Forensic Linguistics

The phrase forensic linguistics was first used in

1968 by Jan Svartvik, a professor of linguistics.
A branch of applied linguistics that investigates
issues of language in relation to the law, drawing on
resources from semantics, acoustic phonetics,
discourse analysis, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, and
other fields.
Forensic linguistics is the application of the
linguistics to legal matters.
Forensic linguistics is based on the study,
understanding and use of the language for forensic
purposes.

Use of linguistic evidence in legal proceedings

These areas of application have varying degrees of
acceptability or reliability within the field. Linguists have
provided evidence in:
Trademark and other intellectual property disputes
Disputes of meaning and use
Author identification (determining who wrote an anonymous
text by making comparisons to known writing samples of a
suspect; such as threat letters, mobile phone texts or
emails)
Forensic stylistics (identifying cases of plagiarism)
Voice identification, also known as forensic phonetics, used
to determine, through acoustic qualities, if the voice on a
tape recorder is that of the defendant)
Discourse analysis (the analysis of the structure of written
or spoken utterance to determine who is introducing topics
or whether a suspect is agreeing to engage in criminal
conspiracy)
Language analysis (forensic dialectology) tracing the
linguistic history of asylum seekers (

Linguistic fingerprinting
A linguistic fingerprint is a concept put forward by some
scholars that each human being uses language differently,
and that this difference between people involves a
collection of markers which stamps a speaker/writer as
unique; similar to a fingerprint. Under this view, it is
assumed that every individual uses languages differently
and this difference can be observed as a fingerprint. It is
formed as a result of merged language style. A person's
linguistic fingerprint can be reconstructed from the
individual's daily interactions and relate to a variety of selfreported personality characteristics, situational variables
and physiological markers (e.g. blood pressure, cortisol,
testosterone). In the process of an investigation, the
emphasis should be on the relative rather than absolute
difference between the authors and how investigators can
classify their texts.

Forensic linguistics is applied in these

different areas:
1.
Law language
2.
Judicial procedure language
3.
Linguistic evidence in judicial
procedure:

FORENSIC TEXT TYPES

Emergency calls
Ransom demands and other threat
texts
Suicide letters
Final death row statements
Confessions and denials by public
persons

Emergency calls
Operators skills

Intonation
Voice Speech
Timely responses
Cooperation

How to discover a hoax call

Hesitation
Incomplete or short answers
Avoid giving information

Ransom demands and other

threat texts
Threat is a counterpart of a promise and is an important

feature in a ransom demand. Ransom demands are also

examined to identify between genuine and false threats.

More common characteristics

To cause fear to the receptor to get what the writer wants
Anonymous

Some examples of threat texts

Hate Mail
Mobile phone texts
Terrorism
Kidnapping

Suicide letters

A suicide note is typically brief, concise and highly propositional

with a degree of evasiveness. A credible suicide letter must be
making a definite unequivocal proposition in a situational
context. The proposition of genuine suicide is thematic, directed
to the addressee (or addressees) and relevant to the relationship
between them. Suicide notes generally have sentences alluding
to the act of killing oneself, or the method of suicide that was
undertaken. The contents of a suicide note could be intended to
make the addressee suffer or feel guilt. Genuine suicide letters
are short, typically less than 300 words in length. Extraneous or
irrelevant material is often excluded from the text.
Characteristics
Brevity
Concise
Evasiveness
Express guilt

Final death row

statements
Death row statements either admit the crime,
leaving the witness with an impression of honesty
and forthrightness; or deny the crime, leaving the
witness with an impression of innocence. They
may also denounce witnesses as dishonest,
critique law enforcement as corrupt in an attempt
to portray innocence or seek an element of
revenge in their last moments (Olsson 2004).
Look for forgiveness
Speakers want to share something crucial
They want to die with dignity

Confessions and denials by public persons

Explain aspects of struggle

To conserve (save) honor

Terrorism cases.
The intervention of a linguist in the
analysis of conversations before
these went to trial can be helpful
Audio recordings: always the major
evidence in the linguistic analysis of
terrorism cases

Terrorism + Linguistics =
linked words.

Social media
Social media statements are often context
specific, and their interpretation can be
highly subjective. Forensic application of a
selection of stylistic and stylometric
techniques in a simulated authorship
attribution case involving texts has been
done in relation to Facebook. Analysis of
social media postings can reveal whether
they are illegal (e.g. sexist) or ethical (e.g.
intended to harm) or whether they are not
(e.g. simply provocative or free speech).

 Gibbons (2006:285) says the legal institution is very

important because it is such an influential institution,
which is packed with language problems.
Almost everything we do is carried out within a legal
frame- i.e. ownership of piece of land, building contracts,
employment, marriage etc.
Farinde (2008) notes that the laws of the land are coded
in language, legal processes, police interrogations,
prosecutions are all done through language.
In the western world such as Britain, United States,
Canada, Australia, etc., linguists are being called upon to
offer expert opinions and advice on difficult language
problems in legal settings.

 Discourse analysis was first used to analyse

the tape recorded evidences against
suspects by the law enforcement agencies.
Discourse analysis was also used in the
stylistic identification of authors of written
documents, in the patterned language use of
voice identification, identification of crucial
passages in civil cases such as disputes over
contracts, product naming labels and other
forms of identification (Farinde, 2008:02)

Child Witness in AL
This area is a growing and sensitive
one in forensic linguistics. Linguists
believe that the questioning format
in child witness can lead to either the
success or failure of the interview
process. A childs answers have
important consequences.

Identification
Identification may involve comparing two or
more language samples to know whether they
were produced by the same speaker or not. It
may mean getting information about the person
who produced the language, using indicators
such as age, class, occupation, gender, mother
tongue, etc. (Gibbons, 2006:298).
Speech sounds are important in identification
and the most controversial in this area is
whether machine analysis is superior to the
expert ear.

 Gibbons note that the identificatory elements

of written language can also be done in that
handwritings can be distinguished and the
peculiarities of spelling and the punctuation
can be strong identifiers.
Eagleson (1994 shows how a range of
linguistic features- including spelling, syntax,
morphology and punctuation provided
evidence, concerning the authorship of a
suicide note.

 Eagleson compared the samples of

the mans and the womans
handwriting and was able to show
that the writing was the mans
-considering the wrong spellings,
intrusive apostrophe, omission of
past tense, long and poorly
structured stretch of language with
no punctuation . The man changed
his plea to guilty when confronted

 Coulthard (1994) gave important

evidence of cohesion phenomena in
a case involving 6 in Birmingham.
The accused were discharged on the
basis of the hyper elaboration, which
is typical of legal language and, in
that instance, which showed that it
was a fabrication by the police.

Examples
During the early days of forensic linguistics in the
United Kingdom, the legal defense for many
criminal cases questioned the authenticity of
police statements. At the time, customary police
procedure for taking suspects' statements
dictated that it be in a specific format, rather than
in the suspect's own words. Statements by
witnesses are very seldom made in a coherent or
orderly fashion, with speculation and backtracking
done out loud. The delivery is often too fastpaced, causing important details to be left out.

 An early application of forensic

linguistics in the United States was
related to the status of trademarks as
words or phrases in the language. One of
the bigger cases involved fastfood giant
McDonald's claiming that it had
originated the process of attaching
unprotected words to the 'Mc' prefix
(referred to as McWords) and was
unhappy with Quality Inns International's
intention of opening a chain of economy
hotels to be called 'McSleep.'

 One of the earliest cases where forensic

stylistics was used to detect plagiarism was
the case of Helen Keller's short story "
The Frost King". The blind American author
was accused of plagiarism in 1892 with
regard to the short story. Upon investigation,
The Frost King was found to have been
plagiarised from Margaret Canby's book Frost
Fairies which had been read to her some time
ago. Keller was discovered to have made only
minute changes to common words and
phrases and used less common words to put
the same point across, suggesting mere
alterations to original ideas.

 Keller used 'vast wealth' instead of 'treasure'

(approximately 230 times less common in the language)
'bethought' instead of 'concluded' (approximately 450
times less common), 'bade them' instead of 'told them'
(approximately 30 times less common). Keller used the
phrase 'ever since that time' whilst Canby chose 'from
that time' (the latter 50 times more common than the
former). Keller also used ' I cannot imagine' whereas
Canby used ' I do not know'. 'Know' is approximately ten
times more common than 'imagine'.
Keller relied on a lexis that is less common when
compared to Canby's. The Flesch and Flesch-Kincaid
readability test showed that Canby's text showing more
originality compared to Keller's. Canby's text obtained a
higher grade on the reading ease scale compared to
Keller's. The distinctions between Keller and Canby's
text are at the lexical and phrasal level.

