The Morbid Linguist

  It’s been some time since I posted, so I’d like to cover one aspect of forensic linguistics that I particularly enjoy: Authorship analysis. Authorship analysis is one of those areas in forensic linguistics that sounds deceptively simple: “just figure out who wrote the thing.” Easy, right? After I explain it to you, you'll say that you could do it. But language isn’t handwriting, and it’s not DNA. It’s slippery. We change how we speak and write depending on who we’re talking to, what we’re talking about, or whether we’re hungry and cranky when we hit “send.” So how does it work? At its core, authorship analysis is about identifying patterns of linguistic behavior . Sometimes call idiolect , the idea that everyone has a unique language fingerprint. Think of it like Gollum and Sméagol: same body, same vocal cords, but different word choices, different rhythms, even different quirks in grammar. Those subtle differences give them away. When a suspicious ransom note, threatening ema...

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, i...

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...

As I've mentioned before , I am writing my master's thesis on a method of linguistic demographic profiling through analysis of native language transference... a specific method that I am in the process of inventing. Not from whole cloth, of course. The potential method I have developed is an amalgamation of established forensic linguistic techniques and contemporary research in machine-based language processing and computational linguistic analysis. I am calling this method "Native Language Analysis," as my advisor suggested. (I wanted to call it native language  deduction  for the Holmesian connotations, but she said no.) I am designing this proposed method of linguistic demographic profiling specifically for native language diagnosis and supporting it with quantified statistical data. Without getting too deep into sociolinguistic philosophy, the concept central to my research is that - like spoken accents - native speakers of a particular language frequently produ...

If you have watched a crime procedural program, you have likely heard fictional detectives discussing "profiles" about their fictional suspects. Like many aspects of entertainment based on real life, suspect profiles have a real-life counterpart. A suspect profile is, to use a metaphor, a running list of features that investigators believe an anonymous suspect likely possesses. Suspect profiles consist of features ascertained from evidence like witness statements and physical clues. Even psychological analysis can be used to build a profile. Likewise, when the evidence is available, suspect profiles may also be informed by linguistic data. In the same way that a profile picture in not a complete picture of a person, a suspect profile is not a complete description. Even a well-informed suspect profile may still lack a name, but, like that profile picture, it may contain just enough information about a person that you could recognize them from someone else. The crook of the...