作者John Olsson是一名司法语言学家，协助法律界和警界多年，主要是为民事案件的调查侦讯提供语言学方面的指导和帮助，其独特的鉴定理论也在美国庭审被广泛运用。《司法语言学》作为作者丰富实践经验和深厚学术底蕴之结晶，详细阐述了法律语言领域的基础概念和研究方法，旨在为读者提供一个全面的概要。值得一提的是，《司法语言学》**介绍了司法语言学在罪案调查和法庭临讯等过程中可能产生的作用和帮助，介绍了语言学家如何深入文字背后，分析各种线索，如果从语言角度入手科学的解读各种重要的案例文本。作者特别引用了一些大众熟悉的实际案例进行分析，增强了本书的实用性和可读性。

Forensic linguistics is an application of linguistics. Perhaps then we should begin by asking what linguistics is. Linguistics is the scientific study of language. There are many branches within linguistics, and the linguist might specialize in anything from language acquisition to grammar, language and society or - as in the present case - language, crime and the law.
In addition, linguists look at how the individual's use of language changes through the course of life, language universals - the elements shared by all languages, the structure of language sounds, language and society, and of course the subject of this book - language, crime and the law.
Language is the most advanced means of communication known to us,and its use is absolutely central to our existence. In the past few decades,the study of language and languages has greatly increased at centres of higher learning throughout the world. This has had massive benefits to both the science itself, and to students worldwide: whereas previously,linguistics inhabited its very own ivory tower within academia, it has in this time become less and less concerned with abstract theory and more concerned with the application of knowledge to everyday issues. One area that has greatly benefited from this approach is the interface between language and crime. In 1968, when Jan Svartvik analysed the statements of Timothy John Evans - hanged for the murder of his wife and baby, and posthumously pardoned - he coined the term forensic linguistics but for years little happened in the field. In time, however, it became evident that linguists could be of service to the law by helping those who had been treated unjustly by it, and in the early 1990s Malcolm Coulthard began to analyse other police statements. One of these was the text attributed to Derek Bentley, also hanged in the 1950s and - thanks largely to Coulthard - later pardoned.

Dedication
Acknowledgements
List of charts, figures, tables, texts, forensic: texts and
exercises
Introduction
1.Previous authorship studies
2.Individuals and language use
3.Evidence in court
4.An authorship inquiry
5.Sampling and authorship
6.Single-text inquiries
7.Authorship profiling
8.Detecting plagiarism
9.Veracity in language
10.Forensic text types
11.Phonetics
12.The forensic cookbook
Appendix A: Exercises
Appendix B: Texts
Endnotes
Bibliography
Index

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