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The Forensic Linguistics Short Course is an international spring school that brings together researchers, students, and practitioners at the intersection of language, law, and digital methods. Since its first edition, the FLsc has offered intensive training in both theoretical foundations and practical applications of forensic linguistics, always grounded in authentic data and real-world cases.
Each edition explores key areas of forensic linguistics – from disputed meanings and stylistic analysis to authorship profiling and the analysis of interaction in legal contexts. A particular focus lies on the integration of computational and digital methods, including corpus analysis, authorship attribution tools, and the emerging role of large language models in forensic practice.
The course is built around active participation: participants engage in case-based work, present their own research in a poster session, and join discussions that critically reflect on methods, ethics, and applications. Excursions and social events further provide opportunities for exchange and networking.
The FLSC has established itself as a unique international platform where linguistic expertise meets legal challenges, offering a space to learn, debate, and develop the future of forensic linguistics.
Forensic Linguistics
Forensic linguistics functions as an umbrella term for all areas where language and law intersect. It investigates how language is used, interpreted, and contested in legal and forensic contexts – and how linguistic expertise can contribute to questions of evidence, justice, and rights.
Current areas of research and practice include:
- Authorship analysis, from stylistic profiling to computationally-assisted attribution
- Disputed meanings and the role of context in legal interpretation
- Discourse in legal settings, including courtroom interaction and police interviews
- Legal texts, their structure, semantics, and comprehensibility
- Linguistic minorities and human rights in legal frameworks
- Digital methods in forensic analysis, including corpus linguistics and large language models
By combining linguistic theory, digital tools, and real-world casework, forensic linguistics addresses pressing challenges at the intersection of language and justice.
Press Reports
Sarah Lapacz at the Forensic Linguistics Short Course – Aug 08, 2018
MA student Sarah Lapacz spent a week at the University of Cologne in July, where she attended the Forensic Linguistics Short Course. Read more.