4.2 Subject, goals and objectives, subjects of judicial phonoscopic examination

Judicial phonoscopic examination is one of the legal procedures stipulated by the legislation to check the relevance and reliability of the information recorded on a phonogram, which has a value of proof.

The subject of phonoscopic examination is facts and circumstances established by phonograms on the basis of a complex of special knowledge in engineering, physical and mathematical, information, and linguistic technologies.

Phonoscopic examination is carried out in order to identify the speaker on the basis of voice and speech recorded on the phonogram, identify signs of erasing, copying, editing and other changes made to the phonogram during or after the recording, determining the conditions, circumstances, means and materials of the recording, also other facts that are relevant forensic evidence.

Judicial phonoscopic examination is appointed for the following tasks:

- identification and diagnosis of personality by voice and speech;

- identification of signs of editing and other changes introduced into the content of the phonogram during the production process or after the end of the sound recording;

- determination of conditions, circumstances, means and materials of sound recordings, as well as other facts on phonograms of evidentiary value.

The tasks that make up the subject of phonoscopic examination are identification and diagnostic. Identification tasks include, for example, identifying a person by voice and speech. To diagnostic tasks, in particular, the establishment of the number of the telephone to be dialed by the phonogram, the sound source by their tracks on the phonogram, etc.

In accordance with procedural legislation, expertise may be entrusted to a forensic expert institution or to any person possessing the special knowledge necessary to give an opinion. Thus, the law does not require that a forensic examination is necessarily carried out by employees of state forensic institutions. In practice, the production of forensic phonoscopic examinations in criminal cases, as a rule, is entrusted to expert institutions with the necessary specialized knowledge and technical means. In civil cases, judicial phonoscopic examinations are often appointed to non-state expert institutions or personally to experts. This is largely due to the large workload of departmental state forensic institutions with the production of expert examinations in criminal cases, which increases the time needed for the production of phonogram examinations and inevitably leads to a delay in judicial consideration of civil disputes.

It should be noted that when choosing a non-state forensic institution or a specific expert, it is important to pay special attention to checking its competence and the availability of equipment that meets modern requirements imposed by Russian legislation on measuring instruments. The specificity of forensic phonoscopic examination is that in order to solve many questions an expert must possess a wide range of knowledge from different fields of science and technology (linguistics and acoustics, mathematics, radio engineering, etc.).

It is necessary to indicate here that by virtue of Art. 16 of the Law on Forensic Expert Activities Experts who are full-time employees of state expert institutions are not entitled to accept instructions for conducting forensic examination directly from any authorities or persons, with the exception of the head of a public forensic institution, to carry out forensic activities as a non-governmental expert ( see, for example, Article 12 of the Instructions on the organization of the production of forensic examinations in state forensic institutions of the Ministry Justice of the Russian Federation, approved by order of the Minister of Justice of the Russian Federation dated 12.20.2002 No. 347). Accordingly, they are not entitled to carry out an “extrajudicial examination” in a civil case at the request of a lawyer without a request from the head of the expert institution.

Participants in the civil or arbitration process apply to experts in the field of phonoscopic examination at almost all stages of legal proceedings. At the initial stage - to assist in clearing the received phonograms from noise and interference and establishing the verbatim content recorded on the phonogram of the negotiations.

This is necessary in order to verify the relevance of recorded verbal and non-verbal information to the materials of the case. At the same time, the task of rewriting a phonogram that has been filtered and cleaned from noise can be assigned to another magnetic medium.

The textual recording of the sounding speech, compiled by a specialist, is known to more accurately correspond to the sound content of the phonogram. When establishing the verbatim content and its reflection in the form of a written text, one should pay attention not only to the “readability” of the received text, but also to the placement of punctuation marks in accordance with the division of the sounding speech into separate semantic units. In the well-established practice of phonoscopic examinations, a certain notational system has been established, based on a combination of several principles:

- "readability" - the text should be perceived by a non-specialist, therefore, the sounding text should be presented in spelling notes, and punctuation marks should be used to separate structural units and clarify their semantic meaning; to indicate the function of completeness, the setting of a point is used; the incompleteness is a comma, respectively, question marks and exclamations to indicate the corresponding modalities;

- selective "detail" - individual elements of speech, subjected to detailed phonetic analysis, are displayed using transcription (for example, speech defects or individual specificity of pronunciation, features of intonation, etc.);

- non-verbal manifestations in speech (cry, crying, laughter) and features of the communication situation should be described verbally in the form of a comment, and not denoted by conditional symbols. At the same time, elements of the auditory assessment of the sound situation should not be presented in the form of the results of objective measurements.

