Abstract

Suicide notes maybe investigated within the purview of forensic authorship to provide expert opinions on the authenticity of disputed authorship and rule out cases of murder-framed-as-suicide. However, this study focuses on another forensically linguistic way (being the focus of the study) of examining suicide notes namely with the reference to the testamentary capacity of suicide notes written to serve as admissible last wills and testaments within the confines of the law. This study uses instances of underaged (below the age of 16) and adult suicide notes from South Africa with testamentary intentions. It also explores suicide notes that can be considered as statements of wishes and requests while, not necessarily having full testamentary effects. Using eclectic linguistic theories and approaches such as cooperative principles, discourse analysis, discourse pragmatics, speech acts, and audience design, the study notes that while holographic wills (usually handwritten) and suicide notes written to achieve testamentary effects must satisfy the four maxims of Grice’s Cooperative Principle, they usually use the constative (direct and clear language) dimension of linguistic constructions. However, suicide notes classified as statements of wishes and requests are hinged on the audience to which the note is addressed to- who usually have a shared performative understanding of the linguistic constructions used. The study concludes that suicide notes as wills can either be explicitly or implicitly expressed which foregrounds the constative and performative dimensions of the linguistic behavior involved. However, admissibility is usually hinged on specific jurisdiction(s) and the peculiarities of individual cases.