Authorship analysis is the process of determining who produced a questioned text by language analysis. Although there has been significant success in the performance of computational methods to solve this problem in recent years, these are often methods that are not amenable to interpretation. Authorship analysis is in all effects an area of computer science with very little linguistics or cognitive science. This Element introduces a Theory of Linguistic Individuality that, starting from basic notions of cognitive linguistics, establishes a formal framework for the mathematical modelling of language processing that is then applied to three computational experiments, including using the likelihood ratio framework. The results propose new avenues of research and a change of perspective in the way authorship analysis is currently carried out. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

This Element examines progress in research and practice in forensic authorship analysis. It describes the existing research base and examines what makes an authorship analysis more or less reliable. Further to this, the author describes the recent history of forensic science and the scientific revolution brought about by the invention of DNA evidence. They chart the rise of three major changes in forensic science – the recognition of contextual bias in analysts, the need for validation studies and shift in logic of providing identification evidence. This Element addresses the idea of progress in forensic authorship analysis in terms of these three issues with regard to new knowledge about the nature of authorship and methods in stylistics and stylometry. The author proposes that the focus needs to shift to validation of protocols for approaching case questions, rather than on validation of systems or general approaches. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.