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Reference:

Verbal Treat as an Object of Linguistic Expertise

Karimova Tat'yana Sergeevna

PhD in Pedagogy

Head of the Department, Department of Foreign Languages and Speech Culture, East Siberian Institute of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia

664074, Russia, Irkutsk, Lermontov str., 110, 8(3952) 41-27-12

karimova_tanya@internet.ru
Other publications by this author
 

 

DOI:

10.7256/2454-0692.2022.6.39178

EDN:

KPKOPH

Received:

15-11-2022


Published:

30-12-2022


Abstract: The article is devoted to the problem of diagnosing the form of statements in the production of forensic linguistic expertise in cases of threat. In linguocriminalism, an expert philologist has to meet with examples when, in the context of a threat, it turns into a speech utterance containing advice, recommendation, warning. The purpose of the study is to reveal the lexical and grammatical features of verbal threat markers in SMS texts and cases of their neutralization by a speech act of the council. The article considers a number of social, communicative, linguistic factors associated with verbal threat. The reason for writing the article was the lack of a unified approach in the expert community to solving the main tasks of this kind of expertise. Conducting an examination in cases of insult has traditionally assumed the solution of two tasks: 1) establishing signs of verbal aggression in a statement addressed to a person; 2) determining the form of the statement – a threat, a warning, a recommendation.


Keywords:

menace, speech genre, conflict situations, linguistic expertise, verbal aggression, speech interaction, conflict discourse, culture of speech, speech behavior, lexical and grammatical threat markers

This article is automatically translated.

Crisis phenomena in society contribute to an increase in the level of aggression in all manifestations, including in speech behavior. Verbal aggression, as defined by N.S. Yakimova, "is a violation of a certain communicative norm", which implements disharmonizing speech behavior of an individual, establishes, supports social and psychological inequality of communicants, and, as a result, can be expressed in threats, insults, obscene language [11].  Aspects of the study of the phenomenon of "threat" are found in the works of A.N. Baranov, K.I. Brinev, N. A. Bout, B. B. Bystrov, V. S. Kovaleva, E. V. Lyubitskaya, I.A. Martynova, T. G. Rabenko, N. N. Nesterova, M.A. Osadchy, B. Fraizer, P. Gingiss.

In the Large Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian language, a threat in one of its meanings is defined as "1. a promise to cause some evil, trouble; 2. the possibility, danger of some disaster, misfortune, unpleasant event" [1].

In conflictology, the concept of "threat", as defined by B. Fraizer, "is a threatening statement as a verbalized, written or electronically transmitted message that contains a direct or indirect indication of an event, the consequences of which will have a negative impact on the addressee or other persons associated with it" [14].

 In the Big Legal Dictionary, "threat is defined as one of the types of mental violence against a person. The threat may be expressed orally and in writing, demonstrating the intention to cause physical, material or other harm to a person or his rights and interests protected by law" [2].

As T.S. Shakhmatova notes, "in law, the threat is part of several legal norms. For example, in criminal law, a threat is a method of incitement, driving to suicide (Article 110 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), involving a minor in committing a crime (Article 150 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), illegally obtaining information constituting a commercial or banking secret (Article 183 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), extortion (Article 163 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). In labor law, the presence of a threat is part of the concept of forced labor. The presence or absence of a threat can aggravate and mitigate (up to the exclusion of criminality of the act of Article 40 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) punishment. The threat itself is also a crime and forms part of Article 119 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation: threat of murder or causing serious harm to health. In terms of conceptual certainty, the threat stands apart in relation to other speech crimes. For example, slander and insult are defined by the legislator in the relevant articles of the Criminal and Administrative Codes, but the concept of threat is not specifically formulated" [8].

S. Harris notes that "linguistic studies of threats are mainly focused around the method and method of communication" [10]. P. Brown, considering a threatening utterance in his works, points to "features of vocabulary (repeated repetition of a certain thematic group), grammatical constructions" [13].