 Other examples of plagiarism include the cases between

Richard Condon, author of The Manchurian Candidate and English
novelist Robert Graves; and between Martin Luther King Jr and
Archibald Carey.
Judging by the text in The Manchurian Candidate, Condon's work
is seen to be rich in clichs such as "in his superstitious heart of
hearts." While Helen Keller took pride in using rare phrases and
avoids common source words, Condon was fond of expanding
existing words into phrases and existing phrases into more
extensive ones. Condon was also found to have borrowed from a
wide range of Graves' work.[2]
In the plagiarism case of Martin Luther King Jr, almost half of his
doctoral dissertation was discovered to have been copied from
another theology student. King simply changed the names of the
mountains and used much more alliteration and assonance.[16]
Carey's and Graves' texts (source texts) were noticeably shorter,
pithier and simpler in structure while Condon's and King's texts
relied on 'purple' devices, extending the existing text and flourish
their language significantly.

 Discourse analysis deals with

analyzing written, oral, or sign
language use, or any significant
semiotic event. According to the
method, the close analysis of a
covert recording can produce useful
deductions. The use of 'I' instead of
'We' in a recording highlights noncomplicity in a conspiracy.

 Forensic linguistics contributed to the

overturning of Derek Bentley's conviction for
murder in 1998 although there were other nonlinguistic issues. Nineteen-year-old Bentley, who
was functionally illiterate, had been hanged in
1953 for his part in the murder of PC Sidney
Miles; he had been convicted partly on the basis
of his statement to police, allegedly transcribed
verbatim from a spoken monologue. When the
case was reopened, a forensic linguist found that
the frequency and usage of the word "then" in
police transcripts suggested the transcripts were
not verbatim statements but had been partially
authored by police interviewers; this and other
evidence led to Bentley's posthumous pardon.

 In the case of Theodore Kaczynski, who was

eventually convicted of being the "Unabomber",
family members recognized his writing style from
the published 35,000-word
Industrial Society and Its Future (commonly called
the "Unabomber Manifesto"), and notified the
authorities. FBI agents searching Kaczynski's hut
found hundreds of documents written by Kaczynski
but not published anywhere. An analysis produced
by FBI Supervisory Special Agent James R. Fitzgerald
identified numerous lexical items and phrases
common to the two documents. Some were more
distinctive than others, but the prosecution argued
that even the more common words and phrases
being used by Kaczynski became distinctive when
used in combination with each other.

 Forensic linguistic evidence also played a role in

the investigation of the 2005 disappearance of
Julie Turner, a 40-year-old woman living in
Yorkshire. After she was reported missing, her
partner received several text messages from
Julie's mobile phone, such as "Stopping at jills,
back later need to sort my head out", and "Tell
kids not to worry. sorting my life out. (sic) be in
touch to get some things". Investigators found
that letters written by Turner's friend Howard
Simmerson shared several unusual orthographic
and punctuation features with the text messages,
suggesting that Simmerson had been aware of
the contents of the messages. Simmerson was
eventually found guilty of Turner's murder.

 During the appeal against the conviction of the

Bridgewater Four, the forensic linguist examined
the written confession of Patrick Molloy, one of the
defendants a confession which he had retracted
immediately and a written record of an interview
which the police claimed took place immediately
before the confession was dictated. Molloy denied
that the interview had ever taken place, and the
analysis indicated that the answers in the
interview were not consistent with the questions
being asked. The linguist came to the conclusion
that the interview had been fabricated by police.
The conviction against the Bridgewater Four was
quashed before the linguist in the case, Malcolm
Coulthard, could produce his evidence.

 In an Australian case reported by Eagleson,

a "farewell letter" had apparently been
written by a woman prior to her
disappearance. The letter was compared
with a sample of her previous writing and
that of her husband. Eagleson came to the
conclusion that the letter had been written
by the husband of the missing woman, who
subsequently confessed to having written it
and to having killed his wife. The features
analysed included sentence breaks, marked
themes, and deletion of prepositions.

 Thank You