Offender
Profiling Series: Vol 2
Profiling
in Policy and Practice
Edited by David Canter & Laurence Alison (1999)
back to Profiling
in Policy and Practice
Profiling in Policy and Practice
Joy P. Aked, David Canter, Anthony J Sandford and
Nichola Smith
Approaches to the Scientific Attribution
of Authorship
Author specific linguistic patterns are present in
unique combinations in the style of every writer. These underlying patterns
can often be clearly described by careful linguistic observation and
analysis, making author identification *(McMenamin, 1993). This chapter
sets out to explore these claims and to provide an overview of the work
that has been carried out by forensic linguists to determine whether
two texts can be shown to be authored by the same person. It examines
the assumption that there are linguistic characteristics which can be
said to be unique to individuals, and reviews proposed examples of discriminating
indices. The issues of genre and modality are often investigated, as
well as requirements for the assessment of reliability of a discriminating
index of authorship. In addition, the Cusum technique (Morton &
Michaelson, 1990; Morton, 1991) is critically analysed in this context.
The chapter makes several recommendations of different research objectives
required by this type of research and concludes that even with stringent
scientific criteria, it is unlikely that a reliable and valid measure
of author identity will ever be established.
Joy P. Aked (B.Sc.,
PhD., University of Glasgow) is a Lecturer at the University of Paisley,
where her specialist area is in Biological Psychology. She also retains
her specialist interest in Forensic Linguistics. At the present time
she is conducting research in the area of critical thinking, in particular,
whether or not this is a skill which students can be taught at University,
and whether or not there are differences in critical thinking skills
across disciplines, years and Universities.
David Canter is Director of the Institute of Investigative Psychology at the University of Liverpool. He has published widely in Environmental and Investigative Psychology as well as many areas of Applied Social Psychology. His most recent books since his award winning "Criminal Shadows" have been "Psychology in Action" and with Laurence Alison "Criminal Detection and the Psychology of Crime".
Anthony J. Sanford (B.Sc.
(Leeds), P.hD.,(Cantab), FPBS, Chart. Psychologist, Professor of Psychology
at the University of Glasgow and Principal Investigator with the ESCR
Human Communication Research Centre. Chief research interests are developing
an account of human understanding and the perception of coherence. Also
interested in individual styles of writing and communicating and in
the communication of risk and uncertainty. He teaches in the areas of
Cognition, Cognitive Science, Social Cognition and the Psychology of
Language.
Nichola Smith completed
her PhD entitled 'A stylistic analysis of written language behaviour
with practical application to anonymous threat letters' at the University
of Surrey. Dr Smith then began a three year contract for the Police
Research Group's (PRG) Serious Crime Research Programme (based within
the National Crime Faculty, Bramshill) as a research officer. Her principle
areas of interest lie within forensic linguistics and the examination
of behavioural consistency of serial serious crime. These interests
are reflected, in part, within some of her allocated projects within
the PRG's programme of research (evaluation of Scientific Content Analysis
Technique and Comparative Case Analysis).
