Idiolect is the individual’s unique version of a language—the set of personal lexical, grammatical, and stylistic choices that distinguish one native speaker’s speech and writing from another’s (Coulthard et al., 2nd ed.). Forensic linguists rely on the notion that an idiolect leaves “distinctive and idiosyncratic choices” in a text, using these patterns as a “linguistic fingerprint” to attribute authorship in questioned‑document cases (Chapter 8). The concept underpins methods that compare preferred word co‑selections and other recurring habits to identify a writer.
Definition drawn from An Introduction to Forensic Linguistics: Language in Evidence (Coulthard, Johnson & Wright, 2nd ed.). Extracted text: /Volumes/mu-not/projects/zodiac/books/an_introduction_to_forensic_linguistics_language_in_evidence/an_introduction_to_forensic_linguistics_language_in_evidence.txt.
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