1. 0FORENSIC LINGUIST FORENSIC LINGUIST By Tavarres Jefferson

2. What are Forensic Linguistics?? Forensic Linguistics- is a field of scientific Studiers of language And its structure, involving the relationship between language, the law and crime.

3. What do they look for??? Voice identification- determines whether a voice is threatening or not Author identification- determines who wrote a particular text by comparing it to know writing samples Discourse analysis- analyzing the structure of writing or spoke utterance, often coverly recorded

4. MORE…. Linguistic Proficiency- did the suspect understand the police caution Dialectology- determines which dialect of a language a person speaks shows that the defendant has a different dialect

5. The Interview ME- What is your educational background Alan M. Perlman- I got a PHD in linguistics and I also am experienced in Analyzing text. ME- Is it hard being a Forensic Specialist Alan M. Perlman- Remember I am a Forensic Linguist I do not deal with handwriting or fingerprints (or most of the forensic stuff you see on TV)

6. The Interview Me- What is a typical day like for you? Alan M. Perlman- I just retired, so I do not work all the time. When I use to work, for one case sometimes I would take hours and hours of work. I did not work constantly, but when I had an assignment it took several hours sometimes days. Me- Were you a forensic specialist all the time or did you have a “day job”

7. Interview Alan M. Perlman- I was on the job all the time. Either because Different lawyers called all the time for my assistance, or The lawyers were impatient and would not give me any free time. They would stay on me and would want any small information I got, soon as I got the information. Me- What was the most memorable experience as a Linguist? Alan M. Perlman- Back in 98 I consulted in 2 primary cases. One was called Son of SAM and the other was a Murder in San Francisco.

8. Some TECHNIQUES USED… Forensic stylistics- The examination of writing styles “for the express purpose of resolving litigated questions related to disputed authorship or meaning. Type- token ratio- The ratio of the number of different words, called types, to the total number of words, called tokens. For Example if a text is 1,000 words long, it is said to have 1,000 tokens, but a lot of these words will be repeated, and there may be only 400 different words in the text. Types therefore are the different words.

9. WE NEED THE LINGUIST Linguistics expert Dr. Tim Grant received a phone call in the middle of the night. The police said “ It was very urgent and asked if I could come down that day.” Along with several other experts Dr. Grant spent 36 hours sifting through the documents, comparing them to other pieces of Barot (the killer) was known to have written. They were using forensic linguistics- comparing consistent spelling and grammatical mistakes- to see if it was likely Barot had written. “That evidence contributed to the decision to charge him” said Dr. Grant. Barot pleaded guilty in 2006 to conspiracy to murder and was sentenced to 40 years in jail.