Using word n-grams to identify authors and idiolects: a corpus approach to a forensic linguistic problem

Wright, D ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2300-5915, 2017. Using word n-grams to identify authors and idiolects: a corpus approach to a forensic linguistic problem. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 22 (2), pp. 212-241. ISSN 1384-6655

Preview

Text PubSub8891_Wright.pdf - Post-print Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

Forensic authorship attribution is concerned with identifying the writers of anonymous criminal documents. Over the last twenty years, computer scientists have developed a wide range of statistical procedures using a number of different linguistic features to measure similarity between texts. However, much of this work is not of practical use to forensic linguists who need to explain in reports or in court why a particular method of identifying potential authors works. This paper sets out to address this problem using a corpus linguistic approach and the 176-author 2.5 million-word Enron Email Corpus. Drawing on literature positing the idiolectal nature of collocations, phrases and word sequences, this paper tests the accuracy of word n-grams in identifying the authors of anonymised email samples. Moving beyond the statistical analysis, the usage-based concept of entrenchment is offered as a means by which to account for the recurring and distinctive production of idiolectal word n-grams.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	International Journal of Corpus Linguistics
Creators:	Wright, D.
Publisher:	John Benjamins
Date:	1 October 2017
Volume:	22
Number:	2
ISSN:	1384-6655
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1075/ijcl.22.2.03wri DOI
Divisions:	Schools > School of Arts and Humanities
Record created by:	Linda Sullivan
Date Added:	03 Aug 2017 07:49
Last Modified:	28 Sep 2017 07:58
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/31377

Actions (login required)

Edit View

Statistics

Views

Downloads