The Morbid Linguist

News media seems to have made it a standard to identify someone according to profession, or some other social label, even when irrelevant to the respective story. One example of this is seen in reports about Eric Lundgren; headlines seemingly label their stories as coverage of a legal battle between an “e-waste recycler” and tech giant Microsoft. Many headlines resemble these: Electronics-recycling innovator is going to prison for trying to extend computers’ lives [ LA Times ] ‘E-waste’ recycling innovator faces prison after losing fight with Microsoft [ Seattle Times ] E-waste Innovator Will Go to Jail for Making Windows Restore Disks That Only Worked with Valid Licenses [ Gizmodo ] E-waste Recycler gets 15-months in Prison Thanks to Microsoft [ Legit Reviews ] From these headlines, one could infer the subjective opinions of the writers: This humble “e-waste recycler”, however innovative, is jail-bound because of Microsoft, and likely for some unfair reason. Many of the headlin

As of today, my complete thesis has been uploaded to the Hofstra library. Unfortunately, as is the modern tradition in academia, most published knowledge is intentionally locked behind a paywall, and my thesis is no exception. All 73 pages of my thesis have been uploaded through ProQuest. Those with institutional or subscription access to that database may download and read it (possibly even in full) through  ProQuest . As a graduate, however, I cannot even access my own paper this way. However, if anyone desires a copy of my thesis in full, I have uploaded a copy to Researchgate: available here . I am still in the process of editing my thesis for publication in academic journals, likely in two or three parts. I also edit and publish large parts of it on this very blog.

Stereotypes form harmful boxes for containing entire peoples, but some can establish a chicken-and-egg relationship when paired with observation bias. The waiters of Paris have a peculiar stereotype that is as flattering as it is problematic: Apparently, Parisian waiters perform seriously and with pride; so much so that this sense of authority translates as disrespect to the uninitiated. This stereotype has proven so pervasively true that it has inspired a corrective campaign by the Parisian board of tourism and chamber of commerce , as well as a psychological condition wherein Japanese tourists suffer culture shock when confronted by rude Parisians . The stereotype of a haughty French waiter collides with another stereotype in the case of Guillaume Rey, a Paris-trained waiter who was fired from a Toronto restaurant for rude behavior: The overly-serious French waiter was fired for clashing with overly-polite Canadian coworkers. Rey claims that his termination in August 2017 was base

The Nursery Note One of the most famous kidnapping cases in American history is that of Charles Lindbergh, Jr. The child’s father and namesake was Charles Lindbergh, the famous aviator. Lindbergh, Sr. had completed his record-breaking transatlantic flight in 1927, and he was still a prominent celebrity when his 20-month-old son was kidnapped from his nursery on the night of March 1, 1932. The infant was not recovered until May 12, 1932, when his body was discovered near the Lindbergh home. Investigators determined that he likely died shortly after he was taken.  Between the night of March 1 and when ransom is delivered on April 2, 1932, the abductors delivered a total of 15 notes . In September 1934, a German immigrant was seen spending one of the gold certificates used to pay the ransom and was soon arrested. He was convicted and executed in 1936.  Mark Falzini , the archivist of the New Jersey State Police Museum in possession of the notes and other evidence, is a great sour

Finally, I have finished my thesis. The drafting and editing is done. It's been approved and is now on its way to the Hofstra library archive. It may be a while, but once it is online, I will share a link to access it. In the meantime, I am incredibly happy and relieved to be finished. To publish my thesis in journals, I believe I have to break it up into smaller articles first. Those will resemble the segments I publish on this blog. There is still work to be done. But now, there is nothing between my degree and a career as a forensic linguist. If I sound dramatic, it's because I have spent over two years working on this research and just about fifteen months writing it. Of course, I'm not done learning, studying, or writing. I will do those until I die.

In my thesis, I hypothesize that forensic linguistic techniques of linguistic demographic profiling can be honed into a method of native language analysis that is supported by quantified language transference data. My previous post explains how I set out to develop Native Language Analysis (NLA) as just such a method, and I strongly suggest you read it first. To summarize, I am essentially expanding on the established techniques of author profiling by incorporating quantified language data to connect interlanguage transference features to the native languages that likely inspired them. As promised, this post is based on the sections of my thesis where I test my hypothetical method by using it to analyze the language evidence from real forensic linguistic cases. One of the languages I catalogued data for was Arabic. The evidence I analyzed comes from the case of Daniel Pearl's abduction. Text of Email 1 Daniel Pearl was a journalist for The Wall Street Journal on assignment