According to J. Melloy, "it is important to consider the language of threat as a socially conditioned genre" [14], because, according to V.V. Bystrov, "the communicative act of threat is a socio-linguistic phenomenon where the intentions and expectations of speakers are interpreted individually depending on the language means used" [4].

N.A. Booth identifies several identifying signs of a threat as an action:

"1) the presence of a goal: to cause a feeling of fear, to intimidate, to offend, to indicate the intention to cause harm, to gain benefits, to subordinate the will of a person, to force him to do something, to encourage certain actions, to cause pain;

2) the presence of a result: consequences of varying severity, destruction of something, causing harm to someone or something, damage;

3) the presence of the object to which the threat is directed: a person, his psychological state, health, life, safety, relatives, property, lifestyle, other tangible and intangible values (population, state, environment, etc.)

4) mandatory presence of one or more subjects during the implementation of the threat;

5) temporary orientation to the future"[2].

S. Harris notes that "linguistic studies of threats are mainly focused around the method and method of communication" [10]. P. Brown, considering a threatening utterance in his works, points to "features of vocabulary (repeated repetition of a certain thematic group), grammatical constructions"[12].

Let's analyze lexico-grammatical markers of verbal threat.

The following lexical units are indicated as lexical markers of verbal threat by T.G. Rabenko, N.G. Nesterova [5]:

 

The use of stylistically colored linguistic means (with reduced, negative coloring), i.e. "stress invective"

That old bitch! You'll ask me for more firewood... (Dovlatov. "Reserve")

Using animal comparisons to name parts of the human body (muzzle, paws, tail, mouth, skin, etc.):

The fascist whore! If you don't close your nasty mouth, a plate will fly into your head! (from oral speech) Wait, I'll give you a snout, I'll grunt... (Chugunov. "Forgive me tomorrow").

Using zooosemantic Metaphors to name your opponent

a nit (simple, bran.), a mangy cat (simple), a snake, a hen, a smelly goat (smelly goat), a pig (razg.), a ground squirrel, a low mouse, a louse, a tree bug (razg.), a bug (simple.), a dog's heavy, a woodpecker (disapproved.).

The use of lexical units containing emotional, aesthetic evaluation

bastard (reptile) (simple, b n.) podkolodny (podkolodnaya), scoundrel (scoundrel), bastard (rude, simple.), smelly trash, twirl (simple), dirty creature (simple.), vile litter, fool (razg), bastard, sucker (razg. neglect.), thief (simple, contemptible.), scoundrel, scum (simple.), swell (simple. contemptible.), subject, handsome, enemy, devil (simple.), ace (razg.), sagging couch, ten positions, shaitanka (simple.), bully, cretin (simple.), hungry (simple.) filthy, nemtyr, pawn (razg.), bitch (rude, simple.), hailo (rude, simple.), infection (rude, simple.), sevryuzhya blood, wettail, tattered hem, ham (razg.), shameless, book soul, a premature merchant, a crooked nose.

 The use of these lexical units, according to T.G. Rabenko, N.G. Nesterova, "is intended to indicate the attitude of the speaker to the interlocutor, the desire to lower the level of self-esteem of the latter, to demonstrate their superiority in front of him, and therefore the ability to dictate their will" [4].It should be noted that, in the grammatical system, according to V.S. Tretyakova, "the core of the speech genre " should be considered a verb.

A distinctive feature of the studied speech genre is the absence of the performative "threaten" in the speech utterance.

For example, T.G. Rabenko, N.G. Nesterova distinguish the following verbs as a verbal marker of "threat":

 

The use of verbs in the form of the imperative mood

And you keep quiet! (Tokareva. "The Unromantic man") ;Be silent!

(Dovlatov. "Reserve");

Do not take sweets from the table!Verbs of physical impact

verbs of striking: to beat, to hit, to warm up, to plant, to move;object deletion verbs: throw out, throw out, put out (out);

verbs of object damage: pull out (hair), tear off, unscrew (arms, legs, ears, head);

smash the muzzle, stab with a knife, etc.verbs of negative impact on the object: destroy, liquidate, kill, shoot, show (kuzkin's mother; where crayfish hibernate), pulverize in the meaning of "deal with someone, destroy", etc.

