No description available.

abstract: This thesis argues for the utility of syntactic cartography in representing and analyzing the disputed language of legal statutes. It presents an analysis of two appellate court cases, Flores-Figueroa v. United States (2009) and In re Sanders (2008). Each case involves a difference of opinion with respect to the position and function of prepositions found in 18 U.S.C. § 1028A(a)(1) and 11 U.S.C. § 1328(f), respectively. Informing the tree structures are Merlo and Ferrer's (2006) six diagnostics for PP attachment: head dependence, optionality, iterativity, ordering, copular paraphrase, and deverbal nouns. In Flores-Figueroa, the analysis yields a conclusion that affirms the court's decision, as does the analysis in Sanders, although it only concurs in part. Implications of the study and the overall cartography approach are discussed, including how it could impact the drafting of jury instructions and future legislation. The paper also addresses the unique heritage of legal language, the ways in which it contrasts with civic, non-legal English, and how its characteristics give rise to ambiguity and vagueness, two suitable phenomena for linguistic analysis. Further, it discusses the potential for providing linguistic input on active cases to the Supreme Court and other judicial bodies. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis English 2017

No description available.

abstract: The field of authorship determination, previously largely falling under the umbrella of literary analysis but recently becoming a large subfield of forensic linguistics, has grown substantially over the last two decades. As its body of research and its record of successful forensic application continue to grow, this growth is paralleled by the demand for its application. However, methods which have undergone rigorous testing to show their reliability and replicability, allowing them to meet the strict Daubert criteria put forth by the US court system, have not truly been established. In this study, I set out to investigate how a list of parameters, many commonly used in the methodologies of previous researchers, would perform when used to test documents of bloggers from a sports blog, Winging It in Motown. Three prolific bloggers were chosen from the site, and a corpus of posts was created for each blogger which was then examined for each of the chosen parameters. One test document for each of the three bloggers which was not included in that blogger’s corpus was then chosen from the blog page, and these documents were examined for each of the parameters via the same methodologies as were used to examine the corpora. Once data for the corpora and all three test documents was obtained, the results were compared for similarity, and an author determination was made for each test document along each parameter. The findings indicated that overall the parameters were quite unsuccessful in determining authorship for these test documents based on the author corpora developed for the study. Only two parameters successfully identified the authors of the test documents at a rate higher than chance, and the possibility exists that other factors may be driving these successful identifications, demanding further research to confirm their validity as parameters for the purpose of authorship work. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2017

O interesse pela autoria de textos escritos é tão antigo quanto a própria escrita. Desde que o homem passou a registrar a sua língua dessa forma, podem ser muitas as circunstâncias em que emerge a pergunta Quem escreveu este texto?. Ela pode surgir porque os textos são anônimos, assinados por pseudônimos ou porque há uma disputa com relação a sua autoria. Mais recentemente, saber quem escreveu um determinado texto ou conjunto de textos tem ajudado a solucionar crimes ou dirimir contendas judiciais. Nesses contextos, entra em cena o linguista forense, cujo trabalho pode elucidar tais casos uma vez que sua análise é capaz de depreender estilos linguísticos que se relacionam tanto a um grupo social (elaboração de perfis sociolinguísticos) quanto a um indivíduo (atribuição de autoria). Este trabalho preocupa-se particularmente com noções de estilo da Sociolinguística e da Semiótica Discursiva nas análises forenses de autoria e almeja demonstrar de que modo a incorporação da análise do plano do conteúdo pode render frutos a essas análises. Assim, no que diz respeito à depreensão de perfis sociolinguísticos, sugere-se que o pertencimento a um grupo social, aqui proposto como um universo discursivo, pode ser revelado por meio da análise da recorrência semântica e não apenas de variáveis linguísticas (que seriam uma ou mais maneiras de se dizer a mesma coisa). Para isso, analisa-se um conjunto de escritos provenientes da investigação do que ficou conhecido como Massacre de Realengo e