Systemic Functional Linguistics: Implications for Authorship Analysis

Andrea Nini

Language of the Law

Judicial Process

Complexity

Language as Evidence

Disputed Meaning

Trademark Disputes

Authorship Analysis

Authorship Attribution

Authorship Profiling

Authorship Analysis

Stylometric

Lexical measures

Complexity

Cognitive

Syntax

Punctuation

Stylistic

Deviations from

standard

Choice

Holistic •  Modern linguistic theory •  Coherence of description

Inherently sociolinguistic •  Based on notion of choice

Cognitively realistic •  Work of Lamb and Fawcett •  Correlation with findings in social psychology

Why Systemic Functional Linguistics?

Context

Semantics

Lexicogrammar

Expression

Contextual Variation

Semantic Variation

Lexicogrammatical Variation

-

-

Semantic constant

Lexicogrammatical Variation

Expression Variation

Contextual Constant

Semantic Variation

Lexicogrammatical Variation

-

Dialectal Variation Codal Variation Registerial Variation

Personalised Meaning Potential

November 1952

Derek Bentley (19) Chris Craig (16) Sentenced to death Life imprisonment

My Mother told me that they had called and I then ran out after them. I walked up the road with them to the paper shop where I saw Craig standing. We all talked together and then Norman Parsley and Frank Fazey left. Chris Craig and I then caught a bus to Croydon. We got off at West Croydon and then walked down the road where the toilets are - I think it is Tamworth Road. When we came to the place where you found me, Chris looked in the window. There was a little iron gate at the side. Chris then jumped over and I followed. Up to then Chris had not said anything. We both got out on to the flat roof at the top. Then someone in a garden on the opposite side shone a torch up towards us. Chris said: "It's a copper, hide behind here." We hid behind a shelter arrangement on the roof. We were there waiting for about ten minutes. I did not know he was going to use the gun

11 occurrences in 558 words

Bentley’s statement

Ordinary witness statements

Police officer statements

1 occurrence in 930 words

29 occurrences in 2270 words

Bank of English: 1 every 500

words

7

Subject^(Verb)^then

I then: 1 every 165000

words

0

26

Police Register

I then…

Lay people

Then I…

Police officers

Clausal Theme = Textual Semantics

Contextual Constant [Statement]

Semantic Variation [Textual Meaning]

Lexicogrammatical Variation [Position of

then]

-

Social Positioning

Ideology (way of understanding

the context)

Females use more pronouns, males use more prepositions [essays and books] (Newman et al. 2008)

Older age correlates with more future tenses [writing samples and interviews] (Pennebaker & Stone 2003)

Neuroticism correlates with higher usage rate of self-references [stream of consciousness essays] (Argamon et al. 2009)

Schizoprenic subjects present a particular pattern of cohesion in speech (Rochester & Martin 1979)

To what extent can we push codal variation?

•  gender •  age •  education level •  social class •  ethnicity

•  300 words •  Introduction only

Analysis 506

Variables

Subjectivity? (O’Donnell et al. 2008)

Biber’s Multidimensional Analysis

Biber’s Multidimensional Analysis

-15 -10

-5 0 5

10 15 20 25

Dimension1

Dimension2

Dimension3

Dimension4

Dimension5

Dimension6

Academic prose Author1 Author2 Author3

Field

Ideational

Transitivity…

Tenor

Interpersonal

Mood…

Mode

Textual

Theme…

Threatening letter Diary entry

Context-Metafunction Hook-up Hypothesis!

Conclusions

Codal variation can be useful for forensic purposes

  The method would be improved using Biber’s methodology Context-Metafunction Hook-up Hypothesis debate

Thank you