Verbs of social relations

verbs of compulsion: to drive (with a stick; with a filthy broom);verbs of influence: to de-expose, to fine, to get into an article; to plant, to find justice, to break a life, to leave with nothing

Thus, the use of verb forms gives statements a rigid, categorical character, indicates a confrontation between communicants, creates, according to T.G. Rabenko, N.G. Nesterova, "a special communicative and pragmatic space in which the speaker strives to achieve from the listener the fulfillment of certain requirements by controlling his actions" [5].

In our opinion, it is also necessary to specify syntactic constructions that are grammatical markers of verbal threat.

For example, V.V. Bystrov identifies the following syntactic constructions[4]:

 

syntactic constructions with a conditional component (you can conditionally imagine: if you don't do X, then I will do Y, which is not in your interests.

If you don't leave, then…statements without verbalization of the intended action

If I see you again…constructions with the word see in meaning

interjections - expresses a warning, a threat

Oh, look, little brother, you'll get through,....

I am statements + verb

I'll rip out your long tongue for you!

Subordinate independent : To.....!

To learn tomorrow....!

 The diagnosis of a verbal threat during the production of a forensic linguistic examination causes certain difficulties. This is due, according to T.S. Shakhmatova, "to the apparent evidence of threatening significance, since in the process of speech activity speech acts can be neutralized in certain types of contexts" [8].

In the work "Semantics of threat in the linguistic examination of the text" A.N. Baranov notes two types of threat: threats-punishments, threats-warnings.

"Threats-punishments are realized in situations when the addressee has done something undesirable for the speaker and he warns the addressee about the punishment that will follow. A.N. Baranov offers a universal way of interpreting the threat-punishment: "X threatens,/threatens,Y-y, what will P = 'X says Y-y, that P will do something bad for Y, because Y did something bad for Y (=Q), so that Y is afraid of P and realizes that it is not good to do bad for X (including Q) and did not do it in the future'".

 "A threat-warning is used in cases when the speaker understands that the addressee may commit something undesirable for him (or persons associated with him) and tries to prevent it" (Baranov 2013, 71). Interpretation of the threat-warning: "X threatens/threatens Y-ku, what will P do, (so that Y does not do Q) = X says Y-ku, what will P do – something bad for Y-ka, if Y does Q – something bad for X-a, so that X is afraid of P and does not do Q because of this"During the examination of the threat cases, it is assumed that the following tasks will be solved:

1. Are there signs of verbal aggression in the form of a threat in the specified text?

2. Are there any signs of incitement to any actions in the specified text? If so, what are the roles and functions of the interlocutors in the presented speech situation, what is the nature of the will of the communication participants (request, proposal, demand, warning, etc.) and what actions and their subjects, events and their participants, as well as the circumstances of the actions or events in question?"

In accordance with article 8 of the Federal Law on State Forensic Expert Activity, an expert is obliged to conduct research objectively, on a strictly scientific and practical basis, within the limits of the relevant specialty, comprehensively and in full. The object of linguistic expertise of materials on cases of threat is a statement. Like any speech/language sign, an utterance has a plan of content (meaning) and a plan of expression (form).

Let's consider the manifestation of the threat in the practical plane from the decree on the appointment of a forensic linguistic examination of a criminal case.

From the circumstances of the case: it is known that "in the period of time from "___".___._____ before "___".___._____, an unidentified person, by breaking the glass of the window of a country house located at the address: UUU, penetrated to the premises of the specified residential country house, from where the property belonging to the latter was secretly stolen, namely:  aaa

XXX is reasonably suspected of committing the specified crime.

