Forensic linguistics: the determination of authorship from habits of style

✍ Scribed by R.N. Totty; R.A. Hardcastle; J. Pearson

• Book ID: 104119575
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Year: 1987
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 807 KB
• Volume: 27
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0015-7368
• DOI: 10.1016/s0015-7368(87)72702-9

✦ Synopsis

The application of a method of literary stylistics (or stylometry) to forensic problems such as the authentication of disputed witness statements is described. Relatively large amounts of text are required for both specimen and questioned material before an effective comparison can be attempted and this severely restricts the number of cases in which the method may be applied. The validity of the method as applied to materials of forensic interest is considered to be as yet unproven but such methods are certainly worthy of further study.