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Forensic stylistics
Forensic stylistics
Forensic linguistics encompasses applications of linguistic analysis to forensic contexts, for example, voice analysis, translation and interpretation, dialect  identiﬁcation, discourse analysis, and authorship identiﬁcation.
Forensic stylistics is a technique that utilizes the linguistic analysis of writing style for the purpose of authorship identiﬁcation.
Basic concepts
An idiolect is a variety of language developed by the individual speaker as a uniquely patterned aggregate of linguistic characteristics observed in his or her language use (“individual characteristics” in forensic science).
Basic concepts
One area of linguistics that is necessary for the understanding of stylistic analysis is the study of linguistic variation.
William Labov succeeded in  identifying the forces that lead to linguistic diversity and relating them to the basic system of language as it is aﬀected by non-linguistic events or forces.

Labov’s theory
With respect to group diversity, the individual creates his systems of verbal behavior to resemble those of the groups he identiﬁes with, what Labov refers to as “the general tendency towards accommodation and the pressure of community norms.”
 Labov indicates that language diversity can be the result of the need for distinctiveness, breaks in communication networks, and the individual’s process of language acquisition and learning.


Labov’s theory
Style is seen as that part of human behavior that reﬂects individual variation in activities that are otherwise invariant.
The elements of language that are common to all members of a speech community are what enable communication, while linguistic style is the result of what an individual selects to use from the array of linguistic tools available to his or her own group or to other groups of speakers.
William Labov distinguishes between customs (stable forms) and fashions, “forms that change rapidly within and across generations.”


Labov’s theory
Style in written language reﬂects both a writer’s conscious response to the requirements of genre and context as well as the result of his or her unconscious and habituated choices of the grammatical elements acquired through the long-term experiential process of writing. 
 Style in spoken language is linguistic variation that is directly related to the social context of conversation.


Labov’s theory
Recurrent refers to those choices that become    subconscious habits of choice,  repeated selection of one form over other available forms. And choices can be described as variations within a norm    (favor/favour), or deviations from a norm (They know it./They knows it.).



Labov’s theory
Style markers are the observable result of the habitual and usually unconscious choices an author makes in the process of writing.
Linguistic stylistics is the scientiﬁc interpretation of style-markers as observed, described and analyzed in the language of groups and individuals.

Stylistic variation
Stylistic variation is reﬂected as class characteristics observed in the writing of distinct social and geographical groups,  as individual features observed in the idiolect of single writers who share a language or dialect.

Stylistic variation
The most common class features are those that appear as deviations from the norm which are common to careless or under-educated writer like mixing homonyms, e.g.:
(1) Questioned letter
Q1:10 … submitting there full Application …
Q1:15 … as part of there paperwork …
Q13:24 … bells on there cats …
(2) Known writings
K12:11 … I am answering there question …
K26:11 … to seek their approval …
K32:12 … forwarded there letter to you …
K54:16 … on there Companies involvement …

The analysis of style is carried out using one or a combination of 3 models (by Wachal)
The resemblance model is used repeatedly
For example, a California governor once received a letter describing the in-office sexual escapades of the director of a large state agency. (The letter even contained an elaborate drawing of the red-velvet covered Victorian style couch in his office!).
 The writings of all employees in the office were analyzed to systematically exclude all but one as the letter writer.
Description of style
The description of style, often referred to as qualitative analysis, is the ﬁrst step in the analysis of style. Subsequent measurement of style is based on the description and categorization of linguistic elements. 

Identiﬁcation of the linguistic variable
Identiﬁcation of the linguistic variable is the isolation of structural linguistic units that carry signiﬁcance with respect to group or individual writing style.
 Preferred variables are those that are high in frequency, immune from total suppression  codable, and widely distributed throughout a particular population.
The linguistic variant of a given variable is a particular instance of the variable, and a shift in the distribution of variants reﬂects a change in extra-linguistic factors aﬀecting the variable.


“The variable is of course an abstraction. In actual texts, we meet with variants only. However, the move from variant to variable is the basic step which must be taken here. It implies that the speech performance of the individual or group is best explained through the assumption of an underlying linguistic continuum, in which categories form, reform and dissolve.”   W. Labov

The measurement of style
Basic tests that lend themselves to evaluating the signiﬁcance of the relationship of variables across comparison writings: frequency distributions, standard error of diﬀerence, t-test, analysis of variance, proportion test, chi square, coeﬃcient of correlation, and probability of occurrence calculations. 

Forensic stylistics
The constellation of the patterned uses of language of an individual can be described as a unique set and thereby used to identify the language of that writer.
When applied to items of written language in dispute, the analysis of linguistic variation is often referred to as forensic stylistics.


Cases of questioned authorship
typically present the linguist with a questioned writing to be ﬁrst contrasted (for possible exclusion of the author), then compared (for possible identiﬁcation of the author) to a set of exemplar writings known to have been written by a writer suspected of authoring the questioned material. 

