Day 2

LECTURE 3: An overview of Forensic Linguistic
There is an emerging field in linguistics right now called forensic linguistics for
me that is new to my ears. According to the speaker it all started when she went to the
center national summer school in forensic linguistic analysis in Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia and meet Professor Malcolm cold hard they get to study also the articles in
class when she was taking Phd and after training in school she decided to write an
article and contributed to the educator. In November 2012 she writes an article which
was read by the current president of the International Association of forensic linguists
and invite him to give a lecture for the students titled words on trial linguistics as
evidence.
Forensic Lingguistics begins in 1968 with Jan Svartvik he is a Swedish linguist,
and he is one of the worlds most productive linguist in the field of mimic linguistic
and one of the most productive linguists in the field of mimic linguistic. The Evan
Statements:A Case for Forensic Linguistic which he created the four statements that
Timothy Evans, executed in 1950 for the murder of his baby daughter, was alleged to
have made following his arrest. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods
Svartvik demonstrated considerable stylistic discrepancies between the statements,
thus raising serious questions about their authorship.
Coulthard, Grant & Kredens define forensic linguistics as the use of linguistic to
spoken and written legal texts as well as the provision of evidence for criminal and
civil investigations and courtroom disputes. While Olson define it as interface
between language, crime and law and also Le Cheng & Ling Kui Sin define it as
Interface between law, language and discourse.
Forensic Linguistic also has questions to resolve a crime and this are who said
what?, who wrote what?, what happened?, why did it happen? And how did it
happen.It is very familiar with the 5 cardinal rules of investigation. According to the
Coulthard & Johnson Forensic Linguistic has three categories the Language of the
law, Language as evidence and Language of the judicial process.The English Caution
is not used in the Philippines instead it uses Miranda Rights. The Forensic Linguistic
broadly covers Legal language, Authorship analysis, Trademark disputes, Copyright
infringement, Police investigation, Interviews and interrogation and Courtroom
discourse.
LECTURE 4: Forensic Firearm & Toolmark Examination: Current Practices & Future Endeavor
The lecture starts with a capabilities of firearm examiner what they
basically do is different practices and techniques in the firearms laboratory and
function is that testing a firearms and then comparing actual fired ammunition
components to determine if a fired bullet was fired from a submitted firearm and
they can also have a database searches determining whether or not the firearm has
been used in multiple shooting scenes across a region and they can do serial
number restorations. As a firearm examiner they can read and trace on that
firearm to determine if it was stolen to see who is the original purchaser of that
firearm they can also determine how far away is shooter was.
The firearm function testing talks about examining the firearm to

determine how it functions and determine if it is functioning properly, how the
manufacturer determine or design that firearm to function in its continuing firing.
The speaker then talks about the bullets and cartridges case comparison since
firearm examination is done. So, the components of cartridge case are primer, gun
powder and bullet. The little markings that are seen in the bullets in cartridge case
they are the result of firing the bullet and gets squeezed down in the barrel and
creates a spin giving it stability so that it is much more accurate. The bullet
comparison does is basically a comparison of two different items 1 item on the
left and second item on the right side of the image and those items are divided by
this vertical red line and allow them to view two different items simultaneously.
So, basically what they are looking for an overarching pattern of correspondence
and that pattern is developed through their training and experience, and they will
have the actual test of firearms and will compare that so they can have ground
truth that these firearms were fired from the same firearm, and they examine and
evaluate those items.
He also enumerates the Light comparison microscope which they are

using for a long time now and basically what this is it’s two different microscopes
we have one microscope on the left side and other microscope on the right side
each of these have focus knobs and will mount the items on these stages one item
on the right side and one item on the left side.
On other hand he introduces another equipment’s the Virtual Comparison

Microscopy what it does actually is that it scans the items, and it is not a
microscope but all virtual and digital and once the scans the items you can view
the items not through eyepiece but through computer monitors and he also show
to us the TopMatch 3D High Capacity system and it uses silicone gel pad and the
cartridge cases getting pressed into and getting that accurate measurements it can
hold up to 15 cartridges.
LECTURE 5: Forensic Technology Applied in Real Cases

Forensic science is the application of science to criminal and civil laws,
mainly on the criminal side during the criminal investigation, as governed by the
legal standards of admissible evidence and criminal procedure.
In the concept of forensic there are two currents of criminalistics the European
and the Anglo-Saxon they are kind of similar with little differences and there is a
criminal case that made it change and they change it to forensic sciences it was
the OJ Simpson case and Oj Simpson is a really big football player. One day a
police officer went to their house and they made a issue that questioned
everything about the evidences, the people who brought evidences because of this
questions the suspect is not guilty with unsolved crime until now and nobody
knows who killed the victim. They questioned all the physical evidence and don’t
know everything. That’s what forensic sciences have been made of they are more
on solving crime with the help with scientific knowledge the methods and
technique to establish a conclusion or facts that can be used in the court. So the
mission of forensic science is to provide and promote scientific knowledge for
those the judicial system .So the difference of criminalistics is that they mainly
receive evidence and processed the evidence and recognize it then give the
knowledge to the jury to be analyzed.
According to the speaker the forensic scientist is just there to solve some
scientific questions, and this is important because this can give you expert
answers they sometimes go to the court just to testify and show their experience
their education and only they can answer that. Forensic expert must have
knowledge of their work and not just knowledge they also need skills to perform
well to be able to operate the tools that are used in a investigation and
coordination as they are always working with the team.
Challenges Encountered in the Application of Forensic
According to the lecture there are some challenges that they encountered in the
application of forensic sciences and one of them is the untrustworthy. Some forensic
methods used in criminal investigations have been shown in studies to produce
inconsistently accurate results. Bite mark comparison is an example of an untrustworthy
and inaccurate analysis. Another one is that forensic testimony overstates the
significance of similarities between evidence from a crime scene and evidence from an
individual. Examples include testimony that suggests a collection of features is unique or
overstates how rare or unusual it would be to see these features, implying that it is quite
likely that the suspect is the source of the evidence, and testimony that doesn’t convey all
possible conclusions.

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LECTURE 3: An overview of Forensic Linguistic

The firearm function testing talks about examining the firearm to

He also enumerates the Light comparison microscope which they are

On other hand he introduces another equipment’s the Virtual Comparison

LECTURE 5: Forensic Technology Applied in Real Cases

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