An Overview of Forensic Linguistics:Language and the Law

In this paper I want to give some idea of the scope of Forensic linguistics and then provide some illustrative examples that result from the curious discursive encounters found in Australian Aboriginal land claims and Native Title cases.It is more usual in a courtroom or other legal context to have the particular discourse of lawyers coming into contact with that of laypersons.In Australian Aboriginal land claims and Native Title cases,however,there is a wider range of discursive practices.These include the discourse of Australian Aborigines some of whom are non-literate which is unused to non-Aboriginal people of any kind.As one would expect,there is the discourse of the law which purports to be on an inquiry to uncover the truth.But as we shall see,this ideology must be questioned when we look more closely at the practice of the law. There are then the discourses of various kinds of expert witnesses,including anthropologists,archaeologists,historians and linguists.To further complicate matters,a crucial part of these cases is for Aboriginal claimants to establish a spiritual connection to the tracts of land they are seeking to claim.In effect religious beliefs of a kind quite foreign to most of the nonAboriginal participants in the case must be examined,debated and evaluated,so this will require a search for other kinds of truth.