Category: forensic linguistics in the media

This category is a record of recent popular articles about forensic linguistics (= ‘author identification’).

What is forensic linguistics?

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The purposes of language go far beyond communication; it can be used to affect or change how people think and behave.

Forensic linguistics is concerned with every aspect of language and the law.

…linguistics is virtually invisible to most people…Just as physicians are trained to see things in an X-ray that the average person with excellent vision cannot see, so linguists are trained to see and hear structures that are invisible to the lay person.

Roger Shuy, xvii, Language Crimes

A forensic linguist is sometimes a general practitioner and sometimes a specialist  in any of a number of sub-areas within the science. If you are a Shakespeare scholar, questions of authorship might interest you.  If your interest is in phonetics, then voice identification might appeal. A conversational analyst might be interested in the detection of emergency hoax calls…

What is forensic linguistics? full post

(991 words, 1 image, estimated 3:58 mins reading time)

Forensic linguistics featured in New Yorker piece

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To introduce the next post, here’s my response to a New Yorker piece on forensic linguistics. The article is in the print version and at

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/07/23/120723fa_fact_hitt .

Dear Editor,

As a practicing forensic linguist, I thoroughly enjoyed your article on the profession – but with mixed feelings.

It was gratifying to see forensic linguistics, which is not as sexy or yucky as rape kits and maggots but provides valuable information and deserves its own CSI segment, getting long-deserved respect.

Forensic linguistics featured in New Yorker piece full post

(514 words, estimated 2:03 mins reading time)

Heard the latest about forensic linguistics?

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It’s not often that forensic linguistics makes the news. It’s not nearly as sexy or yucky as the forensics that originates in the pathologist’s lab or at the murder site. There’s actually a scientific book, called Men, Murder, and Maggots, that tells you how to determine when someone was killed, on the basis of the type of parasites that are now feasting on the corpse.

 

Heard the latest about forensic linguistics? full post

(861 words, estimated 3:27 mins reading time)

Letter to the Editor of the New Yorker

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The latest New Yorker has a very informative and thorough piece on forensic linguistics, in the print version and at

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/07/23/120723fa_fact_hitt .

The following is my letter to the editor:

Dear Editor,

As a practicing forensic linguist (since 1979; I have a PhD in linguistics from the University of Chicago and bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Brown, also in linguistics), I thoroughly enjoyed your article on the profession – but with mixed feelings.

Letter to the Editor of the New Yorker full post

(541 words, estimated 2:10 mins reading time)