sugere-se que seus autores compartilham o mesmo grupo, neste caso o dos Fiéis (em oposição aos Infiéis). Quanto à atribuição de autoria, faz-se necessário saber se as categorias examinadas em análises semióticas podem realmente distinguir autores. Para isso, realizou-se um estudo quantitativo com 4 autores, em que cada autor contribuiu com 20 textos, divididos em dois grupos de 10 (Autor 1A, Autor 1B, e assim por diante). A hipótese era a de que os textos dos grupos A e B de um mesmo autor seriam mais semelhantes entre si do que comparativamente aos subconjuntos de textos dos outros autores, no que diz respeito a elementos do plano do conteúdo. Os resultados corroboram essa hipótese e indicam, portanto, que as categorias semióticas podem ser utilizadas com sucesso em casos de autoria questionada. / Interest in the authorship of written texts is as old as writing itself. Ever since men started recording language in this way, there can be various circumstances in which the question \"Who wrote this text?\" emerges. Such a question can arise because the texts are anonymous, signed by pseudonyms or because its authorship is being disputed. More recently, knowing who wrote a particular text or set of texts has been helping to solve crimes or settle legal disputes. In these contexts, the forensic linguist stands out, working to elucidate such cases, since linguistic analysis is able to infer writing styles that relate either to a social group (sociolinguistic profiling) or to an individual (authorship attribution). This work is particularly concerned with the ideas on style proposed by Sociolinguistics and Discourse Semiotics and their relation to forensic authorship analysis. It seeks to demonstrate how the incorporation of the analysis of the content plane can assist authorship examination. Regarding sociolinguistic profiling, this work suggested that the membership in a social group proposed here as a \"discourse universe\" can be revealed through the analysis of semantic recurrence (and not only by observing linguistic variables, that is, one or more ways to say the same \"thing\"). In order to accomplish that, we analyze a set of writings from the investigation of what became known as \"Realengo Massacre\". Such an analysis indicates that the texts under scrutiny seem to have been written, if not by the same author, at least by authors within the same social group. As for authorship attribution, it is necessary to know if the features examined in semiotic analysis can really distinguish authors. Hence, we performed a quantitative study with 4 authors, wherein each author contributed with 20 texts divided into 2 groups of 10 (Author 1A, Author 1B, and so on). The hypothesis was that texts from a single author would be more similar to each other than texts from different authors, when it comes to an analysis of the content plane. The results seem to confirm the hypothesis; thus semiotic features may successfully be used in questioned authorship scenarios.

O interesse pela autoria de textos escritos é tão antigo quanto a própria escrita. Desde que o homem passou a registrar a sua língua dessa forma, podem ser muitas as circunstâncias em que emerge a pergunta Quem escreveu este texto?. Ela pode surgir porque os textos são anônimos, assinados por pseudônimos ou porque há uma disputa com relação a sua autoria. Mais recentemente, saber quem escreveu um determinado texto ou conjunto de textos tem ajudado a solucionar crimes ou dirimir contendas judiciais. Nesses contextos, entra em cena o linguista forense, cujo trabalho pode elucidar tais casos uma vez que sua análise é capaz de depreender estilos linguísticos que se relacionam tanto a um grupo social (elaboração de perfis sociolinguísticos) quanto a um indivíduo (atribuição de autoria). Este trabalho preocupa-se particularmente com noções de estilo da Sociolinguística e da Semiótica Discursiva nas análises forenses de autoria e almeja demonstrar de que modo a incorporação da análise do plano do conteúdo pode render frutos a essas análises. Assim, no que diz respeito à depreensão de perfis sociolinguísticos, sugere-se que o pertencimento a um grupo social, aqui proposto como um universo discursivo, pode ser revelado por meio da análise da recorrência semântica e não apenas de variáveis linguísticas (que seriam uma ou mais maneiras de se dizer a mesma coisa). Para isso, analisa-se um conjunto de escritos provenientes da investigação do que ficou conhecido como Massacre de Realengo e sugere-se que seus autores compartilham o mesmo grupo, neste caso o dos Fiéis (em oposição aos Infiéis). Quanto à atribuição de autoria, faz-se necessário saber se as categorias examinadas em análises semióticas podem realmente distinguir autores. Para isso, realizou-se um estudo quantitativo com 4 autores, em que cada autor contribuiu com 20 textos, divididos em dois grupos de 10 (Autor 1A, Autor 1B, e assim por diante). A hipótese era a de que os textos dos grupos A e B de um mesmo autor seriam mais semelhantes entre si do que comparativamente aos subconjuntos de textos dos outros autores, no que diz respeito a elementos do plano do conteúdo. Os resultados corroboram essa hipótese e indicam, portanto, que as categorias semióticas podem ser utilizadas com sucesso em casos de autoria questionada. / Interest in the authorship of written texts is as old as writing itself. Ever since men started recording language in this way, there can be various circumstances in which the question \"Who wrote this text?