University of the Western Cape Takes the Lead in Forensic Linguistics Studies

A Research Chair in Forensic Linguistics and Multilingualism, hosted by the Department of African Language Studies, has been established in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at UWC. This Chair is held by Professor Russell Kaschula, a linguist and a lawyer. The Chair was established in 2022 under the direction of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation, Professor José Frantz, and I, as the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities.

Forensic Linguistics deals with language and the law. Arguably, language is law and law is language. Law, after all, deals with the art of persuasion, which has language at its core. According to Coulthard and Johnson (2010), in The Routledge Handbook of Forensic Linguistics, this discipline “… is an attempt to improve the delivery of justice using language analysis”.

This involves a three-pronged approach where Forensic Linguists can look at:

• the study of legal texts;
• the linguistic study of legal process; and,
• investigative linguistics.

Forensic Linguistics research is highly interdisciplinary. The importance of this interdisciplinarity lies in the relationship between disciplines and is particularly relevant in a multilingual and multicultural society, such as South Africa. 

It is important to empower both lawyers and linguists or language practitioners to understand this important link. This will avoid certain cases being decided on cultural and linguistic misunderstandings, for example, where there is no equivalence of meaning dealing with a specific word in an African indigenous language and its English translation. It is also important to further intellectualise this discipline in the African context.

An Honours course in Forensic Linguistics was started in 2022 at UWC and the first cohort of students have already graduated. This year also saw the graduation of the first Master’s students. There are a number of registered doctoral students in the discipline, and some are expected to graduate in 2024. 

The research being undertaken by these students includes topics that deal with plagiarism, author attribution and stylometry (an important area given the emergence of artificial intelligence apps like ChatGPT that create written copy). The students have interrogated specific cases such as Jacob Zuma’s court challenges, The Henri Van Breda case and Senzo Meyiwa trials where Forensic Linguistic theory is applied.
 

This includes comparing frameworks from different African countries such as Kenya, Nigeria, Mozambique, the Kingdom of Lesotho, Morocco and South Africa. International models from Canada, India, Belgium and Australia also form part of this comparative work in order to establish best practice models which can be applied to the multilingual South African context. 

Some of our students have already been approached to act as professional witnesses as forensic linguists in specific on-going South Africa cases. It is hoped that this will become an increasingly popular direction that the courts will take in order to enhance social justice through appropriate language usage and critique.

In another first at UWC, the Faculty of Law will offer a BA Law programme from 2024 which has Forensic Linguistics as the cornerstone of the 3-year undergraduate programme. The University will also offer a Postgraduate Diploma in Language Practice from next year where Forensic Linguistics will be a core module. These developments are all firsts in the discipline and represent new directions in the study of linguistics more generally, and particularly in African language Studies. 

From 11 to 12 September 2023, an International Conference on Forensic Linguistics was also held at UWC. Delegates from across Africa and the world attended the conference. At this conference the African Association of Forensic and Legal Linguists (AAFLL) was formally established – again a UWC first. I was elected as the Chairperson of the Association, Prof Russell Kaschula as Secretary, and Dr Nomfundo Mali (a PhD student doing her second PhD) has been elected as the Treasurer. 

This association already has more than 100 members on the continent, from Egypt to Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and South Africa. The association forms a chapter of the International Association of Forensic and Legal Linguists (IAFLL) which has largely been European- and American-based and dominated. 

UWC won the bid to host the International Conference of this Association in 2025 and this will bring the conference of the IAFLL to Africa for the first time. It is important for African scholars to make this discipline relevant for Africa, from an African rather than a Western perspective, using our own languages, cultures and legal traditions as a point of departure.  

The research emanating from such conferences and from our students will assist with achieving the purpose of improving access to justice and ensuring the constitutional mandate for language rights is practically implemented and realised in South Africa and on the continent. This will contribute to civil society and help to build a research corpus through groundbreaking research at UWC. This interdisciplinary research will also contribute to improving the current legal system and understanding of multilingualism, contributing to SDG 16 and others. 

It is imperative to begin somewhere on the African continent to position the study of Forensic Linguistics and Multilingualism. Hosting conferences and creating research throughputs (publications and postgraduate students) forms part of the work in a collaborative way with interested members in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities.  

The main aim in time is to set up the first Forensic Linguistics (Language and Law) and Multilingualism Research Chair/Centre in Africa. UWC is now offering Honours, MA and PhD programmes in Forensic Linguistics and the University is set to grow the discipline further.