Here it is important to emphasize another significant point. Documentation of telephone and other conversations is often carried out using digital voice recorders. The speech signal is recorded either on a digital magnetic carrier or in the memory of a tape recorder. In the future, there may be a problem when introducing the phonogram to the materials of the case, since each time it is hardly advisable to attach the digital voice recorder itself even for economic reasons. The way out of this situation is as follows. In such cases, according to the author, it is advisable to assign a phonoscopic examination (or phonoscopic research at the stage of preparing the case for trial), the resolution of which can put three questions:

1) to establish the literal content of the information recorded on the phonogram;

2) to make a re-recording of the phonogram, which has evidentiary value, onto the presented medium (cassette, diskette or CD-disk);

3) to establish whether there are signs of editing or modifications to the phonogram being represented.

Thus, the court may attach a copy of the phonogram (as a derivative of physical evidence) to the case materials, the accuracy of which is confirmed by the conclusion of the phonoscopic examination and the expert testimony (clarification of the specialist on matters within his professional competence) that during copying changes (no part of the controlled negotiations was omitted, withdrawn, added or distorted). It seems that this approach is fully justified.

I would like to draw attention to the groundlessness of the current opinion that phonograms on digital recording media "are not accepted by the courts as evidence." Indeed, phonograms on digital media present some difficulty for experts in research, but this does not mean that they cannot be used as evidence in principle. It should be borne in mind that the current legislation does not contain norms prohibiting the inclusion of phonogram on a digital recording medium in the case file.

Another task that can be solved in the course of phonoscopic research is the diagnosis of the personality characteristics of the speaker, whose speech is recorded on a phonogram. On the basis of dinguistic analysis, with a certain degree of certainty, it is possible to assess gender, age and anatomical and physiological characteristics of the speaker, emotional state (deviation from the norm, anxiety, tension, presence and type of emotions, such as excitement, surprise, fear, etc.), psychophysiological state (abnormality, the presence of pathology). According to the results of the linguistic study of the oral text on the phonogram, individual-personal characteristics of the speaker can be established, for example, mother tongue, degree of knowledge of the language, level of education and development of speech culture, socio-cultural status (social affiliation, upbringing, etc.), temperament, self-esteem, attitude towards interlocutors, role-playing in the conversation, presence of accent, dialect, belonging to a certain professional environment, etc.

The next task solved by phonoscopic examination is to establish the fact of an unusual state or unusual conditions of generation of an oral or written text. Witnesses may change their testimony during the trial.

Arguments are made as arguments that the testimony was given from "other people's words." Establishing the fact of playing out the memorized testimony aloud or reading it, dictating or otherwise influencing a person whose testimony is recorded in the minutes of the court hearing indicates that there is another participant along with the performer - the author, whose participation can be proved with the help of special linguistic knowledge. To this end, the question of whether the sounding speech on a phonogram is spontaneous, involuntary, or the reproduction of a memorized text can be a distortion of oral-speech skills can be asked to resolve the phonoscopic examination. We illustrate this point by example.

In the case of determining the place of residence with the father or mother of a minor, the plaintiff presented the phonogram of the respondent’s telephone conversation with a third party. The content of the conversation, according to the plaintiff, confirmed that the respondent was engaged in prostitution, led an immoral lifestyle, and therefore the place of residence of the minor should have been determined by the place of registration of the father, and not the mother (respondent). At the request of the plaintiff’s side, a phonoscopic forensic examination was appointed. Each party submitted to the court questions that should have been resolved by the examination. After the views of the parties were heard, the court in the decision on the appointment of a phonoscopic examination raised the following questions:

1. Determine the verbatim content of the conversation on the phonogram and attribute the cues according to their affiliation to each of the participants in the dialogue.

2. Has the phonogram been made by editing and have there been any changes made to it during the production of the sound recording or after its completion?

3. What is the type of activity, profession, cultural and educational level of each of the participants in the conversation, as well as their emotional state at the time of the negotiations on their speech portraits?

4. Do the voices and speeches belong to the persons being checked: K. K. and S. S. (respondent)?

5. Is the oral speech in the phonogram presented spontaneous or memorized, or is it reproduced during the performance?

6. Are there signs of an unusual psycho-emotional state?

7. Were the participants of the conversation recorded on the phonogram in a painful or alcoholic or narcotic intoxication?

8. How relevant is the use of the vocabulary used in the dialogue to the level of upbringing of a child under six years of age?

9. How can the use of words and expressions inherent in the lexicon of the participants in a dialogue, in the presence or in reference to a child under six years of age, influence the development of a language personality?

