In Speaking of Crime: The Language of Criminal Justice, what is a solicitation's speech act? Is the specific speech act or the goal more important in determining if solicitation occurred?

In each of these speech acts, an understanding of linguistics can play an important role in investigations and trials. Solicitation is, as the authors write, "asking or inducing someone else" to commit a crime, usually a serious crime. So prosecutors must prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that a solicitor "intended the crime to be committed." Whether or not the crime is actually carried out is irrelevant to the guilt or innocence of the solicitor. But regardless, it has to be proven that the accused was not joking, or exaggerating, or trying to make some point.

As the authors write, semantics is crucial to cases of solicitation. In order to prove this crime, they write, it must be proven that the "speech act" is clearly "a request ... offer or command." Intent is crucial: precisely what one says (the "illocutionary act") is less important than the goal of the speech (known as the "perlocutionary act").

In other words, the key question is this: What does a person hope to gain by saying what they said? In the cases they cite in the chapter, the accused have gone beyond suggesting a crime to make specific requests—promising, or at least pointing out, that the solicited individual will receive some benefit (or, in the case of a command, avoid a negative consequence) by carrying out the proposition. The larger point is that linguistics is crucial to this process: "The essence of solicitation," the authors write, "is language."

What distinguishes solicitation from conspiracy to commit a crime in Speaking of Crime: The Language of Criminal Justice?

Conspiracy to commit a crime exists when two or more people knowingly and deliberately agree to the criminal act. Solicitation occurs when one person "solicits," or persuades by some means, someone else to commit a crime. The crime in question does not actually have to occur for solicitation or conspiracy to have occurred. In other words, if two people are proven to have conspired to commit fraud, then they are guilty of conspiracy. Under the law, they are guilty whether or not they actually followed through with their plan.

Linguistic analysis is often important in these cases. It can be used to determine if both parties knowingly conspired, if it was a case of one person soliciting the other, or if the perpetrator was acting independently.

The authors mention a case involving an athlete who visited the home of a drug dealer. After the exchange, which was recorded by a federal agent, the athlete was accused of conspiracy to sell cocaine. He was acquitted, however, based on an important piece of linguistic evidence. The drug dealer repeatedly used the word "I" in talking about selling drugs. That linguistic pattern indicated that both he and the athlete understood that he was acting alone as a drug dealer. In other words, linguistic analysis was used to determine that the drug dealer acted independently, not in a conspiracy with the athlete.