Matching relations in Borges' la muerte y la brújula: an exercise in linguistic stylistics

This article introduces and exemplifies a pervasive linguistic feature of literary and non-literary texts, the matching relation, and then sets out to demonstrate how matching relations are a basic organising device of the Borges short story. A close examination of the text shows how carefully constructed and worded the original is and how important clues are conveyed through the matching relations. A brief comparison of several translations shows that some of these crucial matching relations are obscured by careles translation

Author identification, idiolect and linguistic uniqueness

For forty years linguists have talked about idiolect and the uniqueness of individual utterances. This article explores how far these two concepts can be used to answer certain questions about the authorship of written documents—for instance how similar can two student essays be before one begins to suspect plagiarism? The article examines two ways of measuring similarity: the proportion of shared vocabulary and the number and length of shared phrases, and illustrates with examples drawn from both actual criminal court cases and incidents of student plagiarism. The article ends by engaging with Solan and Tiersma's contribution to this volume and considering whether such forensic linguistic evidence would be acceptable in American courts as well as how it might successfully be presented to a lay audience

Lingüistas como peritos/as

This article illustrates the problems faced and the techniques used by the linguist when acting as an expert witness. Examples are drawn from a wide variety of cases, ranging from disputes about the meaning of individual morphemes in a trademark case and individual words in jury instructions, through grammatical complexity in a letter and a statute to the ‘ownership’ of particular words and phrases in two plagiarism cases and accusations of the fabrication of a whole text in a murder case. Linguists are seen to use evidence derived from corpora and questionnaires as well as insights drawn from morphology, grammar, lexis, pragmatics, semantics and discourse and text analysis to reach and support their opinions.Este artículo ilustra los problemas enfrentados por lingüistas que actúan como peritos en los tribunales y las técnicas por ellos utilizadas, para hacer frente a dichos problemas. Los ejemplos presentan una variedad de casos, que van desde disputas sobre la significación individual de morfemas en un caso de ‘trademark’, hasta palabras individuales, la complejidad gramatical en dos casos de plagio, y la acusación de la invención de un texto completo en un caso de muerte. En esos casos jurídicos, los/las lingüistas pueden llegar a conclusiones y emitir opiniones, usando tanto corpora y cuestionarios, como otras herramientas analíticas: morfológicas, gramaticales, lexicológicas, pragmáticas y, aun, utilizando el análisis textual y discursivo.Cet article cherche à illustrer les problèmes affrontés et les techniques employées par les linguistes, quand ils travaillent comme des experts dans les tribunaux. Les exemples présentent une variété d’occurrences, dès des disputes concernant la signification individuelle de morphèmes dans une affaire de ‘trademark’, jusqu’aux mots individuels, à la complexité grammaticale en deux cas de plagiat, et à l’accusation de l’invention d’un texte entier dans un cas de mort. Dans ces affaires juridiques, les linguistes peuvent arriver à certaines conclusions et opinions, tout en se servant des corpora et des questions, comme d’autres outils analytiques: morphologiques, grammaticaux, lexicaux, pragmatiques, et arrivant même à l’usage de l’analyse textuelle et disursive.Este artigo ilustra os problemas enfrentados e as técnicas usadas por lingüistas quando servem como peritos em tribunais. Os exemplos apresentam uma variedade de casos, indo de disputas sobre o significado individual de morfemas num caso de ‘trademark’, a palavras individuais, à complexidade gramaticais em dois casos de plágio, e à acusação da invenção de um texto completo num caso de morte. Nesses casos jurídicos, os/as lingüistas podem chegar a conclusões e opiniões usando tanto corpora e questionários, como outras ferramentas analíticas: morfológicas, gramaticais, lexicais, pragmáticas, e até o uso de análise textual e discursiva

Perigo, cuidado, atenção: a comunicação linguística de risco em advertências de produtos

This article is concerned with Product Warnings. We review what linguists Dumas, Fraser and Shuy have said about the definition and evaluation of Warnings before moving on to examine real world texts. We then analyse in detail a set of Brazilian hair dye warnings in order to see what comprehension problems they create for their Readers and in what ways they are deficient. The article ends with a detailed analysis of a set of warning texts taken from a Canadian court case in which a man was suing a company that manufactured BBQs for compensation after a BBQexploded causing third degree burns to his son. He claimed that the product warnings were inadequate.Este artigo tem como foco central as advertências de produtos. Inicialmente, revisamos o que os linguistas Dumas, Fraser e Shuy discutem sobre a definição e avaliação de advertências, para depois examinar textos reais. Nós analisamos detalhadamente uma série de advertências de tintura capilar a fim de verificar os problemas de compreensão que elas criam para seus Leitores e até que ponto elas são deficientes. O artigo termina com uma análise detalhada de uma série de advertências de um caso da corte Canadense onde um homem moveu uma ação judicial para reparação de danos contra a empresa que fabricou o BBQ depois que o BBQ explodiu causando queimaduras de terceiro grau em seu filho. Ele alegou que as advertências eram inadequadas

The social cognition of medical knowledge, with special reference to childhood epilepsy

This paper arose out of an engagement in medical communication courses at a Gulf university. It deploys a theoretical framework derived from a (critical) sociocognitive approach to discourse analysis in order to investigate three aspects of medical discourse relating to childhood epilepsy: the cognitive processes that are entailed in relating different types of medical knowledge to their communicative context; the types of medical knowledge that are constituted in the three different text types analysed; and the relationship between these different types of medical knowledge and the discursive features of each text type. The paper argues that there is a cognitive dimension to the human experience of understanding and talking about one specialized from of medical knowledge. It recommends that texts be studied in medical communication courses not just in terms of their discrete formal features but also critically, in terms of the knowledge which they produce, transmit and reproduce

Mother, Monster, Mrs, I:A critical evaluation of gendered naming strategies in English sentencing remarks of women who kill

In this article, we take a novel approach to analysing English sentencing remarks in cases of women who kill. We apply computational, quantitative, and qualitative methods from corpus linguistics to analyse recurrent patterns in a collection of English Crown Court sentencing remarks from 2012 to 2015, where a female defendant was convicted of a homicide offence. We detail the ways in which women who kill are referred to by judges in the sentencing remarks, providing frequency information on pronominal, nominative, and categorising naming strategies. In discussion of the various patterns of preference both across and within these categories (e.g. pronoun vs. nomination, title + surname vs. forename + surname), we remark upon the identities constructed through the references provided. In so doing, we: (1) quantify the extent to which members of the judiciary invoke patriarchal values and gender stereotypes within their sentencing remarks to construct female defendants, and (2) identify particular identities and narratives that emerge within sentencing remarks for women who kill. We find that judges refer to women who kill in a number of ways that systematically create dichotomous narratives of degraded victims or dehumanised monsters. We also identify marked absences in naming strategies, notably: physical identification normally associated with narrativization of women’s experiences; and the first person pronoun, reflecting omissions of women’s own voices and narratives of their lived experiences in the courtroom