\" emerges. Such a question can arise because the texts are anonymous, signed by pseudonyms or because its authorship is being disputed. More recently, knowing who wrote a particular text or set of texts has been helping to solve crimes or settle legal disputes. In these contexts, the forensic linguist stands out, working to elucidate such cases, since linguistic analysis is able to infer writing styles that relate either to a social group (sociolinguistic profiling) or to an individual (authorship attribution). This work is particularly concerned with the ideas on style proposed by Sociolinguistics and Discourse Semiotics and their relation to forensic authorship analysis. It seeks to demonstrate how the incorporation of the analysis of the content plane can assist authorship examination. Regarding sociolinguistic profiling, this work suggested that the membership in a social group proposed here as a \"discourse universe\" can be revealed through the analysis of semantic recurrence (and not only by observing linguistic variables, that is, one or more ways to say the same \"thing\"). In order to accomplish that, we analyze a set of writings from the investigation of what became known as \"Realengo Massacre\". Such an analysis indicates that the texts under scrutiny seem to have been written, if not by the same author, at least by authors within the same social group. As for authorship attribution, it is necessary to know if the features examined in semiotic analysis can really distinguish authors. Hence, we performed a quantitative study with 4 authors, wherein each author contributed with 20 texts divided into 2 groups of 10 (Author 1A, Author 1B, and so on). The hypothesis was that texts from a single author would be more similar to each other than texts from different authors, when it comes to an analysis of the content plane. The results seem to confirm the hypothesis; thus semiotic features may successfully be used in questioned authorship scenarios.

A sociedade vive um distanciamento do Direito e da Justiça. A elitização da linguagem empregada (verbal ou não verbal) é uma das principais causas da segregação do conhecimento jurídico e do acesso à justiça. O trabalho propõe identificar que um dos motivos desse emprego insistente e desnecessário do Juridiquês provém da própria conceituação do que é o direito (ciência ou prudência, engajada ou não na dialética social) tanto na visão da sociedade (que não se sente protegida pelo direito, desacredita na Justiça e não conhece seus direitos e deveres) quanto para os juristas, advogados, serventuários e estudantes (que monopolizam o conhecimento jurídico e perpetuam o uso de uma linguagem inacessível aos jurisdicionados). Através de uma abordagem sócio-filosófica, semiótica, como também embasada em pesquisa de campo local, o trabalho explica e indica possíveis soluções para que o discurso jurídico seja inteligível e as barreiras para o acesso à justiça e o conhecimento acerca do Direito sejam quebradas.

The objective of this thesis is to identify those specific aspects of written style which native speakers of English modify when attempting to anonymize their texts. The conclusions are based on the analysis of 20 texts by 10 authors, all of whom are native speakers of English. Two texts dealing with the same topic were produced by each participant; one was written as an official letter of complaint, and the other was written as an anonymous letter. The bulk of the results are grounded on a qualitative stylistic analysis of the individual texts, with merely a brief survey of quantitative methods.The purpose of the introductory chapter is to familiarize the reader with the subject of forensic authorship analysis, to provide a brief summary of the current state of research, and to introduce a series of empirical studies. The practical part of the thesis presents the qualitative stylistic analysis, provides a shorter summary of the quantitative analysis, and finally ventures to draw meaningful conclusions from the results. The results showed that the majority of authors manipulated with the style/register of the texts and with the specific lexical choices, whereas none of the 10 authors made alterations to spelling and only 2 authors chose to change the punctuation in the anonymous text. However,...

