Features of Objects in Solving Forensic Tasks on Text Borrowing

Abstract

One of the main categories of forensic expertise is object. Our article conceptualizes this category concerning the forensic authorship examination of text borrowings. We model a system of speech objects that arise when text is illegally borrowed (plagiarism, copypaste) and should be investigated during the forensic examination of speech. From the standpoint of criminalistic identi cation theory, we describe the process and mechanism of borrowing (copy-paste) in various situations: rewriting or retyping someone else’s text manually, scanning a document or part of it from paper, borrowing in digital space using the copy + paste method. For the last method, the most commonly used, we consider in detail the “roles” of objects in borrowing and their signi cance for the identi cation procedure. The article demonstrates that the totality of compositions and texts is interconnected due to the re ection of textual material. According to general rules of criminalistic identi cation, objects are divided into veri able and searched, identifying and identi able. The presenting model of the objects system for the rst time provides a criminalistically adequate understanding of the essence of borrowing. That is the basis for a future forensic methodology that will reliably establish the presence or absence of text borrowing.