FORENSIC LINGUISTICS IN CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS IN PAKISTAN: CHALLENGES, OPPORTUNITIES, AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21342492Keywords:
Criminal Investigation, Criminal Justice System, Forensic Linguistics, Linguistic Evidence, PakistanAbstract
Forensic linguistics has become an interdisciplinary discipline and is engaged in a range of legal and criminal investigations, using theories and analytical tools from linguistics. Although the field of Forensic Linguistics is becoming increasingly popular in the international arena, it has not been explored and applied sufficiently in the Criminal Justice System in Pakistan. This study critically analyses the existing role of forensic linguistics in the criminal investigation process in Pakistan with the objectives of highlighting the major applications of forensic linguistics in Pakistan, challenges faced by it in the institution and prospects for the future of the field in Pakistan. This study, designed using the qualitative systematic literature review method, summarizes the latest national and international academic publications that have been published in the last seven years (2020-2026). The reviewed literature was analysed using thematic analysis to find the themes that repeated themselves across the literature and were relevant to the authorship of the work, forensic stylistics, legal discourse, investigative interviewing, cybercrime and digital evidence. The study results indicate that forensic linguistics plays an important role in the field of criminal investigations as it is useful for the analysis of linguistic evidence, the interpretation of legal documents, authorship analysis and cybercrime investigations. In Pakistan, however, its application is limited due to poor institutional awareness, lack of specialized professional training, the absence of a group of linguists specializing in forensics and hence, lack of legal recognition of linguistic evidence and very few technological resources. The study also highlights new potential opportunities that are being created through developments in AI, corpus Linguistics, machine learning, and natural language processing, which could revolutionize the forensics industry. Based on the findings of this study, it is concluded that the capacity of forensic linguistics can be strengthened by institutional reforms, legal recognition, inter-disciplinary cooperation, academic development and technological advancements and this can significantly enhance the effectiveness, transparency and reliability of criminal investigations in Pakistan and aid in the modernization of the country's criminal justice system.
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