Analyses of suicide notes have been conducted from varied perspectives in both linguistics and psychology. Not only have these studies added considerable value to the study of suicide, but they have also enriched the field of forensic linguistics. By analysing suicide notes, researchers are able to speculate about the state of mind of a suicidal individual from a psychological perspective, as well as gain insights into the characteristics of this genre from a linguistic perspective. Studies of suicide notes that are most relevant to forensic linguistics are those that compare authentic and fabricated suicide notes to determine whether these types of suicide notes may be distinguished from one another. Although the literature on suicide notes includes multiple studies that consider the differences between authentic and fabricated suicide notes, none seems to consider the fact that there might not be distinct differences between these types of suicide notes. Past studies also do not seem to consider that it might not be possible to determine whether a single suicide note is authentic or not. The present study fills this gap by considering authentic and fabricated suicide notes as indistinguishable texts. In this study, appraisal theory is used as the main theory of linguistic analysis to prove that authentic and fabricated suicide notes do not have distinct linguistic characteristics that can be used to differentiate them and that aiming to authenticate suicide notes might be a very risky and problematic undertaking. The results indicate that based on the theories and methods discussed in this thesis, it is not possible to successfully distinguish between authentic and fabricated suicide notes. It appears that, overall, the suicide notes included here would be more suited to analyses aimed at determining authorship identification or verification than analyses aimed at authenticating suicide notes. Accordingly, the study contributes not only to research concerned with the analysis of suicide notes but also to that concerned with forensic linguistics. Furthermore, the study includes analyses of South African suicide notes, and specifically Afrikaans suicide notes, which has not been attempted in previous research. / Tshekatsheko ya mangwalo ao a ngwadilwego ke batho ba go ipolaya e dirilwe go tswa mahlakoreng ao a fapanego ka go bobedi dithutapolelo le dithutamahlale tsa menagano. Dinyakisiso tse ga se tsa oketsa boleng bjo bogolo fela go dinyakisiso ka ga ditiragalo tsa go ipolaya, eupsa di humisitse gape lekala la dithutapolelo tsa mabapi le batho bao ba ipolailego. Ka go sekaseka mangwalo ao a ngwadilwego ke batho ba go ipolaya, banyakisisi gape ba kgona go akanya mabapi le seemo sa monagano sa motho yo a ipolailego ka lehlakoreng la tsa menagano, gammogo le go hwetsa tsebo mabapi le dipharologantshi tsa mohuta wo wa sengwalwa ka lehlakoreng la dithutapolelo. Dinyakisiso tsa mabapi le mangwalo ao a ngwadilwego ke batho ba go ipolaya tseo di nyalelanago kudu le dithutapolelo tsa mabapi le batho ba go ipolaya ke tseo di bapetsago mangwalo a go ipolaya a makgonthe le a bofora go tseba ge eba mehuta ye ya mangwalo a batho ba go ipolaya a ka faralogantshwa le a mangwe. Le ge e le gore dingwalwa tsa mabapi le mangwalo ao a ngwadilwego ke batho ba go ipolaya di akaretsa dinyakisiso tse ntsi tseo di hlokometsego go fapana magareng ga mangwalo a batho ba go ipolaya a makgonthe le a bofora, ga go seo se hlokometsego ntlha ya gore go ka no se be le diphapano magareng ga mehuta ye ya mangwalo ao a ngwadilwego ke batho ba go ipolaya. Dinyakisiso tse di dirilwego mo nakong ye e fetilego le tsona di bonala di sa hlokomele ntlha ya gore go ka no se kgonagale go tseba ge eba lengwalo le tee leo le ngwadilwego ke motho wa go ipolaya ke la makgonthe goba aowa. Dinyakisiso tse di tlatsa sekgoba se ka go bona mangwalo ao a ngwadilwego ke batho ba go ipolaya a makgonthe le a bofora bjalo ka dingwalwa tseo di ka farologanywago. Ka mo dinyakisisong tse, teori ya go utolla tshekatsheko ya maikutlo e a somiswa bjalo ka teori ye kgolo ya go sekaseka polelo ka nepo ya go laetsa gore mangwalo ao a ngwadilwego ke batho ba go ipolaya a makgonthe le a bofora ga a na le