"___".___.____ questioned as a witness by BBB, she gave evidence incriminating the involvement of a certain XXX in the commission of the specified crime. In addition, XXX learned that BBB had exposed her in the commission of a crime, used physical violence against the latter and made threats of physical violence, in order to force BBB to give false testimony.

During the operational search activities, it was established that XXX called a mobile phone with a SIM card of the MTS mobile operator with the number +__________, and he expressed threats of physical violence, if the BBB does not change the previously given testimony exposing XXX's involvement in the commission of the above crime.

"___".___.____ the _______ brand mobile phone seized from XXX was examined in a black case, during the inspection of which it was found that there was a text message received in incoming messages "___".___.____ from a subscriber signed in the examined mobile phone as "XXX", whose subscriber number +__________, the following content: "Be strong, bitch, I'll take your f...u apart and make you eat, bitch, don't get in my eyes and start praying to God."

 The following terms and definitions were used in the process of research and execution of the expert's conclusion.Addressee – the person to whom the speech (text) belongs, the sender of the speech message.

The addressee is a real or imaginary person to whom the speech (text) is addressed, the recipient of the speech message. 

An utterance is a unit of communication that has semantic integrity and can be perceived by the listener (addressee) in these communication conditions.

A communicative situation is a specific communication situation, which includes communication partners, conditions and ways of implementing a communicative task.

Verbal aggression is a form of verbal behavior aimed at insulting or intentionally causing harm.

A threat is a warning (I want you to know) about the speaker's desire to perform an undesirable (non–active) action for the listener (or a third person) if he has committed, commits, commits or resumes an action undesirable for the speaker or a third person, or has not committed, does not commit, does not want to commit or resume what is desirable for the speaker (less often — a third person) an action that is usually realized in the active emotional state of the speaker.

Goal setting is a linguistic way of presenting, organizing information by the addressee (speaker), aiming at one or another type of influence on the addressee, and as a typical representative of him – the listener (question, demand, request, advice, suggestion, threat, warning, objection, confirmation, etc.).

Explicit – expressed using language means, specifically designed for this expression. It is opposed to the implicit – expressed indirectly, in a hidden form.

Identification of research objects and their description

In order to establish the objects of the study, the expert conducted a preliminary acquaintance with the content of the submitted materials. The object of the study in accordance with the resolution is a written text (hereinafter the disputed text – ST): "Be strong bitch, I'll tear your f...u apart and make you eat bitch, don't get in my eyes and start praying to God," recorded in a copy of the table of illustrations.

The analysis of the linguistic characteristics of the ST showed the following.

The ST is a written text in the form of a message on the phone in Russian, has a semantic, logical, formal and grammatical connectedness of language units. The ST is designed in violation of the norms of spelling and punctuation, which makes it difficult, but does not exclude semantic understanding in general. Thus, ST is suitable for linguistic expertise.

Taking into account the specifics of updating the lexical, semantic-syntactic, stylistic, formal-logical levels of the written text, the methods of analysis of the materials provided are selected: component, lexical-semantic analysis, semantic-syntactic analysis, linguistic-stylistic analysis. Solution of issue No. 1

When solving issue No. 1 in the ST, signs of verbal aggression in the form of a threat were revealed.

The addressee of the threat is a person designated as "XXX" (according to the decree), the addressee is gr. xxxx, the illocutionary component is enhanced due to the fact that the addressing is personal. The verbalization of the threat occurs through the use of a statement in which aggressive actions are called, where the subject is the writer. The subject is indicated by the personal pronoun of the first person singular ("I").

The communicative construction of the threat is expressed by a verb in the form of the first person of the future tense with a generalized meaning of an undesirable action for the listener: "... I'll tear your ... apart and make you eat ...".

Yours is what belongs to you.[2].

Ass – ass, ass. [5].

Ass – zh. razg.-snizh. The part of the human body below the back; buttocks, buttocks.[2].

To tear the ass – jarg. arrest. corner. To deal cruelly with someone (threat).  [4].

A part is a fraction, a separate unit into which something whole is divided. [2].

