Tag: forensic linguistics

Categories
Sociolinguistics Pragmatics History Linguistics English

Mayday, Mayday, Mayday: The High-Stakes Linguistics of Aviation English

Estimated read time 5 min read

Discover Aviation English, the meticulously engineered language designed to prevent disaster at 30,000 feet. From its unique phonetic alphabet to a zero-tolerance policy for ambiguity, this ‘language’ is a linguistic safety net born from tragic lessons and built to save lives. It’s a high-stakes world where a single word can make the difference between a safe landing and a catastrophe.

Categories
Pragmatics Psycholinguistics Sociolinguistics

The Hidden Verbs of Persuasion: How Advertising Language Gets Inside Your Head

Estimated read time 5 min read

Every word in an advertisement is chosen with surgical precision. Beyond marketing psychology, specific linguistic tricks—from “weasel words” like ‘helps’ to the syntactic ambiguity of “gets clothes cleaner”—are designed to bypass your critical thinking and create legally defensible desire. This article dissects famous slogans to reveal the hidden grammar that gets inside your head.

Categories
Pragmatics Psycholinguistics Forensic Linguistics

The Power of a Question: How Linguistic Manipulation Shapes Police Confessions

Estimated read time 6 min read

A confession can seem like the most straightforward form of evidence, but the language used to obtain it is incredibly complex. Police interrogations are a masterclass in linguistic manipulation, where the very structure of a question can build a cage of guilt around a suspect. From questions that presuppose guilt to strategically vague promises, the language of the interrogation room can create a coercive environment that sometimes leads to the innocent saying “I did it.”