dipharologantshi tse di bonagalago tse di ka somiswago go a farologanya le gore go ikemisetsa go dira gore mangwalo ao a ngwadilwego ke batho ba go ipolaya ke a makgonthe go ka ba mosomo o kotsi kudu le wo o nago le mathata. Dipoelo di laetsa gore go ya ka diteori le mekgwa ye e ahlaahlwago ka mo thesesing ye, ga go kgonagale go farologanya ka katlego phapano magareng ga mangwalo ao a ngwadilwego ke batho ba go ipolaya a makgonthe le a bofora. Go bonala gore, ka kakaretso, mangwalo ao a ngwadilwego ke batho ba go ipolaya ao a akareditswego ka mo a tla lokela kudu go tshekatsheko ye e ikemiseditsego go tseba motho yo a ngwadilego lengwalo la go ipolaya goba tiisetso go feta tshekatsheko ye e ikemiseditsego go tiisetsa gore mangwalo ao a mabapi le go ipolaya a ngwadilwe ke bomang. Ka se, dinyakisiso ga di tsenye letsogo fela go dinyakisiso tsa mabapi le tshekatsheko ya mangwalo ao a ngwadilwego ke batho ba go ipolaya, eupsa gape mabapi le dithutapolelo tsa mabapi le batho bao ba ipolailego. Godimo ga fao, dinyakisiso di akaretsa tshekatsheko ya mangwalo ao a ngwadilwego ke batho ba go ipolaya ka mo Afrika Borwa, gomme kudukudu mangwalo a go ngwalwa ka Seafrikantshe a batho bao ba ipolailego, e lego seo se sego sa dirwa ka dinyakisisong tse di fetilego. / Ukuhlaziywa kwamanothi ezehlakalo zokuzikhunga/zokuzibulala kudala kwenziwa ngokwemiqondo eyehlukahlukene ngezindlela ezimbili ngokwelingwistiki nangokwengqondo. Izifundo zocwaningo azikhulisanga kuphela ukubaluleka kocwaningo olumayelana nokuzikhunga kuphela, kodwa ziphinde zanothisa umkhakha weforensiki yelingwistiki. Ngokuhlaziya amanothi amayelana nocwaningo, abacwaningi bayakwazi ukwenza umhlahlo ngesimo somqondo womuntu ozikhungayo ngokomqondo wezengqondo, kanye nangokuzuza ulwazi olumayelana nezimpawu zalo mkhakha ngokomqondo welingwistiki. Izimfundo ezimayelana namanothi ashiywa ngabantu abazibulalayo ahlobene kakhulu neforensiki yelingwistiki yilawo aqhathanisa amanothi okuzibulala oqobo nalawo angamanothimbumbulu, ukucacisa kahle ukuthi mhlawumbe lezi zinhlobo zamanothi angahlukaniswa kwamanye. Yize umbhalo wobuciko omayelana namanothi okuzibulala axuba izimfundo zocwaningo eziningi ezigxile kwimehluko ephakathi kwamanothi okuzibulala oqobo nalawo okuzakhela/ambumbulu, akhekho obheka udaba lokuthi kungahle kungabi khona umehluko ogqamile phakathi kwalezi zinhlobo zamanothi okuzibulala. Izimfundo zocwaningo zesikhathi esedlule nazo azilubheki udaba lokuthi angekhe kwenzeka ukuthi kutholakale ukuthi mhlawumbe inothi lokuzibulala ngabe elangempela noma yinothimbumbulu. Isifundo samanje sivala lesi sikhala ngokuthatha amanothi angempela namanothimbumbulu njengemibhalo engahlukaniseki. Kulesi sifundo socwaningo, ithiyori yokuhlola isetshenziswe njengethiyori eyinsika yokuhlaziya ilingwistiki ukukhombisa ukuthi amanothi okuzibulala angempela nalawo okuzakhela akanazo izimpawu ezibaphawulekayo ezingasetshenziswa ukuwehlukanisa kanti lokho kuqonde ukuqinisekisa ukuthi amanothi okuzibulala kungenzeka abe wumsebenzi onobungozi obukhulu kanye nenkinga enkulu. Imiphumela ikhombisa ukuthi ngokwamathiyori nangezindlela ezixoxwe kule thiyori, kunzima ukuphumelela uthole umehluko phakathi mwamanothi angempela nalawo ambumbulu. Ngaphezu kwalokho, kuyakhombisa ukuthi, amanothi okuzibulala aqukethwe lapha azohambisana kakhulu nolwazi oluhlaziyiwe oluqonde ukuthola umnini wenothi noma ukuqinisekisa kunolwazi oluhlaziyiwe oluhlose ukuqinisekisa umbhali wamanothi okuzibulala. Ngokosiko lwakhona, isifundo asifakanga kuphela igalelo kucwaningo kuphela ngokuhlaziya amanothi okuzibulala, kanti lokho futhi kumayelana neforensiki yelingwistiki. Ngaphezu kwalokho, ucwaningo luqukethe ulwazi oluhlaziyiwe lwamanothi okuzibulala eNingizimu Afrika, ikakhulu amanothi okuzibulala abhalwe ngesiBhunu, angakazwe alokothwe kucwaningo lwesikhathi esedlule. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / Ph. D. (Forensic Linguistics)

