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This discipline subjects written or spoken materials (or both), to scientific analysis
for determination and measurement of content, meaning, speaker identification, or
determination of authorship, in identifying plagiarism.
One of the earliest cases where forensic stylistics was used to detect plagiarism was
the case of Helen Keller's short story. The blind American author was accused of
plagiarism in 1892 with regard to her published short story, The Frost King. Upon
investigation, The Frost King was found to have been plagiarized from Margaret
Canby's book Frost Fairies which had been read to her some time ago. Keller was
discovered to have made only minute changes to common words and phrases and
used less common words to put the same point across, suggesting mere alterations
to original ideas.
Keller used 'vast wealth' instead of 'treasure' (approximately 230 times less common in
the language) 'bethought' instead of 'concluded' (approximately 450 times less
common), 'blade them' instead of 'told them' (approximately 30 times less common).
Keller used the phrase 'ever since that time' whilst Canby chose 'from that time' (the
latter 50 times more common than the former). Keller also used ' I cannot imagine'
whereas Canby used ' I do not know'. 'Know' is approximately ten times more common
than 'imagine'.
Keller relied on a lexis that is less common when compared to Canby's. The Flesch
and Flesch-Kincaid readability test showed that Canby's text showing more originality
compared to Keller's. Canby's text obtained a higher grade on the reading ease scale
compared to Keller's. The distinctions between Keller and Canby's text are at the
lexical and phrasal level.
Other examples of plagiarism include the cases between Richard Condon, author of
The Manchurian Candidate and English
novelist Robert Graves; and between Martin Luther King Jr and Archibald Carey.
Judging by the text in The Manchurian Candidate, Condon's work is seen to be rich in
clichés such as "in his superstitious heart of hearts." While Helen Keller took pride in
using rare phrases and avoids common source words, Condon was fond of expanding
existing words into phrases and existing phrases into more extensive ones. Condon
was also found to have borrowed from a wide range of Graves' work.
In the plagiarism case of Martin Luther King Jr, almost half of his doctoral
dissertation was discovered to have been copied from another theology student. King
simply changed the names of the mountains and used much more alliteration and
assonance.
Carey's and Graves' texts (source texts) were noticeably shorter, pithier and simpler in
structure while Condon's and King's texts relied on 'purple' devices, extending the
existing text and flourish their language significantly.
Discourse analysis
Discourse analysis deals with analyzing written, spoken, signed language use or any
significant semiotic event. Close analysis of a covert recording can produce useful
deductions. The use of 'I' instead of 'We' in a recording highlights non-complicity in
a conspiracy. The utterance of 'yeah' and 'uh-huh' as responses indicate that the
suspect understands the suggestion, while feedback markers such as 'yeah' and 'uh-
huh' do not denote the suspect's agreement to the suggestion. Discourse analysts are
not always allowed to testify but during preparation for a case they are often useful
to lawyers.
Linguistic dialectology
This refers to the study of dialects in a methodological manner based on
anthropological information. A systematic study of dialects is crucial as dialects are
no longer as distinct as they once were due to the onslaught of mass media and
population mobility. Political and social issues have also caused languages to
straddle across geographical borders resulting in certain language varieties spoken
in multiple countries, leading to complications when determining an individual's
origin by means of his/her language or dialect.
Dialectology was used during the investigations into the Yorkshire Ripper tape
hoax.
Forensic phonetics
The forensic phonetician is concerned with the production of accurate transcriptions
of what was being said. Transcriptions can reveal information about a speaker's
social and regional background. Forensic phonetics deals with whether the speaker
in two or more separate tape recordings is the same. Transcriptions are useful as it
allows victims and witnesses to indicate whether the voice of a suspect is that of the
criminal.
A man accused of manufacturing the drug Ecstasy was mis-heard by the police
transcriber as 'hallucinogenic' The police transcriber heard "but if it's as you say it's
hallucinogenic, it's in the Sigma catalogue." However, the actual utterance was "but
if it's as you say it's German, it's in the Sigma catalogue."
Another disputed utterance was between a police officer and a suspect. One of the
topics of conversation was a third man known as 'Ernie'. The poor signal of the
recording made 'Ernie' sound like 'Ronnie'. The surveillance tape presented acoustic
problems- an intrusive electronic-sounding cackle, the sound of the car engine, the
playing of the car radio, the movement of the target vehicle, and the intrusive noise
coincided with the first syllable of the disputed name.
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