Case examples of variables
From threatening letters, wills, etc. 

Spelling, separation of the diagraph -gh
Case 2
KNOWN WRITINGS of Deceased Mother
End-quotes used for statements232 , wrote a terse/“Is this yours?” and sent it to her chagrine479 off the line, get off the/line.” The electricity was develop511 for some tools from the house!” He was a new hired man, no531 and put some more peas on it.” My father did not smoke, an
End-quotes used for emphasis520 ing B E E R. (Idaho was “dry”, Wyoming "wet) I was so su569 ather always went “ﬁrst-class”. Even on a short train trip715 er she ran so did the “Indian”. He at last caught up with742 Idaho was “dry”, Wyoming “wet”. My mother worked for Presby

Case 2
KNOWN WRITINGS of Suspect Son
End-quotes used for statements65 88 you repeatedly cried “Wolf!” to/your family and friends,71 the/former love of your life,” James D. Flinner, of various545 Instead of saying, “How nice!” Marie deftly inserted her/ﬁ
End-quotes used for emphasis15 s for his “ﬁnal arrangements.” Previously, Ernest/had writt67 Linford. Your “other brother,” Floyd Whiting, as usual, did90 t, and the “love of your life,” James D. Flinner,/suffered at94 Avenue, the Winterland “cabin,” the house at 1940 Juniper St.

QUESTIONED WILL
End-quotes used for statements
50 mind, but I can make YOU mind!” Starting I 1984 I had orgina66 man said,“The buck stops here.” I also have to/cite the old168 might as well have the game.” From what I am able to piece
End-quotes used for emphasis
124 and/a Ph.D. from this “school,” evidently without having tak245 pregnant with her “love child.” We were living in Laramie in309 Floyd for this absurd “advice,” and he gently reminded Lloyd326 and me about her “situation.” Larry himself told me next to

Spelling: already
KNOWN WRITINGS of Deceased Mother
47 get to work. Since Erne was all ready ﬁt to be tied
47 to be tied because we hadn’t all ready left for Laramie, I
84 were Dorothy/Sayres I would all ready have the solution to
KNOWN WRITINGS of Suspect Son
209 by 1997 she estimated he had already extracted his “1/3”
295 two required meetings have already been held. All of the
312 since Tom Long’s law ﬁrm was already engaged with the legal
565 /stopped. It also makes the already unpleasant job for the
QUESTIONED WILL
06 seems to be over. We had already been thoroughly soaked
18 be stopped. It also makes the already unpleasant job for the
36 at 22 months of age, Judy was already bossy. Our second/
Figure 32.4 Spelling: already

Punctuation
Punctuation
Morphology
Morphology


Lexicon
Syntax
Linguistic style markers
can concern any language level.
Criteria for selection of style markers
Labov outlines the process for defining the linguistic variable.

Step 1
Notice variation: alternative ways of saying the same thing.

Step 2
Define the envelope of variation: the largest environment in which the variation occurs.
a. Accompany reports of occurrences of a variant with reports of all non-occurrences.

b. Set aside neutral cases: environments where it is not possible to distinguish variants.

c. Note exclusions: individual items that behave in idiosyncratic fashion.


Step 3
Define the (independent) constraints on the (dependant) variable (e.g. writing context or author).


Style variables and a corpus
Style variables can be of two types: deviations from a norm and variations within a norm. 
The clear cases, often those not requiring reference to a corpus, are variables that are prescriptive errors, that is, deviations from the conventions of an established norm. 
However, many useful style markers represent variation within a norm, that is, multiple error-free ways of saying the same thing. It is here that corpus-based determination of style marker significance is important.


A corpus-based approach to style markers that will first identify group variables makes it then possible to assign remaining variables to the set of individuating style markers (i.e. those associated with individual identification) based on relative frequencies of occurrences of identified linguistic variables.

Levels of style
Labov’s research related to levels of style (casual to formal) has demonstrated that variation is more consistent in casual speech, so this is a place to begin research on writing, that is, attempting to study an individual’s writings that are grouped by level of attention paid to the process of writing itself or to other aspects of the writing context that would result in text that is formal (more conscious) or casual (less conscious).

Basic principle
A number of analysts (e. g. Grant) take the position that as long as the variables are demonstrably discriminating and applied in the same fashion to all writings under study, they can be used as reliable style markers.


питання: Give short answers to the following questions (5 points):
1. What is style if we consider forensic stylistics?
2.  What is considered to be an abstraction: a variable or a variant?
3.  Which model of analysis is used when the task is to determine if various writings were done by the same author?
4.  Which type of style variables (variations or deviations) requires a corpus to conduct analysis?
5.  What is the basic principle of reliable style markers using?