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2016-08-18T13:23:04Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Agnes dos Santos Scaramuzzi-Rodrigues.pdf: 1966394 bytes, checksum: 422e8077709ab2c24354f481450b6ef1 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-18T13:23:04Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Agnes dos Santos Scaramuzzi-Rodrigues.pdf: 1966394 bytes, checksum: 422e8077709ab2c24354f481450b6ef1 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-06-09 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The overall purpose of this research was to investigate the verbal language collected and compiled in an electronic corpus, extracted from a Criminal Lawsuit - Special Part - Crimes Against the Person, Chapter I, Crimes Against Life, tried at the Legal Complex Minister Mario Guimarães Forum in the capital of São Paulo, in 2011. The relevant issue was the homicidal domestic violence. We opted for a murder case perpetrated by a male defendant against his former spouse and mother of his child, staged at the residence of the victim. The object of my study was the set of hearings that were held in two separate instances: Preliminary Hearing and Trial. Our assumption is that in a criminal proceeding, language actors fall into three distinct groups, according to their function in the proceedings: (a) charge, (b) defend and (c) judge. Because they have no access to the acts per se, only to their representations, the actors used language, largely verbal, to report their knowledge of the occurrence. In doing so, they positioned themselves in accordance with from their view of the occurrence and imbue the impact that the events have had on their lives into their accounts. Thus, there are linguistic differences in the speech of actors, according to their function in the proceedings, which can be revealed by the investigation into the stance. Revealing them can elucidate the prosecution‘s and the defense‘s versions of, for example, the profile of the victim and the defendant. Our analysis of these differences is innovative, as we did not find any study on the stance at hearings in Portuguese. As such, we seek to bridge this gap. The specific objectives were: (A) to reveal the different uses of stance by explaining their categories in two parts of speech; (A) adjectives and (b) adverbs ending in ―ly‖; and (B) to find out if there are differences in the uses of stance, according with the role the linguistic actor plays in the proceedings: (a) charge, (b) defend (c) and judge. Research questions were: 1. What is the evidence of the use of stance and its categories in the different parts of speech: (a) adjectives and (b) adverbs ending in ―ly‖? 2. Are there differences in the uses of stance in relation to the role of the linguistic actor played in the proceedings: (a) charge, (b) defend (c) and judge? The theoretical background is based on: (A) Applied Linguistics; (B) Corpus Linguistics, extracting evidence from the use of verbal language through corpus analysed electronically; (C) analysis of stance in light of Biber and Finegan (1988); Biber et al, (1999) and Biber (2006a and 2006b), defined as an expression of feeling, attitudes and judgments that the authors explains about their message; and (D) Forensic Linguistics investigating the language used in the forums. The methodology included fieldwork, use of the electronic tool WORDS and qualitative analysis. The results indicated the following: for the first question, that two stances were discovered in the two parts of speech, and for the second question, that there are differences in the uses of stances related to functions in the proceedings. Given these responses, we conclude that: (a) it is important to investigate the linguistic characteristics of each function in the proceedings in order to understand what is the language used in each of these functions; and (b) identifying different stances in forensic corpus may be useful to assess the quality of the information relayed, for example, by witnesses who impregnates their speech with personal feelings, attitudes and level of knowledge about the fact on trial. We hope to have contributed to the development of new Corpus Linguistics studies, focused on the uses of stances in forensic speech from the research methodology developed herein. We also hope to have contributed to the development of Forensic Linguistics in Brazil by offering our methodology and results, as we adopted the required rigor in our