This course focuses on the role linguistics has within the rapidly growing field of forensic science. Forensic linguistics is a diverse field that not only has applications in legal and criminal investigation, but also makes important contributions to the military, government and business, and can contribute to literary, historical and cultural studies. Whether it is a dispute over who wrote Shakespeare’s plays, or which suspect had threatened a murder victim, the challenge is to associate a text or utterance with a specific individual.

In this course we examine how written and spoken texts, documents and recordings, can be analysed to identify authorship, or to correct or better understand their content. We also learn about the use of computational and statistical tools in linguistic analyses, and connections to related fields such as biometrics and speech recognition. The course has no prerequisites; the necessary basic linguistic and statistical ideas and tools will be introduced and explained, making the course a very practical and topical introduction to linguistics.

By the end of this course, you should be able to:

1. Understand the role of expert evidence relating to language in court , and review and assess the strength of evidence presented by expert witnesses
2. Understand the different types of linguistic data that can be used as evidence.
3. Select and apply appropriate methods for identifying authorship of texts
4. Understand the potentials and limits of forensic voice identification
5. Explain, and argue for the role of language and linguistics in the legal system

1x tutorial presentation and 1000 word report due before semester break (20%) (LO 1, 2, 5)

1x 1000 word practical exercise in voice identification/authorship analysis due after semester break (20%) (LO 3, 4)

1x tutorial presentation on essay in final week (10%) (LO 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

3000 word essay due in exam period (50%) (LO 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

This course has 3 contact hours per week (lectures and tutorials) that may be held in a 3 hour block.

In addition to the required contact hours (lectures and tutorials), it is expected that students will spend an additional 6-7 hours per week on this course.

None

n/a

Textbooks:

John Olsson (2010 edition) Forensic Linguistics: An Introduction to Language, Crime and the Law. New York/London, Continuum. ISBN: 9780826493088

Gerald R. McMenamin (ed.) (2002) Forensic Linguistics: Advances in Forensic Stylistics. London/New York, CRC Press. ISBN: 9780849309663

Internet access

Occasional use of ANU computer laboratories