Da “intimidação intencional” aos “ciúmes excessivos”: uma análise linguística forense das Fichas de Avaliação de Risco

Abstract

Domestic violence and its legal processing involve language to a large extent. In Portugal, one of the resources used to handle accusations of domestic violence is the Risk assessment forms (Fichas de Avaliação de Risco) -a set of 20 questions asked by the police or legal o cer to the victim. This article presents the results of a forensic linguistic analysis of these questions. The analysis shows that these questions have several linguistic problems that may hamper the e ectiveness of the risk assessment forms at the level of syntax, semantics, lexis/terminology and pragmatics/discourse. Consequently, the victim may misinterpret the questions, and their answer can in turn be misinterpreted by the o cers. The level of risk for the victim can, as a result, be wrongly assessed and eventually jeopardise the victim's safety.