Forgery as counterargument in authorship attribution reports: A case study

Sheila Queralt, Roser Giménez García

Abstract


The aim of this paper is to scientifically test the assumption that the writing style of an author is not only unique but unrepeatable. The literature supports this assumption and suggests that successful forgery would require both the mastery of language and a sustained level of conscious attention, which are extremely difficult to attain. Our study used a corpus of texts by and material from a real blackmail case in which one of the authors worked. The study combines a qualitative analysis for the identification of marked and prominent structures combined with quantitative descriptive statistics. The results lead us to reject the hypothesis that the writing style of an author can be successfully forged. Forgers can replicate the most visually prominent traits, but they are unable to identify and incorporate all the traits of the original author in their productions. Moreover, when they do identify a trait, forgers are unable to replicate it with the same frequency as the original author. We therefore conclude that the writing style of an author cannot be forged as thoroughly and consistently as needed be for the forger to remain unnoticed by forensic linguistic analysis.


Keywords


forensic linguistics; linguistic evidence; linguistic expert report; authorship disguise; author’s style

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.22201/enallt.01852647p.2018.68.746

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