An Illustration of Forensic Linguistics: The Washington Sniper Letter

Format

The format of the letter includes a title page decorated with stars, including a title in quotation marks ("Call me God") and an addressee ("Mr. Police"); there is also a notice about distribution ("Do not release to the Press"). The body of the letter repeats the addressee, the title, and the distribution notice. The text is neatly printed, and two sections are labeled with roman numerals as if in outline form; in the second case, roman i and roman ii are indicated as alternatives by "(BUT)" between the sections. The body pages are numbered at the top of the page. There are several erasures and evidence of correction such as overwriting letters. There is a P.S for a concluding section.

Linguistic Features

1. Erratic or non-standard capitalization: mr./Mr., Press/press, But, Hoax, Joke, america, Pin, Morning/morning, am.

2. Non-standard spelling: incompitence, Mongomery, of (for our), withdrawl, you (for your)

3. Grammar: Sentence fragment: We have tried . . .; Verb agreement: demand . . .are; Defective plural: dollar; Missing article: complete (the) transaction; Run-on sentence: withdrawing(.) at least. . .; Mass/count problem: less (for fewer); Copula deletion: catch us now (is) more important

Discussion

The linguistic features of the letter are useful to the extent that they can be connected with practices known to be characteristic of different groups of people.

The format of the letter is quite formal, as indicated by the formal indication of the title and addressee, the use of roman numerals, and the P.S. mark. The decorated title page and numbered pages make the document look remarkably like a school report of the kind commonly required in American elementary and some secondary schools. The erasures and overwritten letters show that the document was composed with some care.

The number of non-standard spellings and the non-standard capitalization and grammar in even a carefully composed document is not unusual for a moderately educated American, consistent with someone who has completed some schooling but probably not received advanced (college) education. The somewhat elevated level of vocabulary ("negotiation, incompetent, non-negotiable, transaction") also indicates a moderate level of education. The range of errors is not characteristic of someone who has learned English as a second language, especially in that grammatical errors are not repeated.

Non-standard spellings give particular evidence for a profile in that, in a carefully composed document, they seem likely to represent known patterns of pronunciation. 1) "Mongomery." Only Americans are likely to delete the 't' in this word, because only Americans regularly fail to pronounce the 't' sound after nasal consonants (i.e., so that winner and winter rhyme). 2) "of" (for our) and "you" (for your) suggest a speaker who does not regularly pronounce postvocalic r. Some speakers in New England and New York City do not regularly pronounce postvocalic r, and some "plantation Southern" speakers do not pronounce it, but this characteristic is recessive in those populations; the largest group of American speakers who often do not pronounce postvocalic r is African Americans. The correction of the word "forces," probably from original "foces" to "forces," is also evidence for this point.

Several points offer weak evidence: 1) Verb agreement "demand . . . are" suggests that the s on "demands" may have been deleted stemming from consonant cluster reduction, a common pronunciation feature of African-Americans. 2) Copula deletion is a common feature in the African American community, but this example may be a simple error given the complexity of the sentence. 3) when "6:00" is written with strokes through the 0 symbols, this may suggest some military or technical background, where stroked 0s are commonly used. 4) the defective plural form "dollar" may be associated with lower or working class status, and may also suggest African American usage; deletion of the s allows the final r in "dollar" to be pronounced even by those who do not pronounce postvocalic r, because it becomes intervocalic within the sentence in front of "in."

Profile

The letter was written by an American, most likely an African American who has a moderate amount of education and comes from a lower- or working-class community, possibly with some military or technical background. It is possible but much less likely overall that the author was not African American but instead someone from New England, New York City, or the plantation South, with the same educational and class characteristics.

Since other evidence available at the time of the letter suggested West Coast connections, the African American profile should have been preferred.

Services Offered >>