Forensic Books

Roger W. Shuy

Language Crimes: The Use and Abuse of Language Evidence in the Courtroom, 1993, Oxford: Blackwell (reprinted in 1996)

Solicitation to murder, bribery, threatening, extortion, perjury--all thse are criminal acts whose medium is language. Since the 1970s American law enforcement agencies have been covertly tape recording conversations to bring such crimes to justice. With increasing frequency the decision of the court has come to turn on this taped evidence--and unravelling the ambiguity and misunderstanding that such evidence brings. Language Crimes tells the story of some of the remarkable cases that Roger Shuy, as a linguist, has served as an expert witness. They include:

• the trial of automobile executive John Z. DeLorean
• the US Senate hearing concerning disciplinary action to be taken against Senator Harrison A. Williams in the wake of the FBI's Abscam operation and the cases of lesser known, average Americans, including a San Jose jeweller, a Honolulu union representative, a Kansas City lawyer, and two Nevada brothel commissioners.

Roger W. Shuy

The Language of Confession, Interrogation, and Deception, 1998, Thousand Oaks CA: Sage Publications.

Taking a linguistic point of view, this book is a practical explanation of how confessions work. It examines criminal confessions, the interrogations that elicit them, and the deceptive language that plays a role in the confession event. It presents transcripts from numerous interrogations and analyzes how language is used, how constitutional rights are protected (or not), consistency and truthfulness, suggestibility, written confessions, as well as unvalidated confessions. It concludes with specific advice on how to conduct interrogations that will yield credible evidence.

Roger W. Shuy

Bureaucratic Language in Government and Business, 1998, Washington DC: Georgetown University Press.

Plunging into the verbal quagmire of official language used by bureaucrats in both government and business, this book develops new techniques based on linguistic principles to improve their communication with the
public. Nine case studies reveal representative problems with bureaucratic language and describes how linguists can provide bureaucrats with both the tools for communicating more clearly and also the authority to implement these changes. The book draws on documents cited in class action lawsuits brought against the Social Security Administration and Medicare and offers a detailed linguistic analysis of these agencies' problems with written and oral communication. It also outlines a training program the author developed for government writers to solve them. Moving to the private sector, examples are given of the ways that businesses such as car dealerships, real estate and insurance companies, and commercial manufacturers sometimes fail to communicate effectively. Although typically bureaucracies change their use of language only when a lawsuit threatens, the book argues that clarity in communication is a cost effective strategy for preventing or at least reducing litigation. In short, the book explains why bureaucratic language can be so hard to understand and what can be done about it.

Jana Staton, Roger W. Shuy and Ira Byock

A Few Months to Live: Different Paths to Life's End, 2001, Washington DC: Georgetown University Press.

This book is an ethnographic study that describes what dying is like from the perspectives of nine terminally ill patients and their caregivers. It documents these end-of-life experiences from detailed conversations in home care settings. It focuses on how patients lived their daily lives, understood their illnesses, coped with symptoms--especially pain--and searched for meaning or spiritual growth in their final months of life. The accounts are presented largely in the participants' own words, illuminating both the medical and non-medical challenges that arose from the time each learned the "bad news" through their final days of life and memorial services. Describing the nationwide crisis that surrounds end-of-life care, the authors contend that informal caregiving by relatives and close friends is an enormous and too-often invisible resource that deserves close and public attention. By incorporating not only the ill person's but also the family's perspective, the nine participants are portrayed in the context of their daily lives and relationships rather than simply as medical patients. Other issues addressed are palliative care, quality of life, financial hardship, grief and loss, and communications with medical personnel. The book concludes with recommendations about the way families, professionals, and communities can respond to the challenges of terminal illness and the need to confront life's end.

Roger W. Shuy

Linguistic Battles in Trademark Disputes, 2002, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Linguistics is based on the truth about how language works and trademark disputes, largely about language, are governed by the authority of law. But what happens when truths about language and society are come to grips with the authority of law? Can a corporation own words? Can a corporation gain exclusive righes to a morpheme like the patronymic prefix, Mc-, in McDonalds? This book is addressed to three audiences: trademark lawyers who may not be familiar with how linguistic analysis can assist them with their cases, linguists who may not be familiar with how to work with trademark lawyers, and social scientists interested in institutional authority, power and control and who have concerns about how the legal community enforces its own language policy and planning in the context of trademark law. The contributions of linguists in ten actual trademark cases are presented, each with a focus on a somewhat different trademark issue. In five of these cases, linguistic experts were used by both sides.

More Information:

• Curriculum Vitae
• General Information of Roger W. Shuy

Public Service: Forensic Linguistics

Shuy's Home Page: http://www.rogershuy.com/index.html