Document Text as an Object of Judicial Linguistic and Authorship Examination

• Main Author: Anna Mikhaylovna Plotnikova
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Volgograd State University 2016-04-01
• Series: Vestnik Volgogradskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta. Seriâ 2. Âzykoznanie
• Subjects: document text; linguistic examination; authorship examination; semantics; pragmatics
• Online Access: https://l.jvolsu.com/index.php/en/component/attachments/download/1269

The article studies the problems of interpretation of a document text involved in judicial conflict. The author characterizes possibilities of semantic and syntactic analysis of the document, as judicial linguistic examination of the document is based on determining the extent and content of the notion expressed by a word or a word combination, used in the text. The difficulty and interpretation discrepancy are caused by function of words (prepositions and conjunctions), which nuances of meaning are not always consistently reflected in dictionaries and grammar books. Syntactic analysis is based on characterization of a syntactic construction structure with identification of its parts dependence. It is shown that in order to ascertain the understanding of the document text in a number of cases semantic and syntactic analysis must be supplemented by communicative and pragmatic analysis, as the authors intention in documents, especially private ones, can be expressed implicitly. Special consideration is given in the article to collisions between judicial and linguistic understanding of correct interpretation of a document text. Reasons that impede the use of identification methods underlying authorship examination: high level of formalization and the presence of consistent genre and typological characteristics of a document text are described. Possibilities to solve the question if documents were drawn by one person or different persons are shown with the use of examples from judicial practice.