Writing Wrongs

* Warning: Today’s episode contains discussions of threatening communication * What makes something a threat? In today’s episode, our hosts Dr Nicci MacLeod and Professor Tim Grant are joined by Dr Isabel Picornell, who tells us about a case in which this was the central question. May 3rd, 2021, Scotland. Three days before the Scottish Parliament election and amidst fervent jabs being traded from supporters from all sides, a certain tweet stood out. “See you Galloway, we will get you, ye understand??” Twitter (now X) user @KyleHibee07 posted. This was condemned by supporters of the intended recipient, George Galloway, running for a seat at the time, who took this as a threat on the ex-Labour MP’s life. Our hosts and guest explore the issue of identifying threatening communications by examining this tweet. Have a question for Nicci or Tim? Email us at [email protected] and we mayanswer it during an upcoming episode! Check out the official AIFL blog for more forensic linguistic goodieshere: https://medium.com/@AIFLblog If you have been affected by any of the themes in this week’s episode, please contact one of these free sources: https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/contact-samaritan/ https://www.helpguide.org/find-help Production Team: Jordan Robertson, Neus Alberich Buera, Karolina Placzynta, James Cresswell Sound: James Cresswell Editing: Angela Walker Visual design: George Grant Additional Voices: Mike Clarkson, Ian MacArthur, BrynMacArthur, Louise Martin, Ali Murray, David Steele, Paula Steele With our thanks to Dr Isabel Picornell Artwork image credits Artwork image of George Galloway: By David Hunt from Warwickshire, UK - Stop The War - 32 - George Galloway, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3002252 Artwork image of Scottish flag: Jawad Ali on Vecteezy https://www.vecteezy.com/free-png/scotland-flag-waving Artwork of An Incident in the Rebellion of 1745, an oil on canvas, painting by David Morier is out of copyright and taken from the Wikipedia link below. For the painting that was part of the original tweet and to find out more about the battle of Culloden see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Culloden#/media/File:The_Battle_of_Culloden.jpg Professor Tim Grant’s home page: Tim Grant - Aston Research Explorer Dr Nicci MacLeod’s home page: Nicci MacLeod - Aston Research Explorer Dr Isabel Picornell’s webpage: Forensic Linguistics | Qedforensics Dr Isabel Picornell’s latest book, The Linguistics of Analysing Deception in Written Texts: https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/abs/linguistics-of-analysing-deception-in-written-texts/C257606CC51F70AAED702FBBDE7C41EC

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* Warning: Today’s episode contains discussions of murder and racial profiling * Some time in the 2000s, somewhere in the USA. John Smith, an African American male defendant, has been accused of murder. While in jail awaiting trial, he makes a phone call to his cousin. It was believed John confessed to the murder. The defence disagreed, but needed linguistic assistance to help them. Elsewhere in the country, tragedy has struck. 7-year-old Leona Harris was attending a house party with her father, Robert. While standing in the front garden with some friends, they came under gunfire from a passing car. A number of the group were wounded – Leona and Robert fatally so. The police believed they had identified the gang responsible, and the individual who pulled the trigger, and brought him in to be interrogated. However, they needed more information to charge him with the murders. To obtain this, they approached a former member of the gang, Sidney Brown, to help them gather new evidence to arrest the prime suspect – Marcus Jeffreys. Sidney was provided with a mobile phone and instructed to call Marcus, the conversation being recorded and later transcribed. The prosecution’s case was that the transcript clearly showed Marcus agreeing to the proposition that he had committed the murders. Marcus’s defence disagreed. In today’s episode, our hosts Dr Nicci MacLeod and Professor Tim Grant are joined by Professor of Linguistics John Baugh. He’s come to talk to us about his type of linguistic profiling, which occurs when someone’s speech triggers discriminatory bias against them. Through a discussion of two cases John has worked on, he explains how his expertise tackled linguistic evidence in the US criminal justice system. For a list of our sources and more information about this case, please visit https://www.aston.ac.uk/writing-wrongs Have a question for Nicci or Tim? Email us at [email protected] and we may answer it during an upcoming episode! Check out the official AIFL blog for more forensic linguistic goodies here: https://medium.com/@AIFLblog If you have been affected by any of the themes in this week’s episode, please contact one of these free sources: https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/contact-samaritan/ https://www.helpguide.org/find-help Production Team: Jordan Robertson, Neus Alberich Buera, Karolina Placzynta, James Cresswell Sound: James Cresswell Editing: Angela Walker Visual design: George Grant With our thanks to Professor John Baugh Professor Tim Grant’s home page: Tim Grant - Aston Research Explorer Dr Nicci MacLeod’s home page: Nicci MacLeod - Aston Research Explorer Professor John Baugh’s home page: John Baugh | Faculty | The People of Rice | Rice University Professor John Baugh’s book: Linguistics in Pursuit of Justice Center for African and African American Studies at Rice University Academic resources Baugh, J. (2016). Linguistic profiling and discrimination. The Oxford handbook of language and society, 349-368. Cotterill, J. (2003). Language and power in court: A linguistic analysis of the OJ Simpson trial. Springer. Dixon, J. A., Mahoney, B., & Cocks, R. (2002). Accents of guilt? Effects of regional accent, race, and crime type on attributions of guilt. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 21(2), 162-168. Fraser, H. (2020). Forensic transcription: The case for transcription as a dedicated branch of linguistic science. In The Routledge handbook of forensic linguistics (pp. 416-431). Routledge. OJ Simpson Trial Transcript http://simpson.walraven.org/jul12.html Other resources BBC 2016, “Renting while black,” https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-35464634. The Fair Housing Act Resources

