Doha, Qatar: The Linguistics and Arabic Lexicography Program at the School of Social Sciences and Humanities (SOSH) at the Doha Institute (DI) has announced the opening of call for papers’ submissions for the international conference on "Forensic Linguistics: Theories and Applications," which will be held at the DI in April 28-29, 2025.
The conference focuses on exploring the theories and practical applications in the field of forensic linguistics. It aims to promote awareness of forensic linguistics by studying its origins, significance, branches, and development to foster scientific research in this specialized field.
The conference also seeks to expand its various applications in law, judiciary, laboratories, and both verbal and non-verbal communication. Additionally, it aims to provide an opportunity for participants interested in the field to exchange perspectives, experiences, and scientific achievements.
In this context, Dr. Mehdi Arar, Head of the Linguistics and Arabic Lexicography Program, stated that one of the conference's goals is to facilitate the exchange of expertise between academic researchers and practitioners in the fields of criminology and legal sciences.
He highlighted the wide range of topics that the conference sessions will cover, such as the analysis of legal language, its interpretive guidelines, recent developments in forensic linguistic research, applications of forensic linguistics in judicial contexts, future trends, research paths in forensic linguistics, contributions of heritage scholars to the study and application of legal language, and non-verbal communication in forensic linguistics.
According to the conference’s background paper, the field of "forensic linguistics" has not yet received adequate specialized study, whether in universities or publications, as this discipline continues to expand day by day.
It now encompasses the examination of verbal violence spread through social media and other means, identifying the initiator, speaker, or writer of the abuse, cases of plagiarism, in addition to analysis of police records, interrogations, warnings, witness statements, and more.
This branch of applied linguistics includes the study of dialects, forensic phonetics, discourse analysis, the language of legal texts, the language of legal proceedings, and linguistic profiling that helps solve crime mysteries through linguistics.
The deadline for submitting abstracts is December 15, 2024, and final papers must be submitted by April 1, 2025.
It is also worth mentioning that the Linguistics and Arabic Lexicography Program offers both Master’s and Doctoral degrees and strives to form an elite group of researchers qualified to practice scientific research in accordance with its principles and global standards, in the fields of linguistics, lexicography, terminology, and associated applications of these sciences.
It also seeks to enhance the intellectual independence of the researchers and their critical thinking , and to enable them to possess the tools of systematic research and global scientific standards; to be able to employ their scientific knowledge and research experience in order to meet the needs of the region, and to contribute to addressing the issues of the Arabic language by scientific processing based on the achievements of theoretical and applied linguistics in the field of lexicology.
