The Carlsberg Foundation funds new research into threatening messages

Threatening messages are an increasing menace in modern society causing both personal distress and costly investigations. Threats instil fear in their recipients, an effect largely produced by language. However, very little is known about the linguistic characteristics of threats. The project "Understanding Threats: Language and Genre" offers an innovative combination of linguistics and genre studies to attain both detailed and comprehensive insights into the linguistic features and rhetorical structure of threatening messages. The project includes the formation of a corpus of threatening messages, building upon two already published but as yet non-digitalised books of authentic Danish threats.
Scientifically, the project promises new insights into 'illicit genres' and how they are recontextualised in legal texts, e.g. indictments and verdicts.