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

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 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":

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]:

 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."