International Association of Forensic Linguists
Encyclopedia
The International Association of Forensic Linguists (IAFL) is a professional organization consisting primarily of linguists working in fields related to the area of language and law, or forensic linguistics
. Areas of expertise include (but are not limited to) authorship attribution, disputed confessions, trademark issues, legal language, etc. In addition to linguists, the association has members from other professions related to language and the law, particularly members of the legal profession.
Currently, the president of the IAFL is Janet Cotterill (Cardiff University
), and the vice-president is Ronald Butters (Duke University
).
The IAFL holds biennial international conferences and edits the International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law (formerly Forensic Linguistics), a peer-reviewed journal that publishes articles on any aspect of forensic language, speech and audio analysis. The board of editors includes language experts; Ronald Butters, Diana Eades, Paul Foulkes and Peter French.
threatened with legal actions unless the article "Charlatanry in forensic speech science", published in International Journal of Speech Language and the Law in 2007, was withdrawn. The publisher Equinox decided to withdraw the article from the online version of the magazine, and offered the company to publish a letter in the journal, an offer they never took. In the article, a commercial product sold by the company was criticized as based on pseudo-science, and the company was not given the chance to comment before the article was published. The withdrawal resulted in criticism of the publisher for not understanding how to manage a scientific journal. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
branded the company's behavior a "serious assault on research freedom".
Forensic linguistics
Forensic linguistics is the application of linguistic knowledge, methods and insights to the forensic context of law, language, crime investigation, trial, and judicial procedure. It is a branch of applied linguistics...
. Areas of expertise include (but are not limited to) authorship attribution, disputed confessions, trademark issues, legal language, etc. In addition to linguists, the association has members from other professions related to language and the law, particularly members of the legal profession.
Currently, the president of the IAFL is Janet Cotterill (Cardiff University
Cardiff University
Cardiff University is a leading research university located in the Cathays Park area of Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom. It received its Royal charter in 1883 and is a member of the Russell Group of Universities. The university is consistently recognised as providing high quality research-based...
), and the vice-president is Ronald Butters (Duke University
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
).
The IAFL holds biennial international conferences and edits the International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law (formerly Forensic Linguistics), a peer-reviewed journal that publishes articles on any aspect of forensic language, speech and audio analysis. The board of editors includes language experts; Ronald Butters, Diana Eades, Paul Foulkes and Peter French.
Controversy
In 2008, lawyers hired by the one-man company NemesyscoNemesysco
Nemesysco is an Israeli company that makes lie detectors and other products based on voice analysis. They have been used in airports in Israel and Russia, by insurance companies and social security helplines in the United Kingdom and sold to consumers. It has raised controversy about privacy and...
threatened with legal actions unless the article "Charlatanry in forensic speech science", published in International Journal of Speech Language and the Law in 2007, was withdrawn. The publisher Equinox decided to withdraw the article from the online version of the magazine, and offered the company to publish a letter in the journal, an offer they never took. In the article, a commercial product sold by the company was criticized as based on pseudo-science, and the company was not given the chance to comment before the article was published. The withdrawal resulted in criticism of the publisher for not understanding how to manage a scientific journal. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences or Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden. The Academy is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization which acts to promote the sciences, primarily the natural sciences and mathematics.The Academy was founded on 2...
branded the company's behavior a "serious assault on research freedom".