Forensic Linguistics...

Evening all,

One of my modules this year at university is Forensic Linguistics. And I don't care whether you like, love or loathe English- the whole idea about investigating anything to do with forensics just gets our tails wagging and makes us all kinds of excited. When I first saw the modules that I could choose from, I literally thought to myself "I have to do this." There was nothing that was going to get in my way of becoming part investigator in my life; it was my time to shine in cracking the crimes. And if I'm being completely honest, part of my mind did go to CSI and Criminal Minds thinking that I could be the next person to solve a crime and be the hero. Don't lie to me, and tell me that you haven't watched one of those shows/episodes and not wanted to be the person that has the Eureka moment that puts everything together and you finally see what happened in a "ahhhhhhhh, I get it" moment.

One of the first things my lecturer said to us all was that it wasn't all about dead bodies and the hard hitting murder crimes and my heart dropped as I can imagine so did many others in the room who had held the same dream so dear to their heart. I thought we were going to be learning about how people can tell the difference between an actual suicide note and a fake one leading to the truth about a murder and whatnot. And although I'm sure in time, we'll touch on that, I know that the reality is going to probably be less hard hitting and more language bashing. But I think I'm okay with that.

The thing that gets me most interested is the fact that we say things and at the time, we have no idea how much of an impact or how much meaning is compacted into one simple, or so it appears to be, speech act. None of us think about the words we are going to use before we say them; we just do and they end up having the desired effect, most of the time anyway. That's one of the most interesting things about English Language, for me, looking beyond the seemingly random process of speaking and realising that beneath the surface, our minds work amazingly hard to unconsciously put across our thoughts, feelings and opinions without us even realising. I think that even without the murders and dead bodies, this module is going to be one of my favourite ones and it begs me to question whether or not I'd want to carry on down this sort of path (hoping that one day, my CSI dream might actually come true... I'm kidding- I think) and see where it could take me. The truth is, I don't know but I'm going to enjoy it whilst I get the amazing opportunity to learn about it all.

Peace out.