Twelfth edition quick links: Barcelona | Kuala Lumpur

Registration for the introductory track in Barcelona is now closed.

Founded in 2000 by Prof. Malcolm Coulthard, the International Summer School in Forensic Linguistic Analysis addresses topics to do with the role, shape and evidential value of language in legal and forensic contexts. It was created in response to a growing demand for a course affording an overview of forensic linguistics while also laying solid foundations for a further study of this relatively new branch of applied linguistics.

The School’s first edition took place at Anglia Polytechnic University and was followed by four events in Birmingham and one in Lodz, Poland. From 2006 to 2011 the School was held at Aston University. In 2012 it will again be held outside Britain. The twelth edition (at both introductory and advanced levels) will take place at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona from 16 to 20 July 2012 [Click here for more information]. Responding to numerous queries from East Asia, we will also run our Summer School there - the five-day introductory event will take place from 30 June to 4 July 2012 at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur. [Click here for more information]. The structure and content of the Barcelona introductory track and the Kuala Lumpur event will be essentially the same.

The School addresses subjects within the broadly defined discipline of forensic linguistics, including the structure of legal language, forensic authorship attribution, copyright issues, plagiarism and its detection, and forensic phonetics. We work with authentic language data and use real cases to illustrate theory. We opt for maximum student involvement and encourage critical inquiry and debate.

Each year we invite world-renowned scholars and/or practitioners to be our guest tutors. This gives the participants the unique opportunity to interact directly with those responsible for recent developments in the field of language and the law and forensic linguistics. Apart from being professional linguists and/or lawyers, all of our tutors have first-hand experience of providing expert evidence for courts of law.