Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/27460
Title: Forensic Transcription: How Confident False Beliefs about Language and Speech Threaten the Right to a Fair Trial in Australia
Contributor(s): Fraser, Helen  (author)orcid 
Publication Date: 2018
Early Online Version: 2018-09-23
DOI: 10.1080/07268602.2018.1510760
Handle Link: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/27460
Abstract: Everyday knowledge about language and speech, or ‘folk linguistics’, incorporates a number of false beliefs that have a negative effect in a range of areas, nowhere more so than in the criminal justice system. One lesser known area where false beliefs have a major impact is forensic transcription (interpretation of indistinct covert recordings used as evidence in criminal trials). Without consultation of the linguistic sciences, the law has developed processes that allow police transcripts to ‘assist’ the courts in making out unintelligible covert recordings. The present article uses a case study of a real murder trial to bring the actual and potential injustice this creates to the attention of linguistic science, and examine the issues from a linguistics perspective. Having laid out the problem, it goes on to consider potential solutions, arguing that creating a better process requires deep collaboration between linguistics, law and law enforcement. From linguists, it requires improved theoretical understanding of the nature and structure of the false beliefs that underlie the existing legal processes, as well as development of a more general theoretical account of the process of transcription and the nature of transcripts.
Publication Type: Journal Article
Source of Publication: Australian Journal of Linguistics, 38(4), p. 586-606
Publisher: Routledge
Place of Publication: Australia
ISSN: 1469-2996
0726-8602
Fields of Research (FoR) 2008: 200499 Linguistics not elsewhere classified
170204 Linguistic Processes (incl. Speech Production and Comprehension)
180199 Law not elsewhere classified
Fields of Research (FoR) 2020: 520405 Psycholinguistics (incl. speech production and comprehension)
480503 Criminal procedure
470410 Phonetics and speech science
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2008: 949999 Law, Politics and Community Services not elsewhere classified
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2020: 230403 Criminal justice
Peer Reviewed: Yes
HERDC Category Description: C1 Refereed Article in a Scholarly Journal
Appears in Collections:Journal Article
School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences

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