Sem: Forensic Ling

3 Credits · Level: Graduate

This course is an advanced graduate seminar in which we will look in depth at a number of topic areas within forensic linguistics, as well as conduct original, publishable quality research on a topic area of your choice. We will also work on a class project, TBD. During our first class meeting, we will learn about each other's interests and backgrounds and discuss what topics we want to look into during the course of the semester. I will give a brief overview/review of forensic linguistics and some of its various topic areas. Please also come prepared with a list of areas/topics of interest to you. The course will be structured so that I will lead the discussion for about half the class periods, with students taking the lead for the other half. Each student will be responsible for leading in-depth discussion of a topic area of interest, most likely related to their term research project. I will lead discussions of authorship attribution/author profiling, speaker identification/voice recognition, professionalism and ethics in forensic linguistics, and possibly also deception detection. Students may elect to delve further into these areas or consider areas such as (but are not limited to): threat assessment, plagiarism, analysis of suicide notes, language crimes (e.g. bribery, perjury), contract disputes, trademark/copyright disputes, the language of the law/courtroom, courtroom interactions, language testing and asylum seeking. Course Requirements: The chief assignments for the course are a term research project culminating in a paper publishable in a peer-reviewed journal such as the International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law, and a class project TBD. Students may do projects individually or in pairs/small groups. Grading: Individual/small group research project: 50% Participation in class project: 25% Class participation, including leading a discussion: 25%