CrimeCon 2018

An anonymous bomb threat is phoned in to a school; a ransom note is found at the scene of a kidnapping; a young man posts a Manifesto on social media that contains phrases that seem similar to the anonymous letters of an at-large serial bomber. When there’s language evidence at a crime scene, when language can be use to link suspects to a crime, or when language itself constitutes the crime, that’s where forensic linguistics comes in.

Join Natalie Schilling as she details how language scientists – linguists – use their expertise to help investigators solve crimes and assist triers of fact in reaching valid verdicts. Dr. Schilling will introduce you to various types of forensic linguistic analysis, including author and speaker profiling, authorship attribution, and voice identification; walk you through cases in which linguistic analysis was key (like the Unambomb case); and involve you in hands-on analysis of language evidence.

Dr. Schilling will also help you separate fact from fiction by discussing how her real-life experiences as a linguistic investigator have been transformed as part of T.V. portrayals of ‘her’ character.