Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics
Improving the delivery of justice through the analysis of language
We are a thriving and lively community of over thirty members, from PhD students to professors, and our research is innovative, applied, interdisciplinary and impactful. In addition to conducting cutting-edge research, our members teach on the Aston MA in Forensic Linguistics, a programme that consistently enables graduates to secure careers in policing, intelligence analysis and related fields. We also run CPD courses and provide investigative assistance and expert evidence in criminal and civil cases.
Dr Krzysztof Kredens
Director of Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics
Dr Stefanie Kreibich
Operations Manager for Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics
Dr Nicci MacLeod
Deputy Director of Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics
Emma Wheeley
Research Projects and Strategy Manager
Dr Sarah Atkins
Lecturer in English
Email: s.atkins@aston.ac.uk
Dr Andrea Mojedano Batel
Research Fellow in Forensic Linguistics
Email: a.mojedanobatel@aston.ac.uk
Dr Amy Booth
Researcher in Forensic Linguistics
Email a.booth@aston.ac.uk
Dr Lucia Busso
Research Fellow in Forensic Linguistics
Email: l.busso@aston.ac.uk
Dr Emily Chiang
Research Fellow in Forensic Linguistics
Email: e.chiang2@aston.ac.uk
Dr Felicity Deamer
Senior Lecturer in Forensic Linguistics
Email: f.deamer@aston.ac.uk
Prof Tim Grant
Professor of Forensic Linguistics
Email: t.d.grant@aston.ac.uk
Dr Kate Haworth
Director of the Centre for Spoken Interaction in Legal Contexts
Email: k.haworth@aston.ac.uk
Dr Madison Hunter
Research Associate in Forensic Linguistics
Email: m.hunter5@aston.ac.uk
Dr Fiona Kelcher
Teaching Fellow
Email: kelcherf@aston.ac.uk
Dr Krzysztof Kredens
Director of the Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics
Email: k.j.kredens@aston.ac.uk
Dr Stefanie Kreibich
Operations Manager
Email: s.kreibich@aston.ac.uk
Dr Nicci MacLeod
Deputy Director of the Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics
Email: n.macleod5@aston.ac.uk
Dr Geoffrey Stewart Morrison
Director of the Forensic Speech Science Laboratory
Email: g.s.morrison@aston.ac.uk
Dr Ralph Morton
Research Fellow in Forensic Linguistics
Email: r.morton2@aston.ac.uk
Dr Tahmineh Tayebi
Lecturer in Forensic Linguistics
Email: t.tayebi@aston.ac.uk
Dr Philip Weber
Lecturer in Forensic Data Science
Email: p.weber1@aston.ac.uk
Emma Wheeley
Research Projects and Strategy Manager
Mitchell Abrams Visiting AIFL Researcher Email: 190205803@aston.ac.uk FTA | Dr Isabel Picornell Director, QED Forensic Linguistics Ltd Email: isabel@qedforensics.com FTA, SILC |
Prof Lauren Devine Professor of Linguistics and Law Lancaster University | Dr Emma Richardson Lecturer in Language and Social Interaction Loughborough University |
Dr Ewald Enzinger Senior Research Engineer Eduworks Corporation FSSL | Dr Claudia Rosas Instituto de Lingüística y Literatura, Universidad Austral de Chile FSSL |
Dr Leigh Harrington Lecturer in English Language, Linguistics and English Language University of Manchester | Dr Juliette Scott Legal Translation Practitioner, Researcher & Consultant Email: juliette.scott@tiscali.co.uk |
Dr Annina Heini Research Fellow in Forensic Linguistics University of Melbourne Email: a.heini14@aston.ac.uk | John O'Shea Legal Translation Practitioner Email: info@jurtrans.com |
Nadia Makouar Professor (Associate) Paul Valéry University, Montpellier | James Tompkinson Lecturer in Sociolinguistics York University |
Prof Yaron Matras Honorary Professor, Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics, School of Social Sciences Email:y.matras@aston.ac.uk Personal website: yaronmatras.org FTA | Prof Cuiling Zhang School of Criminal Investigation, Southwest University of Political Science and Law FSSL |
Dr Ria Perkins Email: r.perkins@aston.ac.uk FTA |
Neus Alberich: Discursive constructions of consent in the manosphere | Julija Dana: Personality type and idiolectal style |
Lily Calloway: The language of encouragement in pro-ana and assisted suicide | Melanie Clinton: Language in expert reports submitted to the Family Court |
Jordan Robertson: The perception of silence in police-suspect interviews | Jenna Elliott: A corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis of the manifestos of mass shooters in the USA |
Eden Palmer: The language of transphobia on a British parenting forum | Lauren Morgan: BSL-interpreted police investigative interviews |
Amy Brown: The influence of psychopathic traits and personality disorders on stalker communication | Noorin Iqbal: A linguistic analysis of religious hate speech by Indians aganist Islam and Muslims of India on Instagram |
Karolina Placzynta: Hate speech in moderated social media context: patterns, parallels, and intersections | Anneke Visser: The application of Authorship Analysis techniques on speech data as a counter to AI-generated voice cloning in speaker comparison |
Malcolm Coulthard Professor Emeritus, Birmingham University Chair of the AIFL Advisory Board | Chris Heffer Reader, Cardiff University Email: HefferC2@cardiff.ac.uk Adviser for SILC |
Peter Patrick Professor Emeritus, Essex University Email: patrickp@essex.ac.uk Adviser for FTA | Yaron Matras Honorary Professor, Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics, School of Social Sciences Email:y.matras@aston.ac.uk Personal website: yaronmatras.org Adviser to AIFL |
Janet Ainsworth John D. Eshelman Professor of Law Emerita, Seattle University Email: jan@seattleu.edu Adviser for CLL | Deborah Leary, OBE CEO and founder of Forensic Pathways Adviser to AIFL |
Title: Linguistic Disadvantage in Legal Settings (LiDiLS)
Lead: Dr Felicity Deamer
The central aim is to use linguistic methods to conduct analysis of the language used in a variety of legal settings to explore issues around vulnerability and disadvantage within the legal system. We aim to better understand how vulnerability and disadvantage can be caused, maintained, and shaped by the needs and procedures of the legal system. An enhanced understanding of these issues will facilitate better provision for vulnerable and disadvantaged individuals in myriad legal settings.