I will force – force - Force to do something, to act in any way.[2].

Eat – ness. pereh. razg.-snizh. 1. Eat, eat.[2].

2. Eat greedily and a lot. [3].

In this statement, the addressee intends to commit aggressive actions that are undesirable for the addressee: to violently kill, tear a part of the addressee's body into fractions and force them to eat them, i.e. it will harm the addressee's health.

Communicative parameters of the target installation:

- updating by the addressee of the possibility of performing actions that may have an undesirable result for the addressee;

- an impulse of causation from the addressee, as a reaction to the previous actions/inactions of the addressee.

Thus, there are signs of verbal aggression in the form of a threat in the CT.

 

Solution of question No. 2

To solve this issue, it is necessary to have a communicative situation, i.e. the presence of interlocutors participating in a dialogue or polylogue.Conclusion.

In the presented texts, there are no signs of inducement to any actions in a communicative situation.

1.        There are signs of verbal aggression in the form of a threat in the text (ST) submitted for research.

2.        There were no statements containing signs of inducement to any actions in a communicative situation.

The analysis of the material under study shows that verbal threat as a communicative strategy has its own development scenario. According to N.A. Bout [2], "in the minds of native speakers, a threat is primarily a verbal action that has its regular signs, implemented in relatively stable grammatical constructions using lexical units of a certain semantic field that allow native speakers to identify these statements and identify them as a threat."

References
1. A. Kuznetsova.-St. Petersburg, 2001.-1535 p.
2. Large legal dictionary
3. Baranov A.N. Semantics of threat in the linguistic examination of the text // dialog-21.ru >digests/dialog2013///pdf/BaranovAN.pdf
4. Booth N.A. Some features of the use of threatening speech acts [Electronic resource] / N.A. Booth – Access mode: http://www.tstu.ru/old/education/elib/pdf/st/2004/buts.pdf .
5. Bystrov V.V. Functional and semantic analysis of menasive dialogic replicas: diss.. Candidate of Philology Tver, 2001, 124 p. Russian Russian language and modern Russian law
6. Nesterova N.N., Rabenko T.G. Linguistic means of realization of the speech genre of threat: Russian language and modern Russian law // Jurislinguistics-8: Russian language and modern Russian law. Interuniversity collection of scientific articles.-Kemerovo, Barnaul: Publishing House Alt. un., 2007.-pp. 235-244.
7. Tretyakova V.S. Lexical means of conflict in a communicative act// Speech aggression in modern culture. Chelyabinsk, 2005.
8. Tretyakova V.S. Conflict as a phenomenon of language and speech // Izvestiya Uralskogo gosuniveritet. 2003. No. 27 (website on the Internet).
9. Explanatory dictionary of Russian verbs. Ideographic description. English equivalents. Synonyms. Antonyms/ Edited by L.G. Babenko. M., 1999.
10. Shakhmatova T.S. Speech act of indirect threat in the practice of forensic linguistic expertise. Scientific notes of Kazan University, 2015;157(5):286-294. 11.
11. Yakimova N.S. Verbal aggression as an actual phenomenon of modern society.
12. Brown P., Stephen C. Politeness: Some universals in language usage: in 4 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Vol. 4. 355 p.
13. Harris S. The form and function of threats in court // Language & Communication. 2014. Vol. 4. Iss. 4. P. 247-271.
14. Fraser B. Threatening revisited // Forensics. 2008. Vol. 5. Iss. 2. P. 159-173.
15. Meloy J. R., Hoffmann J. International handbook of threat assessment. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. 322 ð.

Peer Review

Peer reviewers' evaluations remain confidential and are not disclosed to the public. Only external reviews, authorized for publication by the article's author(s), are made public. Typically, these final reviews are conducted after the manuscript's revision. Adhering to our double-blind review policy, the reviewer's identity is kept confidential.
The list of publisher reviewers can be found here.

