Forensic linguistics, the subject of a recent New Yorker piece by Jack Hitt (in full here, is a useful tool in the courtroom. Linguists like Roger Shuy, who’s written a handful of books on the subject, have managed to solve criminal cases by identifying personal and regional distinctions in a suspect’s language. Though far from a silver bullet, the practice seems to have a solid place in the future of law enforcement. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Forensic Linguistics”
You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
What do you think of when you hear the word forensic?
Maybe you picture an investigator from a CSI unit,
the guy who picks up a single hair or stray fingerprint from a crime scene,
and from that one piece of evidence produces the perpetrator.
Well, what about the term forensic linguistics?
This refers to linguists analyzing samples of writing or speech
to extract information that’s not readily obvious.
And it’s a relatively new field.
The first graduate program in forensic linguistics was established just last year at Hofstra University.
And if you’re a forensic linguist, for example, you might work for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.
You might be used to help evaluate people who are seeking asylum,
to listen to them and see if their grammar and slang and idioms match the country that they say they’re fleeing.
And we’ve talked on the show before about pioneering linguist Roger Shai and the dramatic story of how his analysis of a ransom note helped law enforcement officers find the right suspect in a kidnapping.
You remember this, Grant.
He left a ransom note that said put the money in a green trash can on the devil strip at the corner.
And that was the giveaway.
Roger Shai turned to the investigators and said, do you have anybody by chance who’s a suspect who’s an educated man in Akron, Ohio?
And they were dumbfounded.
And the reason is that in Akron, Ohio,
that’s the one place in the country
where they referred to that strip of grass
between the sidewalk and the street as the devil strip.
And so that helped pinpoint the guy
and he later confessed.
All of this is the subject of a fascinating article
by Jack Hitt in the July 23rd issue of The New Yorker.
And forensic linguistics isn’t by any means a silver bullet.
It’s not foolproof,
but increasingly, it’s turning out to be a useful tool for investigation, if not in courtrooms.
And it goes beyond the party trick of just listening to people’s vowels and trying to guess where they’re from.
Yeah.
Which is what linguists love to do.
Yeah.
Where the future of this lies is in analyzing mass quantities of data.
You know, people are figuring out computer algorithms to analyze people’s style.
Yeah, Roger Shai is an interesting fellow and has a number of books under his belt.
We’ll list some of them on the website.
But they have amazing titles like Fighting Over Words, Language, and Civil Law Cases.
And he talks very plainly about what it takes to win a case based on linguistics.
You can do it.
The field of linguistics itself is almost a professional witness.
This is still a very young discipline, and there’s a lot of controversy about it.
But we’ll link to a summary, at least, of the New Yorker article.
Right. And we’ll try to find some more information about forensic linguistics
and recommend a couple of books.
You can find it all on our website at waywordradio.org.
And you can call us, 877-929-9673, to talk about any aspect of language.