Dr Felicity Deamer Examining ways in which uncertainties in the conceptual underpinnings of diminished responsibility are reflected in ethical uncertainties and inconsistencies in psychiatric evidence. Deamer and Wilkinson. (forthcoming). Ethical uncertainties and inconsistencies in diminished responsibility rulings: a case for psychiatric fictionalism
Title: Spoken Interaction in Legal Contexts (SILC)
Lead: Dr Nicci MacLeod
The primary research focus is on investigative interviews in policing and other contexts (such as internal or civil investigations), but our remit encompasses other contexts where spoken interaction is central, such as courtroom interaction, emergency calls, and first response encounters. A key tenet of our approach is to work closely with practitioners and external organisations, in order to produce genuinely useful research informed by, and grounded in, professional practice.
A study applying linguistics to improve evidential consistency in police investigative interview records. Haworth et al. (2023). For the Record: applying linguistics to improve evidential consistency in police investigative interview records. Frontiers in Communication, Vol. 8 - 2023. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2023.1178516
Tompkinson et al. (2023). Perceptual instability in police interview records: Examining the effect of pauses and modality on people’s perceptions of an interviewee. International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law, 30(1), 22–51. https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsll.24565
Richardson et al. (2023). Understanding the role of transcription in evidential consistency of police interview records in England and Wales. Language in Society. D
eamer et al. (2022). For the Record: Exploring variability in interpretations of police investigative interviews. Language and Law/Linguagem e Direito. 9, 1, p. 25-46. https://doi.org/10.21747/21833745/lanlaw/9_1a2
A study of police emergency calls in the UK addresses the interactional work conducted when dealing with reports of kidnap. Atkins et al. (2024). Communicating and categorising kidnap incidents in UK police emergency calls. Policing and Society. https://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2024.2386282
This project scrutinised a set of investigative interviews carried out with victims of rape prior to the rolling out of changes enacted by the large-scale research programme Operation Soteria. It has identified a number of key areas of interviewing practice where recommendations from the programme might be put to use. This project served as a pilot for further research for which funding is currently being sought.
Title: Harmful and Abusive Language Online (HALO)
Lead: Dr Tahmineh Tayebi
Brings together work in the institute that focuses on the role of language in the composition and dissemination of hateful and dangerous ideologies in online spaces. From white supremacy to child sexual abuse, from transphobia to the so-called 'manosphere', and from misogyny to pro-suicide fora, discourse is at the heart of a range of dangerous online practices, and our work seeks to unpack these processes to shed light on how we might improve the safety of marginalised and/or vulnerable groups in the online sphere.
In this project, we conduct a multi-layered, corpus-assisted analysis of offensive language across various social media platforms, focusing on the lexical, discursive, and pragmatic features.
Testing the utility of Appraisal Theory for investigating and categorising harmful online discourse, with a view to semi-automating the process to assist with intelligence gathering.
A projects incorporating corpus linguistics tools into a search engine to assist commercial entities (e.g. Banks) in monitoring fraudulent activity on the dark web.
To provide understanding and tools for the analysis of hierarchies of power across large datasets of anonymous online criminal interactions. Newsome-Chandler, H. & Grant, T. (2023) Language and Law / Linguagem e Direito. 10, 1, 21 p.
Title: Forensic Text Analysis (FTA)
Lead: Dr Krzysztof Kredens
Researches individual variation in language use to inform the theory and practice of forensic authorship analysis. We are interested in linguistically-enabled offender identification, the identification of the native dialect or language of non-native speakers of English producing texts in English online, and the correlations between language use and age, and language use and personality.
A resource used to facilitate research on individual variation across discourse types.
A project investigating patterns of individual linguistic stability across discourse types using Spanish-language data.
Members of the Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics deliver our world leading MA Forensic Linguistics (with a distance learning option if your preference is to study remotely). Our course is designed to help you explore cutting-edge research and practical applications.
With a £6M UK government grant, we've expanded our capabilities to ensure you receive the very best expertise. Guided by experienced academics, you will delve into numerous topics, from identifying authors to addressing online abuse.
You will engage in real case work, collaborate on research projects and attend seminars to boost your skills. Whether you're looking for a career in policing, intelligence, cybersecurity or academia, our programme equips you with the tools to make a real difference.
Contact Programme Director, Dr Felicity Deamer for more details.