practices. Our final considerations discuss the following: the limitations, developments, future research and proposals for educational applications / O objetivo geral desta pesquisa foi o de investigar a linguagem verbal coletada e compilada em corpus eletrônico oriundo de um Processo Penal - Parte Especial - Dos Crimes Contra a Pessoa, capítulo I, Dos Crimes Contra a Vida, julgado no Complexo Judiciário Fórum Ministro Mário Guimarães, na capital de São Paulo, em 2011. A relevante problemática foi a violência doméstica homicida. Optamos por um processo de homicídio perpetrado por réu do sexo masculino contra sua antiga cônjuge e mãe de seu filho cujo palco do crime fora a residência da vítima. O objeto de estudo foi o conjunto das oitivas processuais que aconteceram em dois momentos: Audiência Preliminar e Julgamento. Nossa pressuposição é que em um Processo Penal, os atores linguísticos compõem três grupos distintos de acordo com sua função processual: (a) acusar, (b) defender e (c) julgar. Porque não se têm acesso aos atos em si, apenas às representações deles, os atores optam por usar a linguagem, em especial, a verbal ao explicitar seu conhecimento sobre a ocorrência. Ao fazê-lo eles se posicionam de modo diferente a partir de suas crenças sobre a ocorrência e impregnam em sua fala o impacto que os fatos tiveram sobre suas vidas. Diante disso, há diferenças linguísticas na fala dos atores de acordo com sua função processual que podem ser reveladas pela investigação do posicionamento. Revelá-las pode elucidar as versões da acusação e da defesa sobre, por exemplo, o perfil da vítima e do réu. Nossa análise dessas diferenças é inovadora, já que não encontramos nenhum estudo do posicionamento em oitivas processuais no Português, assim, buscamos preencher essa lacuna. Os objetivos específicos foram: (A) Revelar os usos de posicionamento explicitando suas categorias em duas classes gramaticais; (a) adjetivos e (b) advérbios terminados em mente; e (B) Descobrir se há diferenças de usos de posicionamento de acordo com a função processual que o ator linguístico exercer: (a) acusar, (b) defender e (c) julgar. As questões de pesquisa foram: 1- Quais são as evidências de usos de posicionamento e suas categorias nas classes gramaticais dos: (a) adjetivos e (b) advérbios terminados em mente? e 2- Há diferenças de usos de posicionamento em relação à função processual que o ator linguístico exercer: (a) acusar, (b) defender e (c) julgar? Adotamos a seguinte fundamentação teórica: (A) Linguística Aplicada; (B) Linguística de Corpus, extraindo evidências de uso da linguagem verbal por meio de corpus analisado eletronicamente; (C) Análise do posicionamento à luz de Biber e Finegan (1988); Biber et al., (1999) e Biber (2006a e 2006b) definido como uma expressão de sentimento, atitudes e julgamentos que o ator explicita sobre sua mensagem; e (D) Linguística Forense que investiga a linguagem que acontece nos fóruns. A metodologia incluiu pesquisa de campo, uso da ferramenta eletrônica PALAVRAS e análise qualitativa. Os resultados indicaram: para a primeira pergunta, que foram descobertos usos de posicionamento nas duas classes gramaticais e, para a segunda, que há diferenças de usos de posicionamento em relação às funções processuais. Diante dessas respostas, concluímos que: (a) é importante investigar as diferenças linguísticas de cada função processual a fim de entendermos qual é a linguagem usada em cada uma dessas funções; e (b) identificar o posicionamento em corpus forense pode ser útil ao avaliar a qualidade da informação transmitida, por exemplo, por uma testemunha que impregna sua fala com seus sentimentos, atitudes e o grau de conhecimento frente ao fato que se julga. Esperamos ter contribuído com novos estudos da Linguística de Corpus focados nos usos do posicionamento no discurso forense a partir da metodologia desenvolvida nesta pesquisa. Almejamos também, ter contribuído com o desenvolvimento da Linguística Forense no Brasil ofertando nossa metodologia e resultados, já que adotamos em nossas práticas o rigor exigido. Nossas considerações finais discutem: as limitações, desdobramentos, pesquisas futuras e, ainda, propostas de aplicações pedagógicas