*Warning: this episode contains descriptions of emotional abuse and manipulation* --- November 12, 2018, Madrid, Spain. 47-year-old Galician man Rodrigo Nogueira Iglesias is arrested near the Puerta de Atocha railway station. His crimes stretched back more than twenty years. Rodrigo frequented social media platforms and dating websites where he used fake profiles, pretending to be different people with different names and professions, all with the initial goal of attracting the attention of women who could be potential victims. We are joined by Dr Sheila Queralt – a friend of the Institute and Spain’s top forensic linguistics expert, having consulted on some 300 cases over the past 15 years and testified as a linguistics expert witness in criminal and civil trials across 10 countries, with cases reaching courts including the ECHR. Her work in forensic linguistics at ForensicLab continues through her Laboratory based in Barcelona, which provides linguisticanalysis of recorded conversations and voice messages, as well as written documents. --- In the episode, we make references to episodes 1.4 Romance Fraud, featuring a conversation with Dr Lis Carter, and 3.2 The Multiple Personas of an Online Child Abuser, featuring DrEmily Chiang. Have a question for Nicci or Tim? Email us at [email protected] and we may answer it during an upcoming episode! Check out the official AIFL blog for more forensic linguistic goodies here: https://medium.com/@AIFLblog If you have been affected by any of the themes in this week’s episode, please contact one of these free sources: https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/contact-samaritan/ https://www.helpguide.org/find-help --- Production Team: Angela Walker, Jordan Robertson, Neus Alberich Buera, Karolina Placzynta Sound: James Cresswell Visual design: George Grant Editing: Angela Walker Additional voices: Salvador Alberich Castelló --- Illustration by Víctor Gomollón García. Reproduced with the illustrator's kind permission. The illustration was originally created for the book Estafas amorosas by Sheila Queralt Estévez (Larousse Editorial, 2022). More information about the book: https://www.larousse.es/libro/libros-ilustrados-practicos/estafas-amorosas-sheila-queralt-estevez-9788419250179/ Español Ilustración de Víctor Gomollón García. Reproducida con la amable autorización del ilustrador. La ilustración fue creada originalmente para el libro Estafas amorosas, de Sheila Queralt Estévez (Larousse Editorial, 2022). Más información sobre el libro: https://www.larousse.es/libro/libros-ilustrados-practicos/estafas-amorosas-sheila-queralt-estevez-9788419250179/ --- Professor Tim Grant’s home page: Tim Grant- Aston Research Explorer Dr Nicci MacLeod’s home page: NicciMacLeod - Aston Research Explorer Dr Sheila Queralt’s home page: SQ-Lingüistas Forenses Decalogue for requesting a linguistics expert report by Sheila Queralt News of the Nogueira Iglesias case in the Spanish press A guide to spotting romance fraudsters --- Academic sources Carter, E.(2024). The Language of Romance crimes: Interactions of love, money, and threat. Cambridge University Press. Chatten, A., Baxter, K., Mas, E., Pena, J., Tabachnick, G., Duncan, D., & MacKenzie, L. (2024). “I’ve Always Spoke Like This, You See”: Preterite-to-Participle Leveling in American and British Englishes. American Speech: A Quarterly of Linguistic Usage, 99(1), 3-46. Queralt, S. (2022). Linguistic Profiling: A Spanish Case Study. Methodologies and Challenges in Forensic Linguistic Casework, 44–62.

* Warning: Today’s episode contains descriptions of child sexual abuse material. * In today’s episode, Dr Nicci MacLeod and Prof. Tim Grant are joined by Dr Emily Chiang, one of our Research Fellows at AIFL, about her research into identity performance in online child sexual abuse conversations. By tracing 17 different personas from a single perpetrator, Dr Chiang explored linguistic differences in identity performance and online grooming strategies. Together, Dr Chiang and our hosts go over how her research may help future grooming and child sex abuse cases. Have a question for Nicci or Tim? Email us at [email protected] and we may answer it during an upcoming episode! Check out the official AIFL blog for more forensic linguistic goodies here: https://medium.com/@AIFLblog If you have been affected by any of the themes in this week’s episode, please contact one of these free resources: https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/contact-samaritan/ https://www.helpguide.org/find-help Production Team: Mark Round, Jordan Robertson, Neus Alberich Buera, Karolina Placzynta Sound: Mark Round Editing: Nicci MacLeod Visual design: George Grant Additional Voices: Karolina Placzynta With our thanks to Dr Emily Chiang and Dr Zoe Adams Professor Tim Grant’s home page: Tim Grant - Aston Research Explorer Dr Nicci MacLeod’s home page: Nicci MacLeod - Aston Research Explorer Dr Emily Chiang’s home page: Emily Chiang - Aston Research Explorer Both Tim and Emily are part of the Europewide Horizon SALVUS project looking at the investigation of online child abuse and exploitation across Europe. You can find out more about the SALVUS project here: https://salvusproject.eu Research Papers: Deceptive identity performance: Offender moves and multiple identities in online child abuse conversations Online grooming: moves and strategies Do Perverted Justice chat logs contain examples of Overt Persuasio⁠n and Sexual Extortion? A research note respondingto Chiang and Grant 2017 and 2018.