Victoria Guillén Nieto graduated with a degree in English Philology from the University of Alicante in 1986. She obtained a Bachelor's Degree from the same university in 1987, specialising in Applied Linguistics, and 2008, she obtained a Master's Degree in Forensic Linguistics from Pompeu Fabra University. She received her PhD in English Philology from the University of Alicante in 1993. Since 1997, she has been a tenured professor of Applied Linguistics in the Department of English Philology at the University of Alicante, where she was director from 2003 to 2009. She currently teaches Professional and Academic English in the English Studies Degree programme and Forensic Linguistics in the Master's Degrees in English and Spanish for Specific Purposes and in Criminal Investigation and Forensic Sciences. She directs the Master's Degree in English and Spanish for Specific Purposes and the dual Master's Degree in English and Spanish for Specific Purposes and Forensic Linguistics, which is offered in collaboration between the University of Alicante and the East China University of Political Sciences and Law (ECUPL) in Shanghai, a programme she also helped promote. From September 2019 to September 2021, she served as President of the International Language and Law Association (ILLA) in the field of Linguistics. In 2023, she was elected Executive Secretary of ILLA for a term of four years, until 2027. Her primary areas of research are Forensic Linguistics, Legal Linguistics, and Pragmatics. Among her latest publications are the monographs The Language of Harassment: Pragmatic Perspectives on Language as Evidence (Lexington Books, 2024) and Hate Speech. Linguistic Perspectives (De Gruyter, 2023).  

She is also the editor of Manual of Romance Forensic Linguistics (with Dieter Stein) (Walter De Gruyter, 2025); From Fear to Hate. Legal-Linguistic Perspectives on Migration (with Antonio Doval and Dieter Stein) (De Gruyter, 2023); Language as Evidence: Doing Forensic Linguistics (with Dieter Stein) (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022); She is also co-author with Jan Engber of the article ‘Language and Law’ (International Encyclopedia of Linguistics and Language, Elsevier, 2024), and author of the article ‘The relevance of context in plagiarism detection: The case of a professional legal genre’. Ibérica, 101-122 (2020); and of the book chapter ‘What else can you do to pass...?’ A pragmatic approach to quid pro quo sexual harassment. In Jante Giltrow, Frances Olsen and Donato Mancini (eds.), Legal Meanings. The Making and Use of Meaning in Legal Reasoning. Foundations of Language and Law, 1, 31-55. (De Gruyter, 2021). Since 2009, she has provided professional assistance as an expert in Forensic Linguistics (Member No. 3,310) in Spain, Switzerland, Sweden and the United States.