The reviewed article deals with the issue of the verbal manifestation of a threat in a communicative act. The author examines this process using the example of criminal case materials, a number of literary texts, dictionaries. I think that the subject area of the work is quite relevant, even if there are a sufficient number of existing sources. The "verbal threat" assessment option proposed in the study is objective, accurate, and verified. The research methodology is focused on the principles of comparativism, and the actual analysis with an evaluative and empirical approach is also allowed. The work has been thought out, the basic concept has been fully developed, and the author's interest in the issue under study is beyond doubt. The structure of the study correlates with the genre of the scientific article, the main blocks are designed within the framework of the actual nominations. The systematic principle of analysis is maintained throughout the entire essay. For example, this is manifested in the following fragments: "aspects of the study of the phenomenon of "threat" we find in the works of A.N. Baranov, K.I. Brinev, N. A. Bout, B. B. Bystrov, V. S. Kovaleva, E. V. Lyubitskaya, I.A. Martynova, T. G. Rabenko, N. N. Nesterova, M.A. Osadchy, B. Fraizer, P. Gingiss", or "as T.S. Shakhmatova notes, "in law, the threat is part of several legal norms. For example, in criminal law, a threat is a method of incitement, driving to suicide (Article 110 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), involving a minor in committing a crime (Article 150 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), illegally obtaining information constituting a commercial or banking secret (Article 183 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), extortion (Article 163 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). In labor law, the presence of a threat is part of the concept of forced labor. The presence or absence of a threat can aggravate and mitigate (up to the exclusion of criminality of the act of Article 40 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) punishment", or "N.A. Booth identifies several identifying signs of a threat as an action: "1) the presence of a goal: to cause a feeling of fear, intimidate, offend, indicate an intention to harm, benefit, subordinate the will of a person, to force him to do something, to induce certain actions, to cause pain; 2) the presence of a result: consequences of varying severity, destruction of something, harm to someone or something, damage..." etc. In my opinion, the so–called graphic / visual format is also appropriate - these are tables. They are the limit of generalization, information in the general grade of available data. The style of the article correlates with the scientific type itself, no serious factual violations have been identified. The productivity of the work consists in a step-by-step unfolding of the topic, from available information blocks, available examples to a point-by-point analysis. The example considered in the work clearly shows the expression of an open threat, in my opinion, the availability of an explanation is available: "___".___.____ the _______ brand mobile phone seized from XXX was examined in a black case, during the inspection of which it was established that in incoming messages there is a text message received "___".___.____ from a subscriber signed in the examined mobile phone as "XXX", whose subscriber number +__________, the following content: "Be strong, bitch, I'm your... I'll tear you apart and make you eat, bitch, don't get in my way and start praying to God." It is necessary to correct the text of the SMS, because it omitted a sufficiently "important" word for examination. The SMS examination was carried out competently, fully, as noted in the following theses: "the analysis of the linguistic characteristics of CT showed the following. The ST is a written text in the form of a message on the phone in Russian, has a semantic, logical, formal and grammatical coherence of language units. The ST is designed in violation of the norms of spelling and punctuation, which makes it difficult, but does not exclude semantic understanding in general. Thus, CT is suitable for conducting linguistic expertise", "the addressee of the threat is a person designated as "XXX" (according to the resolution), the addressee is gr. xxxx, the illocutionary component is enhanced due to the fact that the addressing is personal. The verbalization of a threat occurs through the use of a statement in which aggressive actions are called, where the subject is the writer. The subject is indicated by the personal pronoun of the first person singular ("I"). The communicative construction of the threat is expressed by a verb in the form of the first person of the future tense with a generalized meaning of an undesirable action for the listener: "... I will tear your f... apart and make you eat ..." etc. The material can be used in the formation of related thematic works, when studying a course of criminology, even with actual linguistic expertise. The purpose of the study has been achieved, a number of tasks have been fully solved, the article corresponds to the profile of the journal, the basic design requirements have been taken into account. I recommend the peer-reviewed article "Verbal threat as an object of linguistic expertise" for open publication in the journal "Policing".