ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the growing use of linguistic analysis in criminal investigations and the practical application of forensic linguistics. A variety of areas of analyses are discussed, with examples from real cases revealing how examination of written text may reveal consistent grammatical differences to identify the author. Methods used to investigate claims that statements have been falsified are then discussed. The first of these examines how spoken and written English differ, and how this influences the inference that a statement may be false. Subsequently, conversational rules and register features are discussed in the same context. They describe how falsified statements cannot truly reflect real speech. The consistency of statements are examined showing how linguistics can find whether different parts of statements were written at different times and in different contexts.
