Insult as a challenge of modern linguistic expert practice

Abstract

The manuscript examines such an urgent issue in linguistics expertise of evaluating insults as a speech violation, primarily due to the lack of uniform methodological approaches in expert practice. The article identifies reasons for this state of affairs, pointing out problems from the late 90s to the early 2000s, such as the absence of a conceptual and terminological framework in linguistics expertise, unified terminology accepted among linguists, and the lack of unified principles, methods, and techniques for conducting expertise. The study reveals the problematic nature of assessing the indecency of a speech act as an act, which does not take into account such an important factor as people’s non-discrimination between the broad (ordinary) and narrow (legal) concepts of insult. Ignoring this phenomenon and using erroneous research approaches lead to contradictory expert and judicial practice and, as a result, to unjustified and unfair sentences. Based on this problem, it is said that it is necessary to develop an appropriate methodology as soon as possible to solve expert problems in cases of insult.