In the conclusion of the phonoscopic examination, in particular, it was stated that the linguistic analysis of the text of a telephone conversation showed that the speech in the dialogue is spontaneous in nature with all the features of the syntactic organization of spontaneous speech, in the presence of hezitation pauses, fractional segmentation. In C. replicas there is a pronounced setting - a directional effect on the interlocutor. It is easily found on the entire text of the phonogram.

S.'s replicas are characterized by a somewhat slower pace, fractional segmentation into syntagmas, a large number of phrasal secret accents, often of the subjective-modal type. The basic emotion of discontent is clearly expressed, which corresponds to the theme of the dialogue. In addition to excretory phrasal accents, S. gr. Uses a syllabic pronunciation of words that play the role of semantic centers of expression. The psycho-emotional state corresponds to the topic under discussion. The speech of S. S. ki does not reveal any trace of alcohol intoxication, nor the features characteristic of persons in a state of narcotic intoxication.

Two-thirds of Mr. S.'s expressions contain abusive words, i.e. obscene vocabulary, including swear words associated with sexual perversions. A sophisticated mat is used in various kinds of morphological forms, it is organically included in the statements and thus testifies to the established automated manner of communication, the absence of elements of moral inhibition in the use of words and expressions that are taboo in society. Based on the substantive side of the statements in the dialogue, it can be concluded that Mr. S. is no different to the puritan way of life, does not consider it inadmissible to discuss the facts of his intimate personal life and free sexual relations with third parties, on the contrary, he prefers a way of life peculiar to women of the lung behavior. The use of the vocabulary used in the dialogue to the level of perception of a child under six years of age does not match. The use of obscene words and expressions used in the dialogue, as well as revelations about the intimate side of the participant's sexual life with a female voice in the presence of a child under six years of age negatively affects the formation of his morality and ethics as a person.

Taking into account the above conclusions of the examination, the court ruled by determining the place of residence of the minor - the house of his father, and not his mother, thereby satisfying the stated claims.

Deliberate distortion of oral or written speech is directly related to the task of establishing the fact of its preliminary preparation, since certain forms of distortion require certain work, including memorizing the manner of speech of another person imitated by the speaker. At the same time, the establishment of the fact of deliberate distortion of oral speech is one of the most intractable tasks of phonoscopic examination.

Signs that indicate deliberate distortion of speech are features of a written speech message, reflecting the contradictions of the properties and characteristics of its author, incompatible states as a result of a conscious restructuring by the author of the document's own writing skills.

Under the disguise of speech refers to the implementation of various means of installation to conceal the authorship or state of the author at the time of generation of the text. Masking can be carried out by co-authorship; writing the text by one person, and writing or reading aloud to another; layouts of speech messages from fragments of texts by other authors, etc. Deliberate distortion also relates to one of the ways to disguise speech.

The most common types of intentional distortion are: a decrease in literacy; speech neutralization; imitation of the speech of a particular person, imitation of the speech of a person of the opposite sex; imitation of the speech of the elderly; imitation of speech of a young person; speech imitation of a representative of a specific professional group; speech imitation of marginal or criminal social groups; imitation of speech, subject to the influence of a particular dialect; imitation of speech of a person in a state of emotional stress (stress), imitation of alcohol or other intoxication, imitation of speech with signs of pathology, etc.

When conducting a diagnostic study, it is important to reconstruct the components of a speech communication situation correctly and as fully as possible: the motivation of communication; personal factors that determine the process of communication, such as the role of each participant; installation in its various aspects; microsociological factors of communication; микро- и макроситуативные факторы ориентировки (пространственные и временные условия контакта (влияние дефицита времени), навыки и технику общения в связи с речевыми и неречевыми факторами и др.

Существенное отличие неподготовленной речи заключается в том, что при спонтанном порождении речи нет времени для отбора слов и контроля правильности синтаксических конструкций. В ней используются те слова, которые находятся наготове. При неразработанности активного словаря (недостаточной сформированное™ механизма подбора адекватных слов) и некоторой сложности речевого задания в неподготовленной речи будут проскальзывать не адекватные теме слова, появятся оговорки, замены, исправления по ходу речи, паузы, в том числе хезитационные и т.д.

Как известно, успешное общение невозможно без овладения определенными тактическими приемами речевого поведения и техникой общения. Это процессы взаимодействия между людьми, содержанием которых является установление контакта, ориентировка в ситуации, обмен информацией, оказание воздействия на информанта, реализация взаимоотношений с помощью вербальных и невербальных средств коммуникации. Средствами общения являются речь, мимика, жесты, другие невербальные средства.

Можно обратить внимание на основные моменты, которые желательно принимать во внимание при реконструкции и моделировании ситуации речевой коммуникации, зафиксированной на материальном носителе в графической или иной форме (звучащая речь на фонограмме).

Что известно эксперту о ситуации речевого взаимодействия? Какова была стратегическая цель речевого контакта? Цель речевого общения определяется исходя из стратегических задач каждого лица, непосредственно участвующего в ситуации коммуникации. Так, например, в конфликтной ситуации, когда происходит выяснение отношений между группой лиц, близко знающих друг друга, ход разговора и даже отдельные фразы, тактика ведения переговоров нередко продумываются заранее. Однако при выборе тех или иных слов или грамматических форм участники конфликтной ситуации нередко руководствуются не стратегической задачей достичь взаимопонимания и найти решение проблемы, достичь примирения, а второстепенной - стремятся доказать свою правоту, сохранить "лицо", нарушить эмоциональное равновесие собеседника, оскорбляя и обвиняя его. Ситуация может кардинально изменяться с изменением речевых тактик и стратегий коммуникантов, использующих вместо ожидаемых резких выражений или высказываний инвективного плана такие речевые приемы, как уверение в добрых намерениях, сожаление о горячности, неожиданный комплимент или похвала.

What are the features of the studied speech interaction events? Speech strategies and tactics of speech behavior are part of the knowledge about the world, which are formed and replenished during the life of a person. In order to achieve communicative goals, speakers should have an idea about the types of speech behavior in different situations, mutual common "background" knowledge. What is obvious to one interlocutor may be perceived as strange or incomprehensible to another. The types of speech behavior possess national-cultural specificity. Therefore, a person entering a foreign socio-cultural environment may have difficulty understanding some speech actions. Some types of ritual speech actions allow learning and memorizing speech formulas or clichés.

Каковы позиции участников в диалоге? Позиции сторон в разговоре могут быть симметричными и несимметричными, сильными или слабыми. В рамках стратегии построения имиджа существуют определенные приемы "игры на повышение (себя) или понижение (партнера)". Эту же функцию могут выполнять и такие диалогические тактики, как контроль и перехват инициативы, контроль темы, манеры общения. Так, например, в ожидании сопротивления со стороны собеседника говорящий может избрать речевую тактику с превышением коммуникативных усилий. Если заведомо известна позиция партнера, иногда предпочтение отдается не прямым, а косвенным тактикам речевого воздействия, например в форме неявной просьбы, похвалы, комплимента, лести и т.п. Немаловажна и дистанция между собеседниками, которая может корректироваться коммуникантами в процессе переговоров в ту или иную сторону. Известны определенные языковые показатели неформальных или, напротив, официальных отношений, которые позволяют свести контроль за дистанцией к ряду речевых приемов. Так, например, если собеседник уклоняется от контакта, он может использовать специальные приемы "отстранения" - нанесение обиды, издевка, выбор уничижительного тона, неинтересной собеседнику темы, диалогические тактики уклонения от инициативы, уменьшение частотности сигналов сближения и т.д.

Каковы установки участников диалога на тип общения (кооперативное / конфронтационное)? Несовпадение установок приводит к необходимости применения эмоционально настраивающих тактик, различных приемов самопрезентации, использование речевых тактик похвалы, комплимента, "игры на повышение" партнера, лести и т.д.

В случае установки собеседника на конфронтацию можно использовать такие контрприемы, как положительно эмоционально настраивающие тактики, тактики отвода критики, поддержания добрых отношений. Например, если один собеседник пытается доминировать в диалоге, то другой может предпочесть тактику перехвата инициативы, резкой смены темы разговора, переключения внимания, смещения фокуса разговора на малозначимые вопросы и т.п.

Какие языковые ресурсы были использованы для реализации замысла партнеров по коммуникации? Стратегические цели и намерения собеседников прямо или косвенно отражаются в поверхностных языковых структурах текста. В качестве лингвистических показателей речевых тактик могут выступать лексические, семантико-синтаксические фонетические и невербальные характеристики (формы повелительного наклонения характерны для тактики конфронтации "Поговори еще!"; эмоциональные варианты синтаксических синонимов, необычность использования синтаксических структур, выражение отрицания путем утверждения "Мне это так надо!" - для положительно эмоционально настраивающих тактик и т.п.).

In general, it should be emphasized that diagnostic studies of speech require a large amount of specialized knowledge and databases, logistics and special conditions. For the time being, such studies are carried out exclusively on the material of the Russian language, since the specialist (expert) must be fluent in the language in which the conversation is being recorded recorded on a phonogram.