FORENSIC
LINGUISTICS

This intensive course can be taken for 3 graduate credits, or as a non-credit course with a certificate of completion. Hosted on the Hofstra University campus in Hempstead, Long Island — 25 miles east of New York City — Hofstra University's unique Forensic Linguistics Project is a leader in forensic linguistic analysis.

In addition to teaching the investigation of criminal, intelligence, and terrorism cases, these courses cover foundational linguistic theory, ongoing research on threat assessment, criminal defense strategies, US civil law cases, and European forensic linguistic responses to terrorism, threats, and violence.

Course Offerings

View Program Overview and Schedule (PDF)

Instructors

• ✓ Robert A. Leonard — Director of the Forensic Linguistics Project
• ✓ Dr. Tanya Karoli Christensen — University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Alternate Instructor: James Fitzgerald
• ✓ Special guest lecture by Dr. Tammy Gales, Director of Research at Hofstra’s Institute for Forensic Linguistics, Threat Assessment, and Strategic Analysis

Course Content

A case-based approach to solving legal and law enforcement problems through linguistic analysis:

• • Language Crimes: Bribery, perjury, solicitation to murder, and threats are crimes committed through language. Select types of language crimes are analyzed and discussed.
• • Demographic Linguistic Profiles: Dialectology, sociolinguistics, and linguistic variation analyses can indicate a writer’s regional origin, education level, occupational training, and other demographic features.
• • Authorship Analysis: Text comparisons can indicate whether two sets of texts have common authorship. The role of authorship analysis in investigation and litigation is exemplified through several cases.
• • Forensic Analysis of Total Speech Events: The build-up of speech events, the conflicting schemas of participants, their conversational strategies, and speech acts are presented and discussed.
• • Legal Language: Written text such as contracts, warning labels, and police reports, and spoken data such as police interrogations and courtroom interaction are introduced and analysed in class.

Case Studies

Case studies and class participation exercises are largely from those worked by Christensen or Leonard, which include:

• •JonBenet Ramsey Case
• •Coleman Triple Homicides
• •The Facebook Catfishing Executions
• •Death threats to sitting judges and members of U.S. Congress
• •Hummert Murder Case
• •Apple vs. Microsoft; Apple vs. Amazon
• •Brooklyn 911 Murder
• •European Syrian ISIS Warrior Case
• •European threat and extortion letters

Guest Lecture: Threat Assessment Research

Dr. Tammy Gales will discuss recent threat assessment practices and research, including:

• • Examining differences in markers of commitment between realized vs. non-realized threats
• • Honing threat assessment protocols
• • Investigating the linguistic differences between threat types (e.g., stalking vs. harassment) for legal purposes

Course Format and Schedule

In addition to lecture and class-based exercises, students will be formed into teams to work on case analyses out of class.

Requirements and Credits

There are no prerequisites. The course is aimed at both investigative and legal professionals as well as the more academically-oriented student.

• • Continuing Education credit: $970
• • Three graduate credits (toward a degree): approximately $4,200

Unfortunately no scholarships are available, nor can one participate as a distance learner. This is a highly interactive class — both between instructors and participants, and among participants who form small teams for analysis of case evidence.

Contact & Registration

For information on hotels, and to register for Continuing Education credit, email Continuing Education at ce@hofstra.edu, or call 516-463-7200.

For other information, email the office of Robert Leonard at ForensicLinguistics@hofstra.edu.