Korpusy jezykowe w jezykoznawstwie sadowym

An introduction to corpus linguistics is a comprehensive volume of 13 chapters, each of which addresses a different aspect of compiling language corpora and working with them in applied linguistic contexts. “Language corpora in forensic linguistics” provides ideas for how corpora can be used in forensic linguistic casework. The chapter starts with an overview of forensic linguistics, including its history and scope. It is then demonstrated how language corpora can be of use in two of the more important sub-fields of the discipline, viz. semantic and pragmatic analysis of disputed meanings, and forensic authorship attribution. As regards the former, it is suggested that corpus-assisted methods are superior to traditional, dictionary-based approaches. The point is illustrated with an example of semantic analysis by means of concordances derived from the PELCRA corpus. In the latter case, the usefulness of computer-generated word lists is shown and some statistical tools described. It is also argued that corpora are indispensable in research on idiolect, a concept central to forensic authorship attribution.