Volume 11, number 1 (July 2004)

TEXTUAL KIDNAPPING REVISITED: THE CASE OF PLAGIARISM IN LITERARY TRANSLATION

M. Teresa Turell

Linguistic analysis of plagiarized literary translation for forensic purposes has not been addressed before. What makes this type of plagiarism different from others, and thus more difficult to detect, has to do with the nature of translation itself: on the one hand, all translations will tend to reflect the author's original form and content, and in so doing resemble the original work, and on the other, the more faithful they are to the original piece of work, the more difficult it is to detect their originality. The case of plagiarism under consideration had already been decided (Judgment1268 of the Supreme Court, Madrid, 29 December 1993) when this study was undertaken. The data for analysis include four translations into Spanish of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: those of Astrana Marín 1961, Valverde 1968, Pujante 1987 (the plagiarized translation), and Vázquez Montalbán 1988 (the disputed translation). By presenting evidence deriving from the application of Copy Catch to the four translation texts, it is argued that such evidence can better assist the analyst and, in this case, the prosecution, in cases of plagiarism between translations.

Keywords: plagiarism, literary translation, forensic, vocabulary, grammar, corpus, statistical analysis

ESTABLISHING THE STRUCTURE OF POLICE EVIDENTIARY INTERVIEWS WITH SUSPECTS

Georgina Heydon

This paper provides a description of the structure of police interviews which aligns the institutionally defined (functional) parts of the interview with a linguistic description meaningful for the analysis of talk in interaction. The analysis is based on data drawn from recordings of police interviews with suspects from rural Australia. It is found that, in particular, the shift from the formal introductory part of the interview to the information seeking part of the interview is marked by participants attempting to realign the participant roles (Goffman 1974) to a participation
framework which will best facilitate the confessional narrative of the suspect. However this realignment is itself problematized by some police participants as, through their negotiation of the shift, they must routinely maintain their role as 'interrogator'.

Keywords: police interviewing, frameworks, roles, interview structure, authority, voluntariness

LITERACY, LANGUAGE AND THE PETER BLAKE PRINCIPLE

Celia Brown-Blake

This paper examines the implications of the distinctions between speech and writing for the operation of a particular legal device in the Jamaican common law known as the Peter Blake principle. The principle allows a cross-examiner to test the evidence and credibility of a witness by putting a document to a witness. The witness is required to look at it and thereafter the cross-examiner will ask him questions on the document. Issues concerning the efficacy of the principle arise where a textual document is put to a witness who is unable to read and the document is read aloud to him/her. This paper explores the nature of the possible consequences that emanate from a written to oral text conversion and their ramifications for the operation of the Peter Blake principle when it is applied in the context of a non-literate witness. It does so with particular focus on police station diaries and indicates the danger of the likelihood of a compromise of the value of this critical legal device in situations where there is a mere reading aloud to a non-literate witness, without any further adjustment, of police station diary texts.

Keywords: non-literate witness, written language, oral language, cross-examination, Peter Blake principle, Jamaica

DISPUTED AUTHORSHIP IN US LAW

Gerald McMenamin

The purpose of this note is to recognize the significant contribution of Tiersma and Solan (2002) to forensic linguistics, but to oppose their classification of disputed authorship cases as a 'problem area' in the field, that is, which they define as an area of expert linguistic testimony associated with judicial reluctance to admit such testimony. In contrast to their position, I submit that that disputed authorship cases be considered 'non-problematic' by their definition, that is, areas in which testimony by linguists has been repeatedly presented in and admitted by courts in the US and other countries. The basis for this proposal is threefold. First, cases cited to support the 'roblem area' designation are either unlitigated matters from the media, cases wherein actual linguists did not proffer testimony, or not on point. Second, there is a significant body of disputed-authorship testimony based on linguistic observation and description, admitted by the courts over the years and affirmed on appeals. Third, there are growing numbers of cases in which courts around the world have admitted disputed-authorship testimony provided by linguists.

THE 'MOBILE PHONE EFFECT' ON VOWEL FORMANTS

Catherine Byrne and Paul Foulkes

This study analyses the effect of mobile phone transmission on vowel formant frequencies, based on the study presented by Künzel (2001). Six male and six female speakers read a short passage into a mobile phone. Two simultaneous recordings were made, one at the far end of the phone line and the other via a microphone directly in front of the speaker. Measurements of F1, F2 and F3 were taken from between 15 and 25 stressed vowels per speaker in both sets of recordings. Due to the filtering effect of the phone transmission, F1 frequencies for most vowels were found to be higher than their counterparts in the direct recordings. The overall effect of the mobile phone on F1 frequencies was considerably greater than the landline telephone effect found by Künzel (2001): on average the F1 values in the mobile condition were 29 per cent higher than in the direct condition. On the whole F2 measures were not significantly affected, in line with Künzel’s findings. F3 frequencies were also generally unaffected by the mobile phone transmission. Exceptions were found, however, particularly for individual speakers with relatively high F3s. In these cases the mobile recordings tended to yield significantly lower values. The consequences of measurement errors arising from the different recording conditions are discussed with reference to forensic speaker identification.

Keywords: formant analysis, mobile phone transmission, forensic speaker identification

SPEAKER-SPECIFIC FORMANT DYNAMICS: AN EXPERIMENT ON AUSTRALIAN ENGLISH /AI/

Kirsty McDouball

Formant frequency dynamics are relevant to forensic speaker identification since they are determined by the shape and size of a speaker’s vocal tract and the way he or she configures the articulators for speech. This study investigates individual differences in the formant dynamics of /aI/ produced by five male Australian English speakers, and the effects of changes in speaking rate and prosodic stress on these differences. F1, F2 and F3 frequencies are examined at equidistant time-normalized intervals through /aI/. At each measurement point a degree of speaker individuality is present, and speaker differentiation improves as increasing numbers of measurement points are considered in combination. Patterns of speaker-specific behaviour are generally consistent across different rate-stress conditions. Discriminant analyses based on predictors from all three formants yield classification rates of 88–95%, with nuclear-stressed /aI/ performing best. The findings suggest that further research to develop techniques for characterizing individual speakers using formant dynamics is warranted.

Keywords: speaker identity, formant frequency dynamics, diphthongs, speaking rate, prosodic stress

CASE REPORT: R -V- INGRAM, C., INGRAM, D. AND WHITTOCK, T. THE WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE?FRAUD TRIAL1, 2

Peter French and Philip Harrison

The television show, 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire?' (WWTBM) was created in the UK by the independent production company Celador in 1998. It is a general knowledge quiz show in which contestants have the chance to win a top prize of one million pounds. The programme has reached its fifteenth series in the UK and it runs several nights a week on the independent television network. It has been exported to over 100 countries worldwide.In March and April of 2003 two contestants and an accomplice were tried and convicted of attempting to defraud the programme of the million pound prize. Their strategy involved the contestant, after having been asked the questions, 'thinking aloud' about possible answers whilst an accomplice in the studio guided him towards the correct one by a system of coughing. This report describes the methods used by the authors to determine from the recordings of the programme where in the studio the coughing was coming from.

BOOK REVIEWS

PHD ABSTRACTS

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS