The Linguistics of Crime

Brings together a team of scholars from a range of disciplines, to explore the analysis of crime-related language.

This book explores the social and ideological importance of crime, and the great fascination it holds, from a linguistic angle. Drawing on ideas from stylistics, cognitive linguistics, metaphor theory, corpus linguistics, discourse analysis and pragmatics, it compares and contrasts the linguistic representation of crime across a range of genres.Bringing together scholars from a range of disciplines, this book explores the analysis of crime-related language. Drawing on ideas from stylistics, pragmatics, cognitive linguistics, metaphor theory, critical discourse analysis, multimodality, corpus linguistics, and intertextuality, it compares and contrasts the linguistic representation of crime across a range of genres, both fictitious (crime novels, and crime in TV, film and music), and in real life (crime reporting, prison discourse, and statements used in courts). It touches on current political topics like #BlackLivesMatter, human (child) trafficking, and the genocide of the Kurds among others, making it essential reading for linguists, criminologists and those with a general interest in crime-related topics alike. Covering a variety of text genres and methodological approaches, and united by the aim of deciphering how crime is portrayed ideologically, this book is the next step in developing research at the intersection of linguistics, criminology, literature and media studies.