The manner in which people write notes, work memorandums, personal letters, even e-mails may very often identify them from others. This can be crucial in a case where the only shred of evidence in a case is found in an anonymous writing or a document missing the writer's name. The study of patterns in writing and the way words are arranged on the page is sometimes referred to as Forensic Linguistics. This system is designed to identify the individual writer in the context of questioned documents. Ironically, the standardized language of English allows for this. English is a rule bound system of communication, though, for the purposes stated here, will be limited to written works. There are thousands of rules in the language complicated even more by exceptions to the rules. In the early stages of our lives, we learn to communicate through speech, assimilating and processing language early on. As schools educate the young, each learner is left with an indelible impression of using English. Each youngster's impression is different for a number of reasons. Regions in the United States practice unique vernaculars, school systems adhere to different curricula, and teachers employ teaching practices based on their abilities, motivations, and perceptions. Add to those the variables inherent to each student's ability, motivation, and opportunity, and one may begin to understand why people use language so uniquely.
This system is created to discern formed writing habits found in questioned documents and to determine whether the strength of those patterns is obvious enough to identify an individual as the author. Habits in writing that adhere closely to the conventions of Standard Written English (SWE) make identifying an individual very difficult. Conversely, habitual errors and consistent flaws in given compositions make it easy to point to the one person as the writer. In short, the system functions most efficiently when the writer demonstrates idiosyncrasies on paper. On the other hand, the more standardized the work, the less likely an examiner will identify a suspected author.
Because the objective of Syntactic Identification™ rests on comparing more than one document, findings are strongest when they are inter-documentary. As mirrored errors recur in two or more documents, chances for identification increase. An author may spell the word "house" without an "e" every time, but should that word be used in just one document, it remains intra-documentary and a straggler, an error that has value only when found elsewhere.
Some errors may appear throughout a series of documents, but their commonality among all writers reduces their value in the examiner's eyes. For example, many writers posit sentence fragments as syntactic representations of sentences-they write fragments every so often. The likelihood of such an error spans a very high percentage of the writing population, reducing the evidentiary weight of the finding.
This assessment relies on a series of unique identifiers-that is how Syntactic Identification™ works most efficiently. When the examiner is able to find five to ten unique characteristics among a series of documents, the reliability of accurate identification of authorship is very good. As students, we were taught to write similarly according to conventions dictated in grammar primers. For a number of reasons, we writers digressed and stylized our choices in structure and diction, most of the time remaining fixed among those choices for a lifetime. Those routines in composition serve as the basis for the investigative linguist using this system. Syntactic Identification™ is a method of identifying an author's composition patterns, including but not limited to, idiosyncrasies and anomalies found in an individual's work(s).
The three-tiered method involves first determining syntax, or word order arrangement, as a particular author favors it. Each individual document is numbered, and each respective syntactic representation (sentence) is numbered and classified in three areas: sentence types, clauses used, and phrases. The document examiner classifies each sentence accordingly; without fail, patterns emerge and are identified.
Secondly, syntactic markers are identified. Unique characteristics that appear over the course of a number of questioned documents serve as common denominators. When grouped with other anomalies of the writer, an individual's identity may be established in writing, just as blood types and fingerprints identify otherwise unknown persons. For example, a writer may regularly compose compound or compound-complex sentence without appropriate conjunctions or punctuation, or one without the other, and so forth. The number of variables is quite exhaustive, for any system that employs such an extensive number of elements as the English language lends itself to uniqueness on behalf of its users.
After syntactic markers come clausal markers. Again, unlike the first step, where the sentences and clauses are identified, this part of analysis involves how a writer employs a clause. It should be noted that the document examiner is much less interested in determining whether or not the writer adheres to the conventions of Standard Written English (SWE) than he or she is in determining idiosyncratic usage of the language. For example, a writer may employ adjective clauses regularly, which neither identifies the writer nor places him or her outside the domain of writers. However, should that writer regularly leave out relative pronouns (e.g., that, which, when) when employing adjective clauses, a syntactic identity becomes clear, at least in one way. Lastly, phrasal markers are also isolated and used to establish patterns in a writer's work(s). This might include such markers as the use of idioms or verb tense patterns. Beyond this, the examiner considers diction and tone used by a writer. Proper noun phrases may also serve as identifiers with regards to capitalization and punctuation. The system includes a review of the documents' punctuation as well, and, finally, the document's font, heading, body, and closing format are also considered. Syntactic Identification™ is concluded with quantitative analysis of all data gathered from questioned documents. If recurrent patterns of syntax are found or a number of key idiosyncrasies recur, the examiner presents select findings with the objective of identifying a single authorship conclusively. On the other hand, insufficient data or a clear lack of connective patterns may cause the document examiner to dismiss the prospect of syntactic identification.
Biography
Steven R. Smith holds a Master of Arts degree in English from The University of Akron, awarded in 1996.He has taught English at Manchester High School in Akron, Ohio, since 1994.To attain permanent certification as an educator of English in the state of Ohio, he completed a 700-level linguistics course, Grammatical Structures, to satisfy one part of certification requirements, a course that emphasized the underlying structures of syntax, both forms and functions.He completed his undergraduate work at The University of Akron in 1987 with a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice and Political Science and went on to serve as Special Agent for the US Treasury's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms (Enforcement Division).During that time he graduated from Criminal Investigator School at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Georgia in 1989. One of Smith's duties as a high school teacher of English is to analyze and explain syntactic patterns and variations found in the writings of students.As a college writing tutor at the University of Akron and, later, Stark State Technical College, he taught structural elements of the sentence to collegiate writers, both undergraduate and graduate.He also conceptualized and designed a working prototype of a board game, Sentence Smackdown, to reinforce to students the forms and functions of all sentences, clauses, and phrases. Steven Smith also founded and edited Lyricist Review, a 100-page text on modern song lyrics, in 1997.Once marketed and published, the book was sold to over 1500 schools nationwide.
Smith currently has an academic paper under review by the respected international journal, Forensic Linguistics, published semi-annually in Birmingham, England.He hopes to apply his original work, titled Syntactic Identification, to both civil and criminal cases where key written documents remain anonymous but may be identified through Smith's system of examination.
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