2. Fill in the chart with appropriate information from the text and retell it.

3. Render the text below in English.

Судебная лингвистика

СУДЕБНАЯ ЛИНГВИСТИКА - достаточно новая и быстро развивающаяся сфера прикладной лингвистики, применяемая при рассмотрении гражданских и уголовных дел. Задачи судебной лингвистики включают в себя интерпретацию устных и письменных текстов, установление авторства, плагиата, анализ различных юридических документов, таких как договоры, завещания, постановления суда, повестки в суд и любые другие спорные документы, требующие оценки эксперта. С развитием предпринимательской деятельности помощь судебного лингвиста требуется при исследовании товарных знаков, девизов и слоганов на предмет их эквивалентности другим товарным знакам. Объекты судебной лингвистической экспертизы – это материальные объекты, содержащие произведения устной или письменной речи, таких как аудио или видеозаписи и тексты документов, фигурирующие в качестве вещественных доказательств при рассмотрении дела. Субъекты судебной лингвистической экспертизы – это лица, обладающие необходимыми познаниями для достижения целей экспертизы, решения стоящих перед ней задач.

По мере развития судебной лингвистики в самостоятельную науку, все большее значение приобретают различные области судебной лингвистики. Так, основой задачей слуховой и акустической фонетики является определение речевых характеристик говорящего, включая влияние акцента или диалекта, а также возраста, физического и психологического состояния и социальной принадлежности подозреваемого. Семантический и прагматический анализ письменных текстов и устных высказываний подразумевает интерпретацию двусмысленных текстов и документов, язык которых вызывает трудности для понимания среди людей, не имеющих отношения к правовой сфере. Ярким примером такого документа являются инструкции, которые присяжные получают от судьи перед вынесением вердикта. Объектом судебной стилистики традиционно является установление авторства текста, выявление текстовых заимствований с целью установления факта плагиата и т.д.

Text 4 forensic phonetics

1. Look through the text and match the subtitles with the necessary passage:

• Deciphering the Content of Difficult Recordings

• Speaker Profile

• Voice line-ups

• Speaker Identification

• Tape Authentication

The use of phonetics as a forensic tool has developed over the past 20 years or so, but with the rapid expansion in the number of cases depending on the evidence of covert audio and video recordings in recent years, forensic phonetics now plays a crucial role in an increasing number of criminal trials. A forensic phonetician may be asked to prepare reports in a number of areas, of which the following five are the most frequently encountered:

1. __________________________

Speaker identification is carried out by a combination of auditory and acoustic methods (and, where appropriate, some text analysis methods) and provides an opinion as to whether a particular voice, for example recorded making a telephone call, or participating in a conversation recorded by a recording device, is that of a particular known person.

Speaker identification may be requested for a number of different criminal offences, such as making hoax calls to the police, ambulance or fire brigade using speech disguise, making threatening or harassing telephone calls, blackmail or extortion demands, or taking part in criminal conspiracies such as those involving the importation, trafficking or manufacture of illegal drugs.

Speaker identification may also be required in civil cases or for the media. These cases include calls to radio stations, local or other government authorities, insurance companies, or recorded conversations of different meetings. We have also been instructed in personal or family matters where identification is sought, but without police involvement.

2. _______________________________

Speaker analysis becomes relevant when there is a speech recording of an anonymous offender and the police investigation has not yet come up with a suspect. A single voice can give a lot of information about the perpetrator. Thus, a combination of phonetic and linguistic analysis of a voice can help to establish the information about the speaker’s background. For example, speaker profiling is regularly requested in the early stages of kidnappings, where a recording of the kidnapper’s voice may be the only clue to his or her identity. Using voice analysis it is possible to get the information about the speaker’s sex, age, regional and social background, and such peculiarities as speech disorders. Establishing a speaker profile helps in defining a ‘target’ population and thereby narrowing the search for the culprit. Detailed phonetic analysis may also serve to indicate whether a speaker is intoxicated or not, although the precise effects of alcohol on speech are not clearly understood or consistent across individuals. More recently, sociophonetic analysis has been used as evidence to indentify the origins of asylum seekers in some European countries, in order to verify the legitimacy of their asylum claims.

3. __________________________

Tape analysis is necessary to indentify whether the given tape recording is the original or a copy. Thorough listening and analysis can help to find any possible traces of manipulation. Sometimes certain sections of the tape are excised or perhaps transposed. It is not generally within the competence of a phonetician to give an opinion as to the physical condition of a tape, but there may be evidence within the acoustic signal for example abrupt changes in either the signal itself or the background noise which would indicate electronic editing. However, currently available software makes ‘seamless’ editing comparatively easy, and a phonetician may be needed to give an opinion on only the linguistic evidence in the form of unnatural changes in rhythm, tempo or intonation.

4. ___________________________

This technique is used to eliminate all kinds of interference that disturb recordings of human voices. Due to noisy environments or to the use of regular or mobile telephones, law enforcement units are often unable to understand the words spoken by the offender. To improve intelligibility, a variety of filtering tools are used to extract the desired signal from the distorted material. If it is impossible to improve the quality, the experts have to decode the questioned utterances with patience and experience.

5. ____________________________

The practice of confronting witnesses of a crime with a tape recorded ‘voice line-up’, where the voice of a suspect is included amongst a series of other voices, may be used to obtain evidence in cases where, in the course of committing a crime, an unseen or masked perpetrator spoke in the presence of the witnesses. This recording is played to the witness(es) and they are asked to state whether they can identify any of the voices as that of the perpetrator. A phonetician may be consulted on aspects of the construction of the tape and the administration of the confrontation.