Published July 25, 2026
Why Language in Abuse Cases Has Become a Focal Point
Coercive control, as conceptualized by Evan Stark in his 2007 work “Coercive Control: The Entrapment of Women in Personal Life,” describes a pattern of controlling behaviors more akin to terrorism and hostage-taking, encompassing tactics such as micromanaging dress, speech, sexual activity, and work. Stark argued that the criminal justice system’s limited view of domestic abuse as individual episodes of physical violence overlooked the continuous application of controlling tactics, including emotional abuse, social isolation, economic restriction, and manipulation.
Because much of this control now travels through text messages, social media platforms, and messaging applications, researchers in the field of forensic linguistics abuse have turned to digital communication as a rich source of evidence. A 2026 study published in the Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict investigated how psychological abuse is discursively enacted through subtle forms of coercion and control in Italian cyberstalking cases, drawing on a corpus of 447 messages sent by male perpetrators to female victims across three cases. Its findings showed that digital coercion is sustained through recurring written strategies that present domination as affection, normalizing psychological abuse as care, or as Carisa Carlton identifies it, the weaponization of love. This observation illustrates why identifying linguistic markers of abuse in digital records has become an increasingly prominent area of academic inquiry and legal practice.
How Forensic Linguistics Maps Patterns of Control
Forensic linguistics abuse research applies speech act theory, discourse analysis, and related frameworks to identify communicative strategies that reflect asymmetric power. The Italian cyberstalking study, for example, drew on Speech Act Theory (Austin, 1962; Searle, 1969) and Pence and Paymar’s (1993) “Power and Control Wheel,” combining linguistic and psychological coding to trace communicative patterns ranging from affective appeals to veiled threats and surveillance. By combining forensic linguistics and psychology, the researchers proposed a framework for identifying linguistic indicators of coercive control. To apply these ideas to one text, check a message for coercive control.
Speech act theory is a framework in the philosophy of language and linguistics that analyzes how utterances do things rather than merely describe or report them.
It treats language as a form of action. When you speak, you are not only conveying information; you are performing acts such as promising, ordering, apologizing, asserting, warning, or declaring.
In a separate line of research, Pomerantz, Cohen, Doychak, and Raghavan (2021) examined linguistic markers abuse in the context of sex trafficking. Their study extended coercive behavior to the linguistic domain by examining the linguistic correlates of long-term coercive relationships, using transcripts of wiretapped conversations spanning a two-year period between two pimps and four women they sexually exploited. The findings suggested a complementary linguistic dimension to the commonly reported behavioral repertoire of coercive control tactics; specifically, the victims consistently complied with the microregulation and surveillance presumed by their exploiters by engaging in discursive overelaboration, which often included details of their location, activity, and timing. This overelaboration served as a linguistic marker of internalized control, demonstrating that patterns of dominance can be decoded not only from the perpetrator’s language but also from the victim’s responsive speech.
Research from Namibia has addressed a related question from a different angle. A forensic linguistic investigation examined threat text messages addressed to victims of gender-based violence reported to the Namibian Police Force in Windhoek, with objectives including an examination of the linguistic evidence, features, and choices within those messages and the discourse structures they employed.
Text Message Evidence in Legal Proceedings
Text message evidence abuse is relevant in multiple legal contexts. Text messages can be used as evidence of abuse in various proceedings, including restraining orders, divorce, child custody disputes, and criminal cases; their admissibility depends on the rules of evidence in the relevant jurisdiction, but courts generally accept them if they are relevant and properly authenticated, particularly when messages contain threats, admissions, apologies, or descriptions of violent acts.
In England and Wales, section 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015 created the offence of controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship, triable summarily or on indictment and carrying a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) prosecution guidance identifies digital records as a key category of evidence. The Statutory Guidance Framework outlines a non-exhaustive list of evidence types that could prove the offence, building on examples that include phone records, text messages, and device logs, as well as evidence of abuse over the internet, digital technology, and social media platforms.
The CPS guidance emphasizes that in many cases the conduct might seem innocent when considered in isolation from other incidents, and that the consideration of the cumulative impact of controlling or coercive behaviour and the pattern of behaviour within the context of the relationship is crucial. This pattern-based approach to prosecution aligns with how forensic linguists analyze abuse: individual messages may appear unremarkable, but their frequency, tone, and escalation across time can reveal a controlling dynamic.
Courts in the United States similarly admit text messages, though the procedural requirements vary by jurisdiction. Courts often classify text messages as hearsay, but they may be allowed under exceptions, such as admissions of guilt or excited utterances, and the prosecution may introduce threatening or harassing messages as proof of intent or a pattern of abusive behavior.
Challenges in Analyzing Digital Evidence of Control
Despite the evidentiary potential, significant challenges remain. Research by Huber and Godfrey at the University of Liverpool on digitally enabled coercive control (DECC) found that in a significant proportion of recorded incidents, digitally enabled coercive control was misidentified or not identified at all, which can lead to missed lines of investigation and misreporting of the scale of coercive control. Their report also noted an over-reliance on messages and call records, with insufficient planning on how to analyse huge volumes of data in a timely fashion.
An article published in PMC on the interpretation of forensic text-based communications materials highlighted the analytical complexity involved. In the analysis of a series of text-based messages, questions posed might include “What does this term mean in this context?” and “Do these messages substantiate controlling and/or coercive behaviour?” Answering such questions demands both linguistic expertise and contextual understanding of the entire corpus.
Context is essential because, as several practitioners and scholars have observed, digital material is often ambiguous, and jokes, sarcasm, memes, or suggestive messages can be easily misunderstood, especially when presented out of sequence, which is why expert defence teams often bring in digital communication analysts or forensic linguists.
Make no mistake: Analysis of DECC requires intensive human labor; LLMs are not currently able to complete this analysis consistently and reliably. We err on the side of caution, providing grace when in doubt, identifying patterns across a longitudinal corpus.
Resources for Further Reading
This article provides general educational information and does not constitute legal advice. Individuals seeking support may contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline (U.S.) or the National Domestic Abuse Helpline (England). For academic research on forensic linguistics and coercive control, the Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict and Violence Against Women offer peer-reviewed resources. The CPS prosecution guidance on controlling or coercive behaviour provides a detailed overview of the legal framework in England and Wales.
Sources
- Forensic linguistic evidence of psychological abuse and discursive manipulation in cyberstalking cases, Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict, 2026
- Linguistic Indicators of Coercive Control: Evidenced in Sex Trafficking Narratives, Pomerantz et al., 2021
- Controlling or Coercive Behaviour prosecution guidance, Crown Prosecution Service
- Controlling or coercive behaviour: statutory guidance framework, UK Government, 2023
- Tackling Digitally Enabled Coercive Control, N8 Policing Research Partnership / University of Liverpool
- An augmented evidence base for the interpretation of forensic text-based communications materials, PMC, 2025
- Coercive Control: Update and Review, Stark and Hester, Violence Against Women, 2019
Disclaimer
Coercive control law moves fast. Jurisdictions are actively criminalizing it, amending definitions, and changing the scope of litigation. This article is current as of its date of publication and may not reflect subsequent changes. It is provided for general educational purposes and is not legal advice.