Author identification, idiolect and linguistic uniqueness

Abstract

For forty years linguists have talked about idiolect and the uniqueness of individual utterances. This article explores how far these two concepts can be used to answer certain questions about the authorship of written documents—for instance how similar can two student essays be before one begins to suspect plagiarism? The article examines two ways of measuring similarity: the proportion of shared vocabulary and the number and length of shared phrases, and illustrates with examples drawn from both actual criminal court cases and incidents of student plagiarism. The article ends by engaging with Solan and Tiersma's contribution to this volume and considering whether such forensic linguistic evidence would be acceptable in American courts as well as how it might successfully be presented to a lay audience.

Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/25.4.431
Divisions: ?? 53981500Jl ??
Additional Information: This is an electronic version of an article published in Applied Linguistics, Oxford University Press, Volume 25(4), Pg 431-447 Copyright of the Oxford University Press
Uncontrolled Keywords: factor analysis,latent variable,manifest variable,multivariate statistics,tutorial
Publication ISSN: 1477-450X
Last Modified: 15 Mar 2024 08:08
Date Deposited: 29 Sep 2009 11:23
Full Text Link:
Related URLs: http://applij.o ... stract/25/4/431 (Publisher URL)
PURE Output Type: Article
Published Date: 2004-12-01
Authors: Coulthard, Malcolm

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