 2009.
 
The study of  language and  law has, until recent years, focused  largely on common  law legal systems in English-speaking countries (with the notable exception of developments in  the  field  of  jurilinguistics  in  Canada).    More  recently,  however,  the  relationship between  language  and  law  has  ignited  interest  in  many  different  legal  and  linguistic contexts  around  the  world  –  in  particular  in  China and  in  Europe  in  the  context  of multilingual law in the enlarged EU.
 
It is clear that, in today’s globalised world, therelationship between language and law is increasingly  important  in  terms  of  understanding  the  possibilities  and  limits  of governance under the rule of  law; understanding how  legal  institutions function; gaining insights  into  the  functioning of  legal systems and  fostering rule of  law values (cf. Solan 2007).

 

The proposed workshop aims to bring together scholars from law, linguistics, philosophy and  psychology  to  investigate  differing  viewpoints  on  a  single  overarching  theme: making  laws work  in a globalised world.   The workshop will  focus primarily on gaining insights  into  the  functioning of  legal systems globally –  in particular China,  the EU and the  US/Canada  and  considering  ‘the  language  questin’,  not  only  in  terms  of monolingual  legal  language,  but  also  in  terms  of  the  functioning  of multilingual  legal systems. 
 
It  is hoped  that  this special workshop will  form  the beginning of a  research network on language  and  law  (funding  for which  is  currently  being  sought  from  the UK  Arts  and Humanities Research Council).
 
Abstracts  of  1000-4000  words  should  be  sent  to  k.mcauliffe(a)exeter.ac.uk  before  15
June 2009.  The deadline for full papers is 15 July 2009.
 
All  abstracts  and  papers  for  special  workshops  will  be  published  on  the  congress website: www.ivr2009.com. 
 
Please note: registration fees, travel and all other expenses are the responsibility of participants themselves.

语言证据范畴下的法律语言学研究

Wei-Ming Liu (刘蔚铭)

Journal of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies (廣東外語外貿大學學報)

2009/01 (20卷1期)

 

Linguistic evidence is an important notion and area of forensic linguistics in the world, and covers a wide range of contents. In a sense, forensic linguistics is research on linguistic evidence and the research in this domain has formed its own vivid features and theoretical framework. In legal practice, the research and application on linguistic evidence is of much important significance. Therefore, this paper is to focus on the basic concepts and research area of linguistic evidence, and to probe into some crucial problems, combining it with the circumstances of China.

 

Keywords: linguistic evidence, forensic linguistics,verbal evidence, expert witness, identifier

 

语言证据是国外法律语言学的一个重要概念与研究领域，其范畴涵盖许多研究内容。从某种意义上讲，法律语言学其实就是对语言证据的研究，而语言证据范畴下的法律语言学研究自身已形成鲜明特点和理论框架。在法律实践中，语言证据的研究与应用具有非常重要的现实意义，故本文将围绕语言证据的基本概念和研究范畴进行探讨，在此基础上将语言证据研究和我国现实情况结合起来，探讨语言证据在应用中所面临的几个关键问题。

 

语言证据, 法律语言学, 言辞证据, 专家证人, 鉴定人

The Institute of Linguistics at Adam Mickiewicz University will hold an international conference devoted to language and the law. Our aim is to provide a forum for discussion in those scientific fields where linguistic and legal interests converge, and to facilitate integration between linguists, computer scientists and lawyers from all around the world.

 

The conference will be held over 3 days, from 2nd to 4th July 2009 in Poznan, Poland. We invite papers on the following topics:

 

 FORENSIC LINGUISTICS IN GENERAL

(i)(comparative) forensic linguistics

(ii)forensic phonetics

(iii) forensic authorship attribution

(iv) forensic stylistic

(v) linguists as expert witnesses

(vi) linguistic features of forgeries and counterfeits of public documents

 

LEGAL TRANSLATION AND COURT INTERPRETING

(i)legal translation;

(ii)court interpreting;

(iii) teaching legal translation and court interpreting

(iv) certified translators and interpreters in legal proceedings

(v) mistranslation and misinterpreting in legal context

 

LEGAL LANGUAGES AND LEGAL DISCOURSE

(i) history of legal language

(ii) legal terminology

(iii) legal genres

(iv) EU legal language

(v) analysis of legal discourse

(vi) structure and semantics of statutes and other legal instruments;

(vii) development of legal languages

(viii) legal and linguistic interpretation of texts formulated in legal language

(ix) teaching legal language

(x) speech style in the courtroom

(xi) comprehensibility of legal instruments

(xii) Plain English Campaign

(xiii) linguistic aspects of cross-examination

(xiv) technicality in legal language

 

COMPUTATIONAL LINGUISTICS

(i)IT for lawyers

(ii) IT for linguists

(iii) IT for interpreters and translators

(iv) computational linguistics

(v) IT tools for detecting plagiarism

(vi) Machine Translation

(vii) Translation Memory

(viii) Speech recognition tools

(ix) Corpora

(x) impact of new technologies on forensic linguistics

 

HISTORY OF LAW AND LEGAL SYSTEMS

(i) history of legal systems

(ii) comparative study of legal systems

(iii) common law versus civil law countries

 

LAWS ON LANGUAGE

(i) language rights

(ii) linguistic minorities and linguistic human rights

(iii) language and disadvantage before the law

 

This list is not exhaustive. We also encourage you to submit session proposals including the following topics:

(i) translation of literature and poetry,

(ii) LSP translation,

(iii) Interpreting,

(iv) Audiovisual translation

(v) Untranslatability.

 

Session proposals and any questions should be submitted to the following address: lingua.legis@gmail.com lingua.legis@gmail.com

 

Further information may be found at: www.lingualegis.amu.edu.pl

 

Presentation slots should not exceed 30 minutes (20 minutes long presentation plus 10 minutes for questions). Papers from the conference will be published.

 

Abstracts should be submitted by the end of March 2009 to the following address: lingua.legis@gmail.com lingua.legis@gmail.com   

 

Conference fee:

 

Foreigners – 150 Euro

 

The conference fee includes the cost of the conference gala dinner, 3 lunches, tea breaks and publication of papers.

 

LANGUAGES: Polish, English, German, Russian and French.

 

PLENARY SPEAKERS

Diana Yankova, professor (Bulgaria)

Hannes Kniffka, professor (Germany)

Deborah Cao, professor (Australia)

Susan Blackwell, doctor (UK)

Olga Burukina, professor (Russia)

Artur Kubacki,doctor (Poland)

Frederic Houbert (France)

 

SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE:

Jerzy Bazerowski, Adam Mickiewicz University, Pozna? Poland

Feliks Zedler, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan Poland

Aleksandra Matulewska, Adam Mickiewicz University, Pozna? Poland

 

 ORGANISING COMMITTEE

(i)                  Aleksandra Matulewska

(ii)                Karolina Kaczmarek

(iii)               Marcin Michalski

(iv)              Karolina Gortych

(v)                Joanna Grzybek

(vi)              Paulina Nowak-Korcz

(vii)             Joanna Nowak

(viii)           Pawe Korcz

(Joanna Grzybek reports)

Since recent years the disciplinary subject of Language and the Law has been developing rapidly in China, and its related education has obtained valuable achievements. More and more scholars from linguistic and legal fields have come to our language garden and achieved much by devoting themselves to the study of language and the law.

Encouraged by this, my university-Northwest University of Politics and Law, has worked out the Graduate Progrm of Language and the Law under the Jurisprudence Major, School of Criminal Law. The Program began to enroll graduates in 2008. At present, four graduates, the first group, have been accepted. They have started their research on language and the law.

 

Fortunately, LIU, Weiming (myself) and LIU, Suzhen (famous researcher in China) have become the graduate supervisors. Now we two supervise two students each.

 

Introduction to Prof. Liu, Suzhen: http://law.flrchina.com/member/001/001.htm (Chinese)
Introduction to Prof. Liu, Weiming: http://www.flrchina.com/myself/001/001.htm (Chinese)

 

This Program welcomes students from linguistic and legal background. The Entrance Examinations include the following:

 

Political Theory
English
Jurisprudence
Constitution
History of Chinese Law
Procedure Law (Criminal and Civil)
International Public Law
Criminal Law
Civil Law
Economic Law