The Germanic Society of Forensic Linguistics (GSFL) is holding its Fourth Roundtable in Forensic Linguistics & Phonetics in Mainz, Germany from 27-28 August 2016, preceded by a Student and Emerging Scholars’ Day on 26th August.

It aims to “provide forensic linguistics/forensic phonetics researchers, educators, and practitioners the opportunity to present and discuss their work within an interdisciplinary, supportive, and respectful scholarly environment”.

Sample topics can be found below. Apparently no final programme is available yet on the conference website.

Forensic Linguistics

• corpus analysis of forensic texts (e.g. confessions, courtroom transcripts, police protocols, suicide letters, threatening letters, hate mail, extortion letters, terrorist threats)
• author identification and verification
• plagiarism and deception detection
• qualitative and quantitative methods for the linguistic analysis of forensic texts
• the language of (violent) offenders and/or victims

Forensic Phonetics

• earwitnesses and lineup procedures
• speaker identification, discrimination, and voice comparison
• perceptual speaker identification
• foreign/second language speaker analysis
• formant measurement, dynamics, and pattern identification
• intra- and interspeaker variation
• automatic speaker recognition
• cross-linguistic voice recognition

Language and the Legal Process

• courtroom interpreting and translating
• multilingualism and the legal system
• language minorities and the law
• legal discourse and legal text analysis
• language testing, citizenship, and asylum-seekers
• investigative interviewing and/or interrogative practices
• legal policies on presenting expert testimony and evidence
• deception detection in interviews
• statutory interpretation

Forensic Linguistics/ Forensic Phonetics (FL/FP), and Education

• developing FL/FP programs and curricula
• FL/FP instructional materials (textbooks audiovisual aids, corpora, etc.)
• developing ties with universities and professