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LINGUISTICS | REVIEW ARTICLE
Forensic linguistics: A scientometric review
Ahmed Alduais
1,2
, Mohammed Ali Al-Khulaidi
3
*, Silvia Allegretta
4
and
Mona Mohammed Abdulkhalek
5
Abstract: Forensic linguistics is a distinct field of study in the science of language
that places significant emphasis on the observation of language usage in our daily
lives, including spoken and written language, listening, and reading. This focus on
language usage provides a legal perspective for the analysis of language. Initially,
forensic linguistics was confined to the identification of spoken and written docu-
ments in legal settings, police language, and prison language; however, the field has
expanded to include speech detection, text detection, plagiarism detection, social
media verbal violence detection, social security detection, and discrimination
detection. In this study, we examined the development of forensic linguistics
through the use of knowledge maps. We conducted a scientometric analysis of
6,490 triangulated documents from three major knowledge databases (Scopus,
WOS, and Lens) that were published between 1936 and 2022. The development of
forensic linguistics was measured using eight bibliometric indicators and eight
scientometric indicators, and we used CiteSpace 5.8.R3 and VOSviewer 1.6.18 soft-
ware packages to create knowledge maps and tabulations. Our major findings
include the identification of commonly used keywords in forensic linguistics, such as
human, linguistics, legal translation, language, speech recognition, legal language,
authorship attribution, and natural language processing system. Additionally, the
following terms were observed to be synonymous with forensic linguistics: linguistic
law, language policy, language and law, official language, legal translation,
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Dr. Alduais is an Assistant Professor of Child Psychology and Clinical Linguistics at the University of
Verona, Italy. With a strong passion for interdisciplinary language sciences, he explores fields such as
neuroscience of language, biolinguistics, forensic linguistics, experimental linguistics, and psycholin-
guistics. His research integrates expertise in language sciences, special education, and developmental
psychology.
Dr. Al-Khulaidi is an Assistant Prof. in Linguistics, Phonetics & Translation at Ibb University, Yemen.
Translator & Interpreter (Arabic/English); Trainer. Lectured in Yemen & India on various subjects
including Medical English. Conducted translation & interpretation tasks for institutions. Research
interests: Phonetics, Translation, Interpretation, Spoken English, Linguistics, Applied Linguistics,
Writing, Reading, and Medical Terminology.
Miss Allegretta is an early young promossing researcher at the University of Padova, Italy, with
interests in psycholinguistics, clinical linguistics, neurolinguistics, and cultural psychology. Trained as
a research assistant at the University of Oslo during an Erasmus program.
Dr. Abdulkhalek, an Assistant Professor at Ibb University's Centre of Language and Translation,
specializes in Linguistics and Phonetics. With research interests spanning phonetics, spoken English
intelligibility, World Englishes, and second language acquisition, she brings a diverse academic focus to
her role.
Alduais et al., Cogent Arts & Humanities (2023), 10: 2214387
https://doi.org/10.1080/23311983.2023.2214387
© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribu-
tion, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on
which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in
a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Received: 17 January 2023
Accepted: 11 May 2023
*Corresponding author: Mohammed
Ali Al-Khulaidi, Department of
English, Ibb University, Ibb, Yemen
E-mail: mohamed.khulaidi336@g-
mail.com
Reviewing editor:
Jeroen van de Weijer, School of
Foreign Languages, Shenzhen
University, China
Additional information is available at
the end of the article
Page 1 of 42
linguistic rights, and legal linguistics. Our scientometric analysis allowed us to group
the 6,460 documents in forensic linguistics into various clusters based on research
patterns in the field, such as the role of forensic linguists in legal contexts, legal
translation, legal composition, forensic voice comparison, authorship attribution,
and human language technologies. Other clusters included the use of forensic
linguistics in police interview settings, public service and courtroom settings, lin-
guistic rights, as well as online debate. The study has implications for researchers,
writers, public speakers, YouTubers, and all social media users, TV reporters, news
reporters, and media professionals. In contemporary society, there is a rapid pro-
liferation of ignorance concerning copyrights and the rights of others. Therefore, it is
crucial to raise awareness among the general public about these rights.
Subjects: Legal, Ethical & Social Aspects of IT; Data Protection; Language & Linguistics
Keywords: Forensic linguistics; legal linguistics; language and law; courtroom language;
courtroom translation; authorship analysis; plagiarism; language detection; scientometric
review
1. Introduction
1.1. The rise of forensic linguistics
Language is an essential part in every aspect of human life, entailing a deeper linguistic under-
standing as applied to a multitude of other disciplines deemed essential not only for linguists but
also for a wide range of specialists, including lawyers (Udina, 2017). Of the vivid well-known
integrative developments of modern scientific study of language signaling the primary importance
of the interconnection of linguistics and other disciplines, including law (P. Tiersma, 2008), is the
emergence of forensic linguistics, also known more generally as legal linguistics or language and
the law (McMenamin, 2002). Drawing conclusions form the Oxford English Dictionary definition of
the word “forensic” as: an adjective “pertaining to, connected with or used in courts of law”, it
becomes clear that law is codified in language (Ali, 2020, p. 41) and that forensic linguistics, as
a discipline, has significantly contributed to criminal justice system (Houtman & Suryati, 2018)
through disclosure of truth of legal cases by means of linguistic data analysis (Shuy, 1996) and is
the interface between language, crime and law (Khoyi & Behnam, 2014). The rise of forensic
linguistics as a recent, rapidly growing area of modern applied linguistics is deeply rooted in the
close interdependence between language and law which has attracted the keen interest of
philosophers, linguists and specialists for long, with a history extending over as far as 2400 years
old (McMenamin, 2002), all the way down under Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Norman, French influences up
to the twentieth century (Tiersma, 1999). Forensic linguistics, as a term, has had no actual
recognition until the year 1968 when Professor Jan Svartvik introduced the term in his book The
Evans Statements: A Case for Forensic Linguistics (Ariani et al., 2014), even though the term
Forensic English was used by Philbrick (1949) in his book title on legal English, Language and the
Law: the Semantics of Forensic English but the phrase was not taken up (Coulthard & Johnson,
2007).
The birth of forensic linguistics as a branch of modern applied linguistics firmly grounded on
close, evident interdependence and relationship between language and law (Udina, 2017) has
a relatively long controversial history (Hunyadi, 2003) surrounded by uncertainty among scholars,
since the eighteenth century, over authorship issues of famous texts, sacred books and
Shakespeare’s plays (Olsson & Luchjenbroers, 2014). The advent of writing induced the production
of written legal and religious codes and hence the field of language and law was born (Butters,
2011b), igniting increased interest among scholars in various non-legal fields to use linguistic
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expertise in solving legal issues including, for example, speaker or writer identification and person’s
rationality among other factors (Tiersma & Curtis, 2008).
The foundations of forensic linguistics can be traced back to the period of early significant work
on language and the law, starting with (Bryant, 1930) compendium on function words in legal
language, followed by Wetter (1960) on style of written appellate decisions in legal context (as
cited in McMenamin, 2002). The most important development in the language of the law was
initiated by (Melinkoff, 1963) The Language of the Law. In this book, the author began his
influential clear, brief language campaign carried on by the author and others through the next
three decades. It was not until the year 1968 where the earliest attested usage of the term
“forensic linguistics” was introduced with the publication of (Svarvik’s, 1968) The Evan Statements:
A Case for Forensic Linguistics, providing an analysis of four statements purportedly made to the
police by Timothy Evans in which he confessed to strangling his wife and baby daughter in 1949
(Blackwell, 2012), marking the birth of a new area of forensic expertise (Coulthard & Johnson,
2007).
Initially, the growth of forensic linguistics was slow, involving just isolated articles where
distinguished linguists analyzed legal criminal-related documents and commented on their likely
authenticity (Coulthard & Johnson, 2007). This period in the development of forensic linguistics
extending up to the late 1980s was characterized by diversity of disciplines, scarcity of research
limited to articles or book chapters and a lack of institutionalized forensic linguistics, too early to
regard it as an academic discipline or a methodology, where “the work was undertaken as an
intellectual challenge and almost required the creation, rather than the application, of a method of
analysis” (Coulthard, 1995, p. 1).
The early 1990s marks the maturity of forensic linguistics as a distinct multi and cross-
interdisciplinary field in its development stage, all the way down to the third millennium, with
a series of early gatherings and seminars, culminating in the establishment of the International
Association of Forensic Linguists (IAFL) (IAFLL, n.d.), the International Association for Forensic
Phonetics (IAFPA) (IAFPA, n.d.), and the journal Forensic Linguistics: The International Journal of
Speech, Language and the Law (IJSLL) (IJSLL, n.d.) (Blackwell, published by Routledge, to serve as
the official organ of both the IAFP and the IAFL playing “a pivotal role in further developing,
refining and testing . . . methodologies, in disseminating the results of research and in making
available experience from case studies” (French & Coulthard, 2013, p. viii). Forensic linguistics,
during this period, was enriched with bigger, up-to-date research proportions form a wide range of
disciplines including linguistics, law, psychology, anthropology and sociology, under diverse topics
like handwriting analysis, forensic phonetics, linguist expert role in court, covering work in US, UK,
Australia, Europe, North America and Germany among other countries (Coulthard & Johnson,
2007). Except for O’Barr (1982), the period from the 1990s onward witnessed the production of
more book-length studies with the word “forensic” in their title, by many proponents of the field in
key areas, such as forensic phonetics (Baldwin & French, 1990; Rose, 2002), forensic stylistics and
author identification (McMenamin, 1993; McMenamin, 2002), forensic linguistics (Gibbons, 2003;
Olsson, 2008), legal language (Solan & Tiersma, 2005), courtroom interaction (Archer, 2005;
Matosian, 1993), language and power (Cotterill, 2003) and the linguist as expert in court (Shuy,
2006; Berk-Seligson, 2002), police, law enforcement and interrogation language (Shuy, 2005),
psychological (Gudjonsson, 2002a) and conversational analytic (Heydon, 2005) perspective
(Heydon, 2005).
In the course of its rapid development towards the close of the twentieth century and the
beginning of the third millennium, forensic linguistics has taken a more well-organized active
presence, with a more developing methodology and a growing number of linguists as experts
(Coulthard & Johnson, 2007) owing to a series of seminars taking place in various countries, giving
birth to the International Association of Forensic Linguists (IAFL) in 1993, the International
Association for Forensic Phonetics (IAFP) in 1991, and the Journal Forensic Linguistics in 1994,
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later renamed as The International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law in 2003 (P. French &
Coulthard, 2013). Of the earliest organized gatherings on forensic linguistics held in Germany were
a two-day conference in FL by Bundeskriminalamt (BKA, Federal Criminal Police Office) in 1988,
a number of conferences at Mannheim University organized by the late Lothar Michel on forensic
handwriting analysis in 1989, and sessions on forensic linguistics held by the German Applied
Linguistics Association (GAL) 1990 to 1992, stirring a significant pioneering interest that influenced
forensic speaker identification practices in several EU countries including Germany, Austria,
Sweden, the Netherlands, and Spain (Broeders, 2001).
In the UK, seminars on forensic linguistics took place at the University of Birmingham on the
initiative of Malcolm Coulthard in 1992 with a growing number of linguists and lawyers from
several countries including Brazil, Australia, Germany, Greece, Ireland, the Netherlands, and
Ukraine, consolidating a consensus for the need of an international association (Blackwell,
2012), culminating in the most remarkable advance in the study of forensic linguistics in 1994
with the Birmingham University launch of Forensic Linguistics: The International Journal of Speech,
Language and the Law, with Malcolm Coulthard and Peter French as editors, and the founding of
the International Association of Forensic Linguistics (IAFL) (McMenamin, 2002).
The years following the founding of the IAFL, forensic linguistics internationality became visible
on several academic conferences which took place in Bonn, Germany in 1993, Amsterdam in 1993
chaired by Professor Hannes Kniffka, in Australia in 1995 and the USA in 1997. The 4th IAFL
Conference in 1999, unlike the previous ones, was larger and constituted a turning point in which
the IAFL Web site was created by Jess Shapero (http://www.iafl.org), a pioneering effort, enabling
potential participants around the world to remain informed about changes to the program without
having to rely on the postal system (Blackwell, 2012). Moreover, first MA course in forensic
linguistics introduced at Cardiff University in 1999 and the Centre for Forensic Linguistics was
established at Birmingham’s Aston University to cope with the increasing demand for forensic
linguistic skills in 2008 (Gao, 2010).
The growth of forensic linguistics continued steadily towards the end of the twentieth century,
with the provision of forensic linguistics courses and study modules taught at undergraduate and
postgraduate programs at emerging universities in the USA, England, Wales, Australia, China,
Hong Kong, Finland, Germany, Japan, and South Africa (Blackwell, 2012). From the year 2000
onwards, there has been a marked shift away from the Anglo-centric, common-law bias dominat-
ing the field of forensic linguistics in the previous decade; the IAFL biennial conferences subse-
quently were no longer the only means to the exchange of ideas in the field, initiating several
gatherings such as Łódz event in 2005, followed by the 2
nd
IAFL European Conference on Forensic
Linguistics/Language and the Law in Barcelona in 2006, and by annual conferences at Adam
Mickiewicz University, Poznan from 2006, all the way down to 2008 with the launch of the
Centre for Forensic Linguistics at Aston University, which has hosted the FL Summer School, now
an annual event, since 2006 and where Malcolm Coulthard now holds the world’s first professorial
chair in forensic linguistics (Blackwell, 2012).
This period in the development of forensic linguistics is characterized by bringing new challenges
to the discipline owing to new speech and text technologies as opposed to traditional means
(Hunyadi, 2003), firmly asserting that forensic linguistics, as a new branch of applied linguistics, is
at the center of two parallel increasing trends both aiming at: utilizing technology to assist in the
analysis of text and (ii) scrutinizing digital data through the lens of traditional linguistic and
discursive analytical methods of speech (MacLeod & Wright, 2020).
Forensic linguistics is now largely recognized as its own distinct field; it has spread around the
world, broadening in scope and becoming recognized and utilized in a variety of jurisdictions and
contexts (Perkins, 2021). Today forensic linguistics is a widely recognized field. The International
Association of Forensic Linguists “aims to bring together those working on any aspects of language
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and the law” (http://www.iafl.org/) and works to promote research into the practice, improvement,
and ethics of expert testimony and the presentation of linguistic evidence, as well as legal
interpreting and translation” and is working to create a standard for forensic linguistic experts.
The key journal in this area is The International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law formerly
titled Forensic Linguistics (Perkins & Grant, 2013).
1.2. The scope of forensic linguistics
Seen as an academic sub-branch of applied linguistics, in theory, and a practical branch of
forensic science, in application to legal contexts, (Jordan, 2002), forensic linguistics by nature is
a linguistically-oriented science concerned with intersections between language and legal field
(Correa, 2013). Broadly defined, better known as “language and law”, forensic linguistics is an
application of linguistic theory and method to any point at which there is an interface between
language and the law (MacLeod & Wright, 2020, p. 360), language analysis and study as
applied to legal settings (Kniffka, 2007) the study of courtroom discourse (Tiersma, 1999),
legal interpretation and translation (Berk-Seligson, 1990), the readability/comprehensibility of
legal documents and jury instructions (Tiersma & Curtis, 2008), police caution comprehensi-
bility to suspects (Cotterill, 2000), linguistic minorities in the legal process (Eades, 1994),
children in the legal process (Morrisett et al., 1999), and numerous other areas where language
and law interact with each other (Blackwell, 2012). The narrow definition of forensic linguistics
implies the application of linguistic methods to the production of expert evidence, concerning
for example disputed confessions, trademark disputes, threats and attempts at extortion,
taped conversations in which individuals allegedly offer bribes (Shuy, 2005), suicide notes
(Shapero, 2011), and disputed authorship and alleged plagiarism (Kniffka, 2000). Having its
origin in applied linguistics, forensic linguistics is particularly concerned with the professional
and institutional interaction in legal contexts (Coulthard et al., 2017a), where language texts
are studied, analyzed and measured in both spoken and written forms (Umiyati, 2020).
Forensic linguistics is truly inter- and cross-disciplinary in composition, overlapping with several
disciplines such as communication, criminology, law, linguistics, sociology, and translation studies
(Johnson & Coulthard, 2010). The scope of forensic linguistics is difficult to define as it covers
aspects of language from the level of phonetics to discourse analysis in the stages of investigation,
trial and interpretation. However, the areas covered under forensic linguistics, based on
(McMenamin, 2002) and (Umiyati, 2020) are listed, not exhaustively, as follows:
●Handwriting and signature identification.
●Phonetics and phonology both auditory and acoustic.
●Semantics (interpretation of expressed meaning)
●Discourse and pragmatics (interpretation of inferred meaning
●Stylistics and questioned authorship
●Semiotics
●Stylometry and statistical methods
●Document examination and plagiarism detection
●Linguistic dialectology
●Corpus linguistics and forensic software
●Language of courtroom
●Language and law
●Interpretation and translation.
The three key elements of forensic linguistics as a distinct discipline comprise the following : (i) the
(written) language of the law, (ii) the language of (spoken) legal processes, and (iii) language
analysis as evidence or as an investigative tool (MacLeod & Wright, 2020), serving as the interface
between language and law where legal remedies are sought (Olsson, 2009). Within the area of
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investigative language and evidence provision, forensic linguists perform various tasks in the scope
of comparative authorship analysis, sociolinguistic profiling, interactional meaning, determining
meaning, and trademark disputes and copyright infringement (Perkins, 2021). Forensic linguists’
core business is to examine documents of anonymous or disguised origin, such as bomb threats,
ransom or suicide notes, or other messages associated with crime (Jordan, 2002) to determine
their authentic authorship or decide if the documents have been altered or tampered with in any
way (Varney, 1997), including new emerging technological forms of texts such as phone SMS
messages, tweets and forums (Bhatia & Ritchie, 2012). While forensic linguists can only give
professional opinion on authorship authenticity of documents or recordings under question and
not on the psychology or social setting of suspects without police help (Blackwell, 2012), utilizing
forensic linguistic awareness among lawyers and police officers contributes to a better delivery of
justice, emphasizing that forensic linguistics is a collaborative work of interrelated fields in inves-
tigative settings (Perkins, 2021).
Technological developments have contributed to the emergence of technological media in the
forensic-linguistic process (Surahman, 2021) in the best interest of both investigators and forensic
linguists in collecting data and working accurately on language evidence phonetic or textual forms,
opening new directions for research contributions in digital computing and using large corpora for
relevant data and relevant population (MacLeod & Wright, 2020). In seeking clues for authorship in
language evidence, the forensic phonetics methods are fairly sophisticated, incorporating techno-
logical equipment to give accurate outcomes in terms of speaker voice identification, comparing
anonymous messages with the known features of various language varieties (Jordan, 2002).
Voiceprint analysis is one such method used widely in legal cases including blackmail, kidnapping,
confessions, telephone bomb threats, conspiracy, where the unique acoustic features of voice for
every single human are detected using sensitive equipment, showing the base features of the
original voice even under disguise (Varney, 1997).
It can be inferred that the intersections between forensic linguistics and other areas of applied
linguistics (mainly sociolinguistics, pragmatics, and discourse analysis) in three interrelated areas:
linguistic evidence, language and the law, and language during legal procedures and courtroom
discourse has shown the immense contribution of applied linguistics in the codification of law,
delivery of justice and maintenance of the rights of linguistically vulnerable populations (Correa,
2013). Forensic linguistics, which encompasses audio and digital forensics, has made significant
contributions to various institutions, including digital humanities, as well as relevant parties such
as prosecutors and law enforcement agencies. Its purpose is to analyze and determine the validity
of language-based evidence, such as speech, in legal contexts (Surahman, 2021). Potential of
linguistic understanding coupled with collaboration across the areas where language and law
intersect will enhance the importance and utility of forensic linguistics in delivering justice and
linguistic facilitation training for investigators (Perkins, 2021). However, all such unprecedented
developments in the field of forensic linguistics are accompanied with several limitations that
should not be ignored. One of the limitations is that linguistic evidence alone is not sufficient to
convict or exonerate a person. In addition, it should be noted that linguistic analysis facilitated by
technology is not always entirely reliable and can be subject to interpretation. Moreover, the
inability to conduct experiments in the courtroom can make it challenging to demonstrate what
actually occurs in such settings (Correa, 2013).
1.3. Scientific contributions for forensic linguistics
The growing efforts in the 1990s in the development and institutionalization of forensic linguistics
as a discipline culminated in the establishment of its own professional International Association of
Forensic Linguists (IAFL) founded in 1993 (Johnson & Coulthard, 2010) International Association
for Forensic Phonetics (IAFP), and the launch of the journal Forensic Linguistics: The International
Journal of Speech, Language and the Law founded in 1994, a peer-reviewed journal published by
Routledge with articles on any aspect of forensic language, speech and audio analysis (Blackwell,
2012).
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Since its beginning in 1994 as Forensic Linguistics: The International Journal of Speech, Language
and the Law, the journal changed to its present title The International Journal of Speech, Language
and the Law in 2003 now online at (https://www.iafl.org/journal/) to reflect a broadening of
academic coverage and readership and to serve as the official organ of both the International
Association of Forensic Phonetics IAFP and the International Association of Forensic Linguists IAFL
(IAFP, n.d. Blackwell, 2012; IJSLL, n.d. Linguistics. IAFL, n.d.). The journal plays “a pivotal role in
further developing, refining and testing . . . methodologies, in disseminating the results of research
and in making available experience from case studies” and is “intended to appeal to readers and
contributors from a number of different sub-disciplines of linguistics, as well as to solicitors,
barristers and judges who have little or no prior knowledge of the concepts and terminology
connected with linguistic study” (French & Coulthard, 2013, p. viii). Currently published by
Equinox in the UK, the journal has published 28 biannual issues and continues to be the topmost
official journal of the International Association of Forensic Linguists and the International
Association of Forensic Phonetics and Acoustics, projecting the emerging debate within the
forensic linguistics community regarding the scope of the discipline as it evolves and defines itself
(Blackwell, 2012).
The International Association for Forensic and Legal Linguistics, currently online at (https://www.
iafl.org/about-iafl/), is an organization that comprises linguists as well as legal practitioners with
work in the law, more specifically linguistic evidence in court including authorship attribution,
disputed confessions, among others (The International Association for Forensic and Legal
Linguistics, n.d..). Founded in 1992, at the University of Birmingham, UK, the IAFL aims, through
its annual conferences and newsletters, to offer a platform for exchanging ideas and information
on forensic applications of linguistic analysis and to improve the administration of the legal
systems worldwide by means of a better understanding of the interaction between the language
and the law (French & Coulthard, 2013). The creation of the IAFL Web site (now at www.iafl.org) in
1999 which continues to provide resources for members including an online searchable bibliogra-
phy of research in language and law remains one of the most remarkable contributions of the
association to keep participants informed and updated with the latest in research in the discipline
(Blackwell, 2012).
The International Association for Forensic Phonetics and Acoustics (IAFPA), now at (http://www.
iafpa.net/), is the professional association for forensic scientists and researchers working on voices,
speech and audio recordings analysis. IAFPA was formally established in York, England, in 1991
with the name The International Association for Forensic Phonetics (IAFP). The dynamic growth of
the IAFP into 120 members worldwide, with expertise spanning both forensic phonetics and
acoustics has resulted in the addition of the latter “A” to IAFPA. Initially, the IAFP served as the
professional body for phoneticians engaged in forensic work (P. French & Coulthard, 2013). The
association aims to encourage research and provide a platform for the interchange of ideas and
information on practice, development and research in forensic phonetics and acoustics. The IAFP,
through its professional Conduct Committee, has set down and formulated a Code of Practice by
which all members are bound.
1.4. Purpose of the present study
As mentioned above, forensic linguistics, usually viewed as a field of applied linguistics (Butters,
2011a), focusing on language and law, language in legal processes, language as evidence, and in
research and teaching settings (The International Association for Forensic and Legal Linguistics, n.
d..). There have been several studies and reviews examining text examination in police documents
and reports (Totty et al., 1987), cumulative sum method in for authors determination in police
settings (Hardcastle, 1993), author attribution (Kotzé, 2010), cybercrime investigations
(R. C. Perkins, 2021), and criminal and civil law settings (Varney, 1997). It has been suggested
that forensic linguists can contribute to four main areas, namely, handwriting, phonetics and
phonology, discourse analysis, and translation (Varney, 1997). An expanded list was listed by
Perkins and Grant, which included written legal language, spoken legal language, comparative
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authorship analysis, sociolinguistic profiling, interactional meanings, trademark disputes and copy-
right infringement (R. Perkins & Grant, 2013).
Furthermore, forensic linguistics has broad applications in the fields of humanities and comput-
ing, including the identification of digital forgery in audio and video recordings (Hunyadi, 2003).
Considering authority, Hutton stressed the importance of forensic linguists’ roles, and insisted that
forensic linguistics must distance itself from core linguistics in order to perform more effective
roles in language and law (Hutton, 2005). Despite the fact that forensic linguistics appears to be an
older field of study in countries like the United Kingdom and the United States, it continues to grow
in other countries (e.g., China, Africa) (Gao, 2010; Mollema, 2019).
A number of recent studies have examined the key elements of forensic linguistics, focusing on
the explored and examined areas within this field (e.g., plagiarism detection) (Ariani et al., 2014).
An additional study reviewed educational efforts in the area of forensic linguistics to teach
language and law (Udina, 2017). Forensic linguistics is developing in the higher education sector
and more courses are being offered in universities, indicating the preparation of a greater number
of forensic linguists (Coulthard et al., 2017b). In addition, Umiyati conducted a literature review on
forensic linguistics, but this review was primarily based on reviewing books relevant to this field
(2020). This review is significant in that it outlines the types of texts and sources used in forensic
linguistics settings, as well as the most extensively examined areas in the field (Umiyati, 2020).
In this study, a scientometric approach was employed to investigate the rise and development
of forensic linguistics. The investigation entailed an examination of 6,460 triangulated documents
from three prominent knowledge databases (Scopus, WOS, and Lens) spanning the period between
1936 and 2022. Three key research objectives were formulated to guide the analysis. Firstly, the
study sought to determine the extent of knowledge production in forensic linguistics in relation to
variables such as year, region, higher education institution, journal, publisher, research area,
author, and cited document. Secondly, the investigation aimed to identify the central and most
influential authors in the field. Finally, the study sought to delineate the main areas of research in
forensic linguistics.
2. Methods
2.1. Research methods
Scientometrics, in its simplest form, can be defined as the “study of artifacts; one examines not
science and scholarship but the products of those activities” (Glänzel & Schoepflin, 1994, p. 491).
The majority of researchers in this field are interested in researching “the quantitative aspects of
the production, dissemination and use of scientific information with the aim of achieving a better
understanding of the mechanisms of scientific research as a social activity” (Chellappandi &
Vijayakumar, 2018, p. 6). Among researchers, there is a division regarding the effectiveness of
scientometric studies in assessing the quality of published research. According to a previous study,
it was found that: “the task of determining quality papers is especially difficult in BIS [bibliometrics,
informetrics and scientometrics] due to the very heterogeneous origin of the researchers” (Egghe,
1994, p. 390). While the goal of such studies has evolved over the last few decades, the purpose of
these studies remains the same, to “reveal characteristics of scientometric phenomena and
processes in scientific research for more efficient management of science” (Parkinson, 2011, p. 1).
These studies are guided by scientometric indicators. Indicators may relate to elements (e.g.,
publications, citations, references, potential, etc.) or types (e.g., quantitative, impact) (Parkinson,
2011). “Mapping knowledge domains” is also a subject that is worthy of mentioning. A critical
component of the process is the creation of “an image that shows the development process and
the structural relationship of scientific knowledge”—using maps that are “useful tools for tracking
the frontiers of science and technology, facilitating knowledge management, and assisting scien-
tific and technological decision-making” (Huang et al., 2021, p. 6201). In a recent study, it was
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Table 1. Bibliometric and scientometric indicators for measuring forensic linguistics development, adapted from (Alduais et al., 2022)
Element Definition/specification/retrieved
data
Database/Software
Indicator Scopus WOS Lens
Bibliometric
Year Production size by year √ √ √
Country Top countries publishing in the field √ √ √
University Top universities, research centres, etc. √ √ √
Source Top journals, book series, etc. √ √ √
Publisher Top publishers Χ √ √
Subject area Top fields associated with the field √ √ √
Author Top authors publishing in the field √ √ √
Citation Top cited documents √ √ √
Scientometric CiteSpace VOSviewer
Betweenness centrality A path between nodes and is achieved
when located between two nodes
(Freeman, 1979)
√ Χ
Burst detection Determines the frequency of a certain
event in certain period (e.g., the frequent
citation of a certain reference during
a period of time) (Kleinberg, 2002)
√ Χ
Co-citation When two references are cited by a third
reference (C. Chen, 2016). CiteSpace
provides document co-citation network
for references, and author co-citation
network for authors.
In VOSviewer, co-citation defined as “the
relatedness of items is determined
based on the number of times they are
cited together” (van Eck & Waltman,
2022, p. 5). Units of analysis include
cited authors, references, or sources.
√ √
(Continued)
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Table 1. (Continued)
Element Definition/specification/retrieved
data
Database/Software
Indicator Scopus WOS Lens
Silhouette Used in cluster analysis to measure
consistency of each cluster with its
related nodes (C. Chen, 2014)
√ Χ
Sigma To measure strength of a node in terms
of betweenness centrality citation burst
(C. Chen, 2014)
√ Χ
Clusters “We can probably eyeball the visualized
network and identify some prominent
groupings” (C. Chen, 2014, p. 23).
√ √
Citation “The relatedness of items is determined
based on the number of times they cite
each other” (van Eck & Waltman, 2022,
p. 5). Units of analysis include
documents, sources, authors,
organizations, or countries.
√ √
Keywords CiteSpace provides co-occurring author
keywords and keywords plus.
In VOSviewer, co-occurrence analysis is
defined as “the relatedness of items is
determined based on the number of
documents in which they occur
together” (van Eck & Waltman, 2022,
p. 5). Units of analysis include author
keywords, all keywords, or keywords
plus.
√ √
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suggested that this approach could be applied across all fields of study, not just medical, health,
and pure sciences (Sooryamoorthy, 2020). The field of forensic linguistics is examined in this
present study as an interdisciplinary area of linguistics that integrates with other fields like law,
forensic science, sociolinguistics, etc.
2.2. Measures
Our previous discussion has already indicated that both bibliometric and scientometric studies are
used to guide the assessment of the knowledge produced in a given field (e.g., forensic linguistics).
Generally, bibliographic indicators are available in knowledge databases like Scopus, WOS, and
Lens (Birkle et al., 2020; Burnham, 2006; Penfold, 2020; Pranckutė, 2021). In scientometrics,
indicators are usually provided through software packages. The software used in our study, for
example, was CiteSpace 5.8.R3 (C. Chen, 2014) and VOSviewer 1.6.18 (van Eck & Waltman, 2022).
Our bibliometric and scientometric indicators are listed in Table 1.
2.3. Data-collection and sample
We retrieved data from Scopus, WOS, and Lens. Several reasons justified the use of these
databases. Both Scopus and WOS are not only knowledge databases that entail a wide collection
of knowledge based articles, but they also contain a wide range of source materials which are
curated based on the quality of the research (Birkle et al., 2020; Burnham, 2006; Pranckutė, 2021).
Moreover, it has been pointed out that Lens was more comprehensive than the other two
databases, i.e. it had a larger range of data that was not included in the other two databases,
thus making Lens a better database overall (Penfold, 2020).
On Wednesday, 22 June 2022, data were retrieved for this study. Language restrictions were not
imposed as long as the title, abstract, and keywords were available in English. However, owing to
the scarcity of results in other languages, a manual verification process was conducted. The study
incorporated all types of documents that met the criterion of containing the full-text.
A comprehensive description of the search strings used in the three databases and other relevant
specifications can be found in Table 2.
In this study, the concept of “forensic linguistics” and its equivalents were utilized to assess the
magnitude and development of research in this field. The search strings employed in our search
did not comprise keywords that were exclusively specific to forensic linguistics, such as violent
Table 2. Search strings for retrieving data on forensic linguistics from Scopus, WOS, and lens
Scopus
(ALL ( “forensic linguistics” ) OR ALL ( “legal linguistics” ) OR ALL ( “language and law” )) AND (LIMIT-TO
(DOCTYPE, “ar”) OR LIMIT-TO (DOCTYPE, “ch”) OR LIMIT-TO (DOCTYPE, “cp”) OR LIMIT-TO (DOCTYPE, “re”) OR
LIMIT-TO (DOCTYPE, “bk”))
Wednesday, 22 June 2022, 2,780 results document results, 1966–2022
WOS
“forensic linguistics” (All Fields) or “legal linguistics” (All Fields) or “language and law” (All Fields) and Articles or
Book Chapters or Proceedings Papers or Review Articles or Early Access or Books (Document Types)
Wednesday, 22 June 2022, 688 results document results, 1985–2022
Lens
(Title: ( AND (“forensic linguistics” AND )) OR (Abstract: ( AND (“forensic linguistics” AND )) OR Full Text: ( AND
(“forensic linguistics” AND )))) OR (Keyword: ( AND (“forensic linguistics” AND )) OR ((Title: ( AND (“legal
linguistics” AND )) OR (Abstract: ( AND (“legal linguistics” AND )) OR Full Text: ( AND (“legal linguistics” AND ))))
OR (Keyword: ( AND (“legal linguistics” AND )) OR ((Title: ( AND (“language and law” AND )) OR (Abstract: ( AND
(“language and law” AND )) OR Full Text: ( AND (“language and law” AND )))) OR Keyword: ( AND (“language
and law” AND ))))))
Filters: Year Published = (1936 -) Stemming = Disabled Publication Type = (journal article, unknown, book
chapter, book, dissertation, conference proceedings article, preprint, conference proceedings)
Wednesday, 22 June 2022, Scholarly Works (2,992), 1936–2022
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language, verbal violence, and document fabrication. Our preliminary Google search and prior
familiarity with the field informed the decision to employ the aforementioned search strings to
retrieve information related to forensic linguistics (refer to Table 2 for further details).
2.4. Data analysis
The data analysis process included several steps before and after. Firstly, Scopus data were
exported into three different formats: Excel sheets for bibliometric analysis, CiteSpace RIS files,
and VOSviewer CSV files. CiteSpace required the RIS file to be converted to WOS in order to meet its
requirements. Data from WOS were also extracted in two formats: text documents were exported
in Excel sheets, which could be used for bibliometric analysis, and plain text documents could be
used for CiteSpace and VOSviewer. Last but not least, Lens data were retrieved in two formats: CSV
for bibliometric analysis and full record CSV for viewing in VOSviewer.
CiteSpace and Mendeley were used to remove duplicates before starting the analysis in
CiteSpace. We then used Excel to perform the bibliometric analysis. Citation reports were gener-
ated and converted into figures using Excel.
Since no settings were changed in either software package, scientometric analysis settings were
set to default. There were three different visualisations created for each database, namely net-
work, overlay, and density. We analysed Scopus and WOS data three times per dataset: co-
occurrences by author keywords, co-citations by source, and co-citations by cited authors. In the
case of Lens, four analyses were performed: cooccurrence-by-keyword analysis, citation-by-author
analysis, citation-by-source analysis, and citation-by-document analysis. Scopus and WOS were
each analysed three times in CiteSpace: to identify co-citations by document (references), co-
citations by cited authors, and occurrence (keywords). Our analysis resulted in narrative summa-
ries, cluster summaries, maps, and burst tables.
3. Results
3.1. Result overview
The results of this study have been categorized into two sections for the purpose of clarity. The first
section presents bibliometric indicators that illustrate the development of forensic linguistics,
utilizing data obtained from Scopus, WOS, and Lens databases. The bibliometric indicators include
the year of publication, publications by universities, journals, publishers, subjects, and authors
whose publications were considered. The second section focuses on the scientometric indicators of
forensic linguistics’ development, which were analysed using CiteSpace and VOSviewer software.
The scientometric analysis included indicators related to citations, co-citations, and co-
occurrences.
3.2. Bibliometric indicators for the development of forensic linguistics
3.2.1. Overview of Forensic linguistics studies from Scopus, web of science, and lens
For the purpose of analysis, a total of 2,780 papers on forensic linguistics were retrieved from
Scopus, 688 from WOS, and 2,992 from Lens databases, spanning the years 1966–2022, 1985–
2022, and 1936–2022, respectively. The Scopus database contained 1,523 articles, 224 review
articles, 251 conference proceedings (articles), 566 book chapters, and 216 books. The WOS
database contained 589 articles, 21 review articles, 82 book chapters, 3 books, 75 proceedings,
and 5 early access articles. The documents retrieved from Lens comprised 1,782 articles, 300 book
chapters, 216 books, 38 dissertations, 44 conference proceedings (articles), 604 unknown types,
and 8 preprints. While many of these documents were authored in English, some were written in
other languages such as Spanish, Catalan, Russian, French, Galician, and German. Nonetheless, as
the analysis was based on title, keywords, abstract, and references, all documents included this
information in English to avoid any bias towards published data in English.
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B(WOS)
A(Scopus)
C(Lens)
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
196619741985198819911993199519971999 200120032005200720092011201320152017 20192021
stnemucoD
Year
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
1985
1986
1987
1990
1993
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
stnemucoD
Year
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
1936
1950
1959
1965
1967
1969
1972
1976
1978
1981
1983
1985
1987
1989
1991
1993
1995
1997
1999
2001
2003
2005
2007
2009
2011
2013
2015
2017
2019
2021
stnemucoD
Year
Figure 1. Forensic Linguistics
Knowledge Production Size by
Year.
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Figure 1a-c illustrates the length of knowledge production over the years for the three data-
bases. It is evident that forensic linguistics has witnessed a significant increase in knowledge
production, with 275 publications in Scopus in 2021, 127 publications in WOS in 2021, and 263
publications in Lens in 2017. The range of publications per year varies between 1 and 275 in
Scopus, between 1 and 127 in WOS, and between 1 and 263 in Lens. Notably, the lowest number of
A(Scopus)
B(WOS)
518
463
215
164
147
141
124
95
80
73
0 100 200 300 400 500 600
United Kingdom
United States
Australia
Spain
Italy
Germany
China
Canada
Poland
Hong Kong
Documents by country
C (Lens)
263
82
77
32
26
24
21
17
14
13
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
SPAIN
USA
ENGLAND
RUSSIA
PEOPLES R CHINA
GERMANY
AUSTRALIA
BRAZIL
BELGIUM
FINLAND
Documents by country
Figure 2. Forensic linguistics
knowledge production size by
country.
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publications occurred in the preceding year across all databases. Consequently, there has been
a marked growth in the production of forensic linguistics knowledge over the last two decades.
3.3. Production of forensic linguistics research by country and university
Figure 2a-c presents the top 10 countries that have produced knowledge related to forensic
linguistics. The UK and the USA are ranked first and second, respectively, in Scopus and Lens
B (WOS)
A(Scopus)
C (Lens)
75
49
35
29
29
29
28
28
27
23
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Aston University
University of York
Cardiff University
The Australian Na"onal University
University of Birmingham
University of Cambridge
The University of Hong Kong
University of Melbourne
Zhejiang University
Universidad de Murcia
Documents by university
63
44
31
21
21
15
15
15
12
11
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
LEAGUE OF EUROPEAN RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES LERU
UNIVERSITY OF BARCELONA
ASTON UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITAT DE GIRONA
UNIVERSITY OF BASQUE COUNTRY
GENERALITAT CATALUNYA
NOTTINGHAM TRENT UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS
POMPEU FABRA UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE SANTA CATARINA UFSC
Documents by university
Figure 3. Forensic Linguistics
Knowledge Production Size by
University/Research Institution.
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A(Scopus)
B(WOS)
122
66
45
41
32
31
29
27
27
25
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
Internaonal Journal Of Speech Language And The Law
Internaonal Journal For The Semiocs Of Law
Lecture Notes In Computer Science Including Subseries…
Revista De Llengua I Dret
Internaonal Journal Of Legal Discourse
Speech Language And The Law
Journal Of Pragmacs
Ceur Workshop Proceedings
Semioca
Studies In Logic Grammar And Rhetoric
Documents by source
C(Lens)
D (Lens)
311
45
44
18
14
13
12
12
10
10
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
REVISTA DE LLENGUA I DRET JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND LAW
ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOKS IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS
ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF FORENSIC LINGUISTICS 2 EDITION
FORENSIC LINGUISTICS THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF…
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SPEECH LANGUAGE AND THE LAW
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR THE SEMIOTICS OF LAW REVUE…
COMPARATIVE LEGAL LINGUISTICS LANGUAGE OF LAW LATIN…
INTRODUCTION TO FORENSIC LINGUISTICS LANGUAGE IN…
ANNALS OF THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
LANGUAGE SCIENTIST AS EXPERT IN THE LEGAL SETTING
Documents by source
Figure 4. Forensic linguistics
knowledge production size by
source.
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databases, while Spain is ranked first in WOS. Notably, China and Hong Kong (i.e., China SAR) is the
only eastern country appearing in Scopus, while other countries such as Russia, Indonesia, and
Brazil are listed in WOS and Lens databases.
Figure 3a-c presents the top 10 universities and/or research centres producing knowledge in
forensic linguistics. Despite the fact that most of the universities in the Scopus database are British
universities, they are Spanish universities in the WOS database. Lens presents a variable list of
institutions, but the majority of them are British universities including the Aston Institute for
Forensic Linguistics.
3.4. Production of forensic linguistics research by journal and publisher
Figure 4a–c demonstrates the top 10 journals publishing research in forensic linguistics. As can be
seen from the Scopus index, there are a number of journals that specialize in forensic linguistics,
B(Lens)
311
63
28
18
16
14
13
13
13
10
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
Escola Adm Publica Catalunya
Routledge
Springer Nature
Univ Birmingham Press
Taylor & Francis
Elsevier
Ashgate Publishing Ltd
Equinox Publishing Ltd
Walter De Gruyter
New York Acad Sciences
Documents by publisher
A(WOS)
Figure 5. Forensic Linguistics
Knowledge Production Size by
Publisher.
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A(Scopus)
B(WOS)
C(Lens)
2242
1626
359
179
114
102
72
53
25
24
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500
Social Sciences
Arts and Humani!es
Computer Science
Psychology
Medicine
Mathema!cs
Engineering
Business, Management and Accoun!ng
Neuroscience
Health Professions
Documents by subject area
391
252
81
26
24
21
11
10
10
9
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450
Government Law
Linguis!cs
Criminology Penology
Communica!on
Social Sciences Other Topics
Computer Science
Arts Humani!es Other Topics
Educa!on Educa!onal Research
Literature
Area Studies
Documents by research area
Figure 6. Forensic Linguistics
Knowledge Production Size by
Research Area.
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which are ranked first and second respectively. The rest of the journals that publish in this field
include pragmatics, language studies, law and forensic science. Some of these sources are also
available in Spanish. It can be seen in Figure 4d that there are both specific journals to forensic
linguistics and other related fields publishing in the field, such as language studies, law and
forensic science.
Figure 5a–b shows the list of top 10 publishers for knowledge in forensic linguistics. As Scopus
does not provide publisher information, these lists are limited to the WOS and Lens databases. The
first publisher in Scopus is a Spanish publisher, while Elsevier is ranked first in Lens.
3.5. Production of forensic linguistics by research area, keywords, and cooccurrence
It is important to note that forensic linguistics is an interdisciplinary field of linguistics that integrates
with various other research areas as shown in Figure 6a–c. Based on Figure 6a, the top four subject
areas publishing in forensic linguistics are social sciences, arts and humanities, computer science, and
psychology. In Figure 6b, the top four research areas associated with forensic linguistics are govern-
ment law, linguistics, criminology, and criminology penology. In Figure 6c, sociology, linguistics, law,
and forensic linguistics are introduced as the top four fields of study. Lens displays more specific fields
related to forensic linguistics (e.g., legal law, comparative law, jurisprudence, etc.).
3.6. Production of forensic linguistics by authors
It goes without saying that the contribution to forensic linguistics cannot be limited to one or two
authors and that an individual article can make a significant contribution to the field. However, our
objective was to display the authors who have contributed more knowledge to forensic linguistics
(Figure 7a–d). Among the top authors in the field of forensic linguistics, (Cheng & Wu, 2021; Durant,
2022; Mertz, 2007; Parera & Pujolràs, 2021, 2021; Wang et al., 2022) can be seen.
3.7. Scientometric indicators for the development of forensic linguistics
3.7.1. Overview of forensic linguistics studies from Scopus, web of science, and lens
Presented in this section is a scientometric analysis of the retrieved data from Scopus, WOS, and
Lens databases based on their scientometric properties. There is a specific focus on highlighting
the impact of certain concepts, authors, references, and emerging trends on the field of forensic
linguistics through this publication.
CiteSpace was used to determine the top keywords with the largest citation bursts from Scopus
and WOS Figure 8a–b. The green line indicates the period during which all research was conducted.
Red lines indicate the beginning and end of the burst period. The word with the strongest citation
burst in Scopus is speaker identification = 10.31 between 2000 and 2004, and linguistic law = 20.43
between 2016 and 2018 for the WOS. The order of the citations changes when based on their burst
duration. While the keyword with longest burst duration in Scopus is priority journal = 1990–2009,
it is discourse analysis = 2004–2016 in the WOS data.
Clusters and authors are further illustrated in network visualisations Figure 9a–d. Humanities
and linguistics are the most discussed topics in forensic linguistics. According to Figure 9b, lan-
guage and forensic linguistics are the most discussed topics in published research retrieved from
the WOS database. Figures 9c-d illustrate the most cited references and the topics that were
searched when citing these references. Some of these topics include statutory interpretation,
forensic voice comparison, and others (See Figure 9c). Among the topics included in the WOS
database are sociolinguistic evidence, gender violence cases, legal translation, forensic stylistics,
and many others (See Figure 9d).
Another important aspect to consider is the co-occurrence of the used keywords. Using
VOSviewer, we generated three visual network maps depicting the occurrence of the most fre-
quently used keywords in forensic linguistics across the three databases (see Figure 10a-c). Each
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B (WOS)
A (Scopus)
C (Lens)
21
17
16
15
15
14
14
14
13
13
0 5 10 15 20 25
Cheng, L.
Foulkes, P.
Grant, T.
Coulthard, M.
Powell, R.
Morrison, G.S.
Nakane, I.
Shuy, R.W.
Eades, D.
Nolan, F.
Documents by author
23
23
21
16
16
12
12
12
11
11
0 5 10 15 20 25
Parera EP
Pujolras AP
Boix AMP
Coulthard M
Wright D
Albert RSI
Johnson A
Ma!la HES
Fernandez FG
Libarona IU
Documents buy author
Figure 7. Forensic Linguistics
Knowledge Production Size by
Author.
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colour in the network maps represents a different area of forensic linguistics study. The yellow
color indicates studies that specifically focus on keywords related to forensic linguistics. Blue
colour represents studies related to legal translation and law, while green colour is associated
with speaker identification and forensic science topics (refer to Figure 10a). The colours may vary
depending on the databases used. For example, in Figure 10b, blue colour represents keywords
related to language and law, green colour represents words related to sociolinguistics and Catalan
evidence, while brown colour indicates forensic linguistic keywords. In Figure 10c, blue colour
represents keywords related to forensic voice comparison.
With the help of VOSviewer, we were able to generate three visual network maps for co-citations
and citations by authors Figure 11a–c. Each colour represents a co-citation or citation network. The
larger the circle, the more co-cited or cited the author is (R. W. Shuy, 2006; Coulthard, 1995;
J. Gibbons, 2003), etc., are among these authors.
VOSviewer was used to generate three visual network maps of co-citations and citations by
sources Figure 12a–c. Co-citations or source citations are represented by colours. According to
Figure 12a, blue journals refer to forensic science, red journals to linguistics, and green journals to
conference proceedings. Throughout Figure 12b, yellow represents Spanish journals, green repre-
sents speech communication, blue represents pragmatics and interpretation, and red represents
forensic science journals. In Figure 12c, blue represents forensic linguistic journals, green indicates
language sciences journals, and purple indicates language and society journals.
In order to determine the top 10 cited works, we exported the citation reports from Scopus,
WOS, and Lens. As shown in Table 3, the top cited documents were merged and duplicates were
removed to produce the final list. The majority of these are in the field of forensic linguistics, while
others are in other fields that have used forensic linguistics in some way.
Figure 8. Top 10 Keywords with
the Strongest Citation Bursts.
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Figure 9. Top Keywords, Cited
Authors, and Clusters.
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B (WOS)
A(Scopus)
C (Lens)
Figure 10. Cooccurrence by
author keywords network
visualization.
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A (Scopus)
B(WOS)
C(Lens: Cita!on)
Figure 11. (Co)-citation by cited
author density visualization.
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A(Scopus)
B(WOS)
C (Lens: Cita!on)
Figure 12. (Co)-citation by
source network visualization.
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Table 3. Top cited documents of forensic linguistics from Scopus, WOS and lens
No. Source title Citation Citations by database
Scopus WOS Lens
1 Accent, standard language
ideology, and discriminatory
pretext in the courts
(Lippi-Green, 1994) Χ Χ 247
2 An Introduction to
Sociolinguistics
(Aitchison & Wardaugh,
1987)
Χ Χ 782
3 Applied linguistics and
language analysis in asylum
seeker cases
(Eades, 2005) Χ 41 Χ
4 Attitudes to language (Garrett, 2010) 403 Χ Χ
5 Authorship attribution (Juola, 2008) 419 Χ Χ
6 Communication of Emotions
in Vocal Expression and
Music Performance: Different
Channels, Same Code?
(Juslin & Laukka, 2003a) 1039 Χ Χ
7 Comprehension of familiar
and unfamiliar native
accents under adverse
listening conditions.
(Adank et al., 2009) Χ Χ 195
8 Computational methods in
authorship attribution
(Koppel et al., 2009) 422 Χ Χ
9 Corpus linguistics: Method,
theory and practice
(McEnery & Hardie, 2011) 445 Χ Χ
10 Crime data mining: a general
framework and some
examples
(Chen et al., 2004) 349 34 450
11 Domestic discord, rocky
relationships: semantic
prosodies in representations
of marital violence in the O.J.
Simpson trial
(Cotterill, 2001) Χ Χ Χ
(Continued)
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Table3. (Continued)
No. Source title Citation Citations by database
Scopus WOS Lens
12 Forensic Linguistics: An
Introduction to Language in
the Justice System
(Gibbons, 2003) Χ Χ 197
13 Foundations of Voice Studies:
An Interdisciplinary Approach
to Voice Production and
Perception
(Kreiman & Sidtis, 2011) 261 Χ Χ
14 Just Words: Law, Language,
and Power
(Conley & O’Barr, 1998) Χ Χ 199
15 Language and linguistics on
trial: hearing Rachel Jeantel
(and other vernacular
speakers) in the courtroom
and beyond
(Rickford & King, 2016b) Χ 77 Χ
16 Mining e-mail content for
author identification
forensics
(de Vel et al., 2001) 345 Χ 452
17 Online hatred of women in
the Incels.me forum
Linguistic analysis and
automatic detection
(Jaki et al., 2019) Χ 35 Χ
18 Paths to Post-Nationalism:
A Critical Ethnography of
Language and Identity
(Heller, 2011) 360 Χ Χ
19 Problems in communicating
the suspect’s rights in
interpreted police interviews
(Nakane, 2007) Χ 29 Χ
20 Quantifying evidence in
forensic authorship analysis
(Grant, 2007) Χ 46 Χ
(Continued)
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Table3. (Continued)
No. Source title Citation Citations by database
Scopus WOS Lens
21 Revising the language of
New South Wales police
procedures: Applied
linguistics in action
(Gibbons, 2001b) Χ 31 Χ
22 SIGIR - Formal models for
expert finding in enterprise
corpora
(Balog et al., 2006) Χ Χ 516
23 The dynamics of power and
resistance in police interview
discourse
(Haworth, 2006) Χ 53 Χ
24 The Language of Law School (Mertz, 2007) Χ Χ 219
25 The linguist on the witness
stand: Forensic linguistics in
American courts
(Tiersma & Solan, 2002) Χ 36 Χ
26 The psychology of
interrogations and
confessions: A handbook
(Gudjonsson, 2002b) 536 Χ Χ
27 Varying realities: Patterned
changes in the interpreter’s
representation of courtroom
and external realities
(Hale & Gibbons, 1999) Χ 37 Χ
28 WWW-Mark my words:
linguistic style
accommodation in social
media
(Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil
et al., 2011)
Χ Χ 191
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3.8. Impact of research on forensic linguistics by clusters, citation counts, citation bursts,
centrality, and sigma
Figures 13a-b present a summary of the most commonly used keywords associated with forensic
linguistics in both the Scopus and WOS databases, as generated by the CiteSpace software. In
comparison to Scopus, where the frequency range is 42–120, the range in WOS is 15–87. In Scopus,
the most frequently used word is forensic linguistics, followed by human and linguistics. Forensic
linguistics occupies the top position in WOS, followed by linguistic law and language policy. The
keywords presented above serve as a valuable indicator of the most frequently discussed topics in
forensic linguistics.
A (Scopus)
A(WOS)
Figure 13. Most Frequent
Keywords in Forensic
Linguistics.
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Table 4. Summary of the Largest Clusters in Forensic Linguistics
Cluster ID Size Silhouette Label (LSI) Label (LLR) Label (MI) Average
Year
Scopus
0 150 0.818 legal context legal context
(578.37,
1.0E–4)
role (1.39) 2004
1 139 0.867 legal
translation
legal
translation
(1504.69,
1.0E–4)
role (3.43) 2011
2 133 0.861 forensic voice
comparison
forensic voice
comparison
(704.69,
1.0E–4)
role (1.12) 2005
3 100 0.901 South Africa South Africa
(357.78,
1.0E–4)
statistical
test (1.34)
2000
4 79 0.874 authorship
attribution
authorship
attribution
(1003.53,
1.0E–4)
dilated LSTM
(0.46)
2011
5 76 0.82 Cambridge
handbook
legal
composition
(239.55,
1.0E–4)
conceptual
niceties
complexities
curiosities
monstrosities
(0.12)
2002
6 53 0.954 human
language
technologies
human
language
technologies
(199.15,
1.0E–4)
differential
registration
(0.17)
2003
8 31 0.977 palliative
care
discourse
inter-
registerial
variation
(132.67,
1.0E–4)
legal
translation
(0.02)
1999
WOS
0 109 0.744 forensic
linguistics
police
interview
(130.6, 1.0E–
4)
creole
continuum
courtroom
(1.67)
2012
1 79 0.863 public service public service
(110.16,
1.0E–4)
creole
continuum
courtroom
(0.61)
2011
2 62 0.894 forensic
linguistics
police
interview
(97.22, 1.0E–
4)
bad word
(3.62)
2011
3 48 0.863 introduction
key concept
introduction
key concept
(62, 1.0E–4)
creole
continuum
courtroom
(0.13)
2010
4 46 0.908 forensic
stylistics
forensic
stylistics
(77.92, 1.0E–
4)
stereotype
spreaders
style change
(0.19)
2018
5 29 0.965 countering
linguistic
right
online debate
(61.61, 1.0E–
4)
the curse
(0.04)
2019
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3.8.1. Clusters
The network is divided into 22 co-citation clusters in Scopus data (See Table 4 for the detailed list
of clusters.). The largest 8 clusters are summarized as follows. The largest cluster (#0) has 150
members and a silhouette value of 0.818. It is labelled as legal context by both LLR and LSI, and as
role (1.39) by MI. The most relevant citer to the cluster is (Coulthard & Johnson, 2010), The
Routledge Handbook of Forensic Linguistics.
The network is divided into 15 co-citation clusters in the WOS data. The largest 6 clusters are
summarized as follows. The largest cluster (#0) has 109 members and a silhouette value of 0.744.
It is labelled as police interview by LLR, forensic linguistics by LSI, and creole continuum courtroom
(1.67) by MI. The most relevant citer to the cluster is (Coulthard et al., 2017c), Introduction to
Forensic Linguistics: Language in Evidence.
3.8.2. Citation counts
In Scopus, the top ranked item by citation counts is [Anonymous] (1973) in Cluster #3, with citation
counts of 295. The second one is (Coulthard et al., 2014) in Cluster #6, with citation counts of 108. In
the WOS, the top ranked item by citation counts is [Anonymous] (1999) in Cluster #2, with citation
counts of 194. The second one is (Coulthard, 2007b) in Cluster #0, with citation counts of 60. The
remaining top authors in forensic linguistics based on citation counts can be found in Table 5.
3.8.3. Bursts
In Scopus, the top ranked item by bursts is (Gibbons, 1994b) in Cluster #0, with bursts of 16.70.
The second one is (Rose, 2002) in Cluster #2, with bursts of 14.58. In the WOS, the top ranked item
by bursts is (Nogueira López, 2018) in Cluster #7, with bursts of 3.78. The second one is (Cornu,
Table 5. Citation counts for top author in forensic linguistics
WOS Scopus
Citation Reference Cluster ID Citation Reference Cluster ID
194 [Anonymous],
1999, So, 0, 0
2 295 [Anonymous],
1973, SO, 0, 0
3
60 Coulthard
(Coulthard &
Johnson, 2010)
0 108 Coulthard
(Coulthard
et al., 2014)
6
33 Tiersma
(Tiersma, 2002)
0 78 Eades (Eades,
2007)
0
32 Gibbons
(Gibbons,
2001b)
0 49 Berk-Seligson
(BErk-Seligson,
1988)
0
30 Shuy (Shuy,
2002)
0 47 Grant (Grant &
Baker, 2001)
4
27 Shuy (Shuy,
2002)
0 46 Gibbons
(Gibbons,
1994b)
0
25 Eades (Eades,
2005)
0 43 Solan (Solan,
2013)
1
22 Grant (Sousa
Silva et al.,
2011)
4 41 Mattila (Mattila,
2006)
1
19 Heffer (Heffer,
2012)
0 41 Rose (Rose,
2002)
2
19 Berk-Seligson
(Berk-Seligson,
1999a)
1 39 Engberg
(Engberg, 2012)
1
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2014) in Cluster #2, with bursts of 3.49. See Table 6 and Figure 14a-d for the remaining top
detected bursts in forensic linguistics.
3.8.4. Centrality
In Scopus, the top ranked item by centrality is [Anonymous] (1973) in Cluster #3, with centrality of
185. The second one is (Coulthard & Johnson, 2010) in Cluster #6, with centrality of 107. In the
WOS, the top ranked item by centrality is (Berk-Seligson, 1999a) in Cluster #1, with centrality of 85.
The second one is (Coulthard et al., 2014) in Cluster #0, with centrality of 71. For a list of the
remaining central authors in forensic linguistics, please refer to Table 7.
3.8.5. Sigma
In Scopus, the top ranked item by sigma is [Anonymous] (1973) in Cluster #3, with sigma of 0.00.
The second one is (Coulthard, 2007b) in Cluster #6, with sigma of 0.00. In the WOS, the top ranked
item by sigma is (S. Berk-Seligson, 1999a) in Cluster #1, with sigma of 0.00. The second one is
(Coulthard et al., 2014) in Cluster #0, with sigma of 0.00. See Table 8 for the remaining authors
with potential high citation in forensic linguistics.
4. Discussion
The purpose of this study was to measure the development of knowledge in the field of forensic
linguistics. The latter is now known as “the interdisciplinary field which examines, defines, and
investigates language in court as evidence to policies, judges, and lawyers” (Umiyati, 2020, p. 23).
The study results were presented in two distinct sections. The first section provided an overview of
bibliometric indicators, including publications by year, the top 10 countries, universities, journals,
publishers, subject/research areas, and authors. The second section focused on citations, co-
citations, and co-occurrence indicators. Seven significant findings were discussed in relation to
Table 6. Detected top bursts in forensic linguistics
WOS Scopus
Burst Reference Cluster ID Burst Reference Cluster ID
3.78 Nogueira Lopez
(Nogueira
López, 2018)
7 16.7 Gibbons
(Gibbons,
1994b)
0
3.49 Cornu (Cornu,
2014)
2 14.58 Rose (Rose,
2002)
2
3.44 Tiersma (P.
Tiersma, 2011)
0 12.47 Coulthard
(Coulthard
et al., 2014)
6
3.24 Golev (Golev
et al., 2021)
19 10.88 Cotterill
(Cotterill, 2002)
0
3.2 Grant (Sousa
Silva et al.,
2011)
4 10.28 Biel (Biel &
Engberg, 2013)
1
3.18 Eades (Eades,
2005)
0 9.85 Anthony
(Anthony et al.,
2014)
1
2.86 Shuy (Shuy,
2011)
0 9.68 Shuy (Shuy,
1997)
0
2.84 Conley (Conley
& O’Barr, 2002)
0 9.33 Vogel (Vogel
et al., 2018)
1
2.73 Olsson (Olsson,
2011)
0 9.33 Poscher
(Poscher, 2012)
1
2.73 Swales (Swales,
2016)
3 8.72 Prieto (Prieto
Ramos, 2014)
1
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bibliometric indicators. Firstly, knowledge production related to forensic linguistics has experienced
a marked increase over the last two decades. Secondly, the most notable contributors in terms of
countries are the UK, the US, and Spain. Thirdly, British universities dominate the list in Scopus and
Lens databases, while Spanish universities dominate the list in the WOS database. Fourthly, while
there are a few journals that specialize in forensic linguistics, most journals are related to prag-
matics, language studies, law, and forensic science. Fifthly, the major publishers in this field are
Escola Adm Publica Catalunya and Elsevier. Sixthly, several areas related to forensic linguistics
Figure 14. Top 10 cited authors
and references with the stron-
gest citation bursts.
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were identified, including social sciences, arts and humanities, computer science, government law,
linguistics, and criminology penology. The last finding (7) shows that (Cheng & Wu, 2021; Durant,
2022; Matulewska & Gwiazdowicz, 2020; Parera & Pujolràs, 2021, 2021; Wang et al., 2022) are
some of the major authors contributing to the field. In accordance with scientometric indicators,
we analyzed the most cited keywords in Scopus and WOS. These included language policy
(Guimarães et al., 2019), speaker identification (Singh, 2018), speech analysis (Brederoo et al.,
2021), law (Carvalho, 2019), and information retrieval (Carneiro et al., 2014). They also included
linguistic law (Torre et al., 2019), minority language (Limberger et al., 2020), legal translation
(Zeifert & Tobor, 2021), forensic linguistics (Umiyati, 2020), and official language (Ward, 2019).
Additionally, we identified the largest clusters of co-citations. In Scopus, they included legal
context (Roehling, 2017) and legal translation (Zeifert & Tobor, 2021), whereas in WOS they were
forensic linguistics (Umiyati, 2020) and public service (Engen et al., 2021).
Regarding the most cited authors’ latest contributions, a number of them, such as (Durant, 2022;
Matulewska & Gwiazdowicz, 2020; Parera & Pujolràs, 2021) focused on the juridical part of forensic
linguistics rather than on the linguistical one. Others, like (Cheng & Wu, 2021), and (Wang et al., 2022),
addressed topics related to the research methods adopted, including critical discourse analysis.
By analyzing the bibliometric data of each database, we determined the top 10 cited documents.
These explored various topics including emotions (Juslin & Laukka, 2003b), interrogations
Table 7. Between centrality for top central authors in forensic linguistics
WOS Scopus
Centrality Reference Cluster ID Centrality Reference Cluster ID
85 Berk-Seligson
(Berk-Seligson,
1999a)
1 185 [Anonymous],
1973
3
71 Coulthard
(Coulthard,
2007b)
0 107 Coulthard
(Coulthard
et al., 2014)
6
57 Gibbons
(Gibbons,
2001b)
0 67 Gibbons
(J. P. Gibbons,
1994b)
0
53 Grant (Sousa
Silva et al.,
2011)
4 65 Eades (Eades,
2007)
0
50 Austin (Syrett
et al., 2016)
3 61 Solan (Solan,
2013)
1
47 [Anonymous],
1999
2 58 French
(J. P. French
et al., 2004)
2
45 Gibbons (Hale &
Gibbons, 1999)
0 55 Berk-Seligson (S.
BERK-SELIGSON,
1988)
0
44 Fairclough
(Fairclough
et al., 2006)
10 55 Blommaert
(Blommaert,
1999)
0
44 (Bennett &
Entman, 2000)
1 53 Engberg
(Engberg, 2012)
1
42 Heffer (Heffer,
2012)
0 53 Bhatia (Bhatia,
1993)
1
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(Gudjonsson, 2002b; Haworth, 2006), sociolinguistics (Holmes & Wilson, 2022; Rickford & King,
2016a), and expert searching (Balog et al., 2006).
Finally, we performed a Sigma analysis to identify the top-ranked items in both Scopus and WOS.
Among the most cited items are court interpreting (S. Berk-Seligson, 1999b), approaches to
language in legal settings (Coulthard, 2007a; J. P. Gibbons, 1994a), pragmatics (Coulthard,
2007a), and attitudes (J. Gibbons, 2001a). Our analysis highlighted various topics that are all
related to forensic linguistics to a different extent. For instance, court interpreting is an important
issue considering that the trial’s outcome usually depends on the witness’ answers to leading
questions.
4.1. Practical implications
There are some cautions that should be taken by researchers when interpreting the results of
scientometric studies (van Eck & Waltman, 2014) despite the fact that scientometric studies have
enjoyed a lot of popularity over the last few years (Moral-Muñoz et al., 2020; van Eck et al., 2010).
Typically, the process begins with finding data across multiple sources, and avoids using a single
database for all analyses, unless there is an adequate justification for doing so (for example in this
study, we made use of Scopus, WOS, and Lens for the analysis). To be able to comprehensively
analyse scientometric indicators in this study, we should take the next step and make use of
different tools in the analysis (e.g., we used both CiteSpace and VOSviewer in this study) to allow us
to include a wide range of scientometric indicators in this study.
Table 8. Sigma metrics for potential authors with high citations in forensic linguistics
WOS Scopus
Sigma Reference Cluster ID Sigma Reference Cluster ID
0 Berk-Seligson
(Berk-Seligson,
1999a)
1 0 [Anonymous],
1973
3
0 Coulthard
(Coulthard,
2007b)
0 0 Coulthard
(Coulthard
et al., 2014)
6
0 Gibbons
(Gibbons,
2001b)
0 0 Gibbons
(Gibbons,
1994b)
0
0 Grant (Sousa
Silva et al.,
2011)
4 0 Eades (Eades,
2007)
0
0 Austin (Syrett
et al., 2016)
3 0 Solan (Solan,
2013)
1
0 [Anonymous],
1999
2 0 French (French
et al., 2004)
2
0 Gibbons (Hale &
Gibbons, 1999)
0 0 Berk-Seligson
(BErk-Seligson,
1988)
0
0 Fairclough
(Fairclough
et al., 2006)
10 0 Blommaert
(Blommaert,
1999)
0
0 Bennett
(Bennett Robert
& E, 2000)
1 0 Engberg
(Engberg, 2012)
1
0 Heffer (Heffer,
2012)
0 0 Bhatia (Bhatia,
1993)
1
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4.2. Theoretical implications
This study has several theoretical implications. Firstly, there is a theoretical implication for higher
education policy-makers and educators. The study highlights the significant role of forensic
linguistics in academic settings and everyday life situations. As such, it is recommended that
forensic linguistics courses be more widely incorporated into higher education curricula. This field
should not be limited to students majoring in forensic linguistics, which is relatively scarce globally.
Secondly, the study has implications for researchers, writers, public speakers, YouTubers, and all
social media users, TV reporters, news reporters, and media professionals. In contemporary
society, there is a rapid proliferation of ignorance concerning copyrights and the rights of others.
Therefore, it is crucial to raise awareness among the general public about these rights.
4.3. Limitations and future research
This study represents an initial endeavour to investigate the growth and progression of forensic
linguistics from a scientometric perspective. Further research is needed to explore the nature of
identified clusters related to the field, which could yield additional insights. While this study
identified the clusters, it did not examine them in detail, leaving scope for future research to
focus on the convergence and divergence of these patterns. Additionally, this study has
a limitation in that it did not scope the field of forensic linguistics comprehensively. Although
the study provided a brief overview of the history and development of the field, followed by
a review of existing literature from 1936 to 2022, a scoping review would entail a more detailed
examination of the types of sources and methods employed in forensic linguistics.
5. Conclusion
The findings of this research provide compelling evidence that research in forensic linguistics has
witnessed a significant increase in the last two decades. Our study examined the development and
growth of forensic linguistics from 1936 to 2022 using scientometric analysis of 6,460 documents.
Through our research, we were able to visualize and analyse forensic linguistics using eight bibliometric
indicators and eight scientometric indicators. We have identified the most influential regions and
institutions in the field, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, China, Russia, and others.
Additionally, we have identified the most frequently used keywords in forensic linguistics, including
human, linguistics, legal translation, language, speech recognition, legal language, authorship attribu-
tion, and natural language processing. The keywords also included legal linguistics as a synonym for
forensic linguistics, as well as several other areas such as linguistic law, language policy, language and
law, official languages, legal translation, and linguistic rights. Moreover, the significant benefit of our
scientometric analysis was the ability to categorize the 6,460 documents in forensic linguistics into
several clusters based on research patterns. Some of these patterns include the role of forensic linguists
in legal contexts, legal translation, legal composition, forensic voice comparison, authorship attribution,
and human language technologies. Other clusters included the use of forensic linguistics in police
interview settings, public service settings, and courtroom settings, linguistic rights, and online debates.
Funding
No funding was received for this paper.
Author details
Ahmed Alduais
1,2
ORCID ID: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0837-4915
Mohammed Ali Al-Khulaidi
3
E-mail: mohamed.khulaidi336@gmail.com
ORCID ID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3439-6790
Silvia Allegretta
4
ORCID ID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5536-6411
Mona Mohammed Abdulkhalek
5
ORCID ID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1256-1417
1
Department of Human Sciences (Psychology), University
of Verona, Verona, Italy.
2
Department of English and Communication, The
Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR,
China.
3
Department of English, Ibb University, Ibb, Yemen.
4
Department of General Psychology, University of Padua,
Italy.
5
Centre of Languages and Translation, Ibb University, Ibb,
Yemen.
Highlights
●Forensic linguistics is a unique field of study
that emphasizes the observation of language
usage in our daily lives, providing a legal per-
spective for the analysis of language.
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●The scope of forensic linguistics has expanded
to include speech detection, text detection, pla-
giarism detection, social media verbal violence
detection, social security detection, and discri-
mination detection.
●A scientometric analysis of 6,490 triangulated
documents from major knowledge databases
was conducted to examine the development
of forensic linguistics.
●The study identified commonly used keywords
in forensic linguistics and grouped the 6,460
documents into various clusters based on
research patterns in the field. These clusters
included the role of forensic linguists in legal
contexts, legal translation, forensic voice com-
parison, authorship attribution, and human lan-
guage technologies.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Data availability statement
The data presented in this study are included in the paper.
Contribution statement
Conceptualization, Ahmed Alduais, Mohammed Al-
Khulaidi, Silvia Allegretta and Mona Abdulkhalek; Data
curation, Ahmed Alduais; Formal analysis, Ahmed Alduais;
Investigation, Ahmed Alduais; Methodology, Ahmed
Alduais and Silvia Allegretta; Project administration,
Ahmed Alduais; Resources, Mohammed Al-Khulaidi and
Mona Abdulkhalek; Software, Ahmed Alduais; Supervision,
Ahmed Alduais; Validation, Ahmed Alduais; Visualization,
Ahmed Alduais; Writing—original draft, Ahmed Alduais,
Mohammed Al-Khulaidi, Silvia Allegretta and Mona
Abdulkhalek; Writing—review & editing, Ahmed Alduais.
Institutional review board statement
This research did not require IRB approval.
Informed consent statement
Neither human nor non-human subjects were involved
directly in this research. Therefore, informed consent was not
required.
Correction
This article has been corrected with minor changes. These
changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Citation information
Cite this article as: Forensic linguistics: A scientometric
review, Ahmed Alduais, Mohammed Ali Al-Khulaidi, Silvia
Allegretta & Mona Mohammed Abdulkhalek, Cogent Arts &
Humanities (2023), 10: 2214387.
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