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International Summer School
in Forensic Linguistic Analysis
The International Summer School in Forensic Linguistic Analysis is an intensive five-day event focussing on the role, shape and evidential value of language in legal and forensic settings. It was created by Prof. Malcolm Coulthard in 2000 in response to a growing demand for a course affording an overview of forensic linguistics while also laying solid foundations for a further study of the area.
We work with authentic language data and use real cases to illustrate theory. Each year we invite world-renowned scholars to be our guest tutors. This gives the participants the unique opportunity to interact directly with those responsible for recent developments in the field of language and the law and forensic linguistics. Apart from being professional linguists, all of our tutors have first-hand experience of acting as expert witnesses in courts of law.
During the School's seven editions, we have covered the following topics:
analysis of legal discourse,
structure and semantics of statutes and legal instruments,
legal terminology,
legal translation and interpreting,
speech style in the courtroom,
social organisation of conversation in legal settings,
structure of cross-examination,
sociopragmatic aspects of interpreting in court,
comprehensibility of legal instruments,
language and disadvantage before the law,
linguistic minorities and linguistic human rights,
forensic authorship attribution,
forensic phonetics, and
trade name and domain name disputes.
The School's first edition took place at Anglia Polytechnic University in Cambridge and was followed by three more events in Birmingham and one in Lodz, Poland. Since 2006 the School has been held at Aston University; this year it will run from 15th to 19th September. For more information please visit the School website, where you will also find contact details. Alternatively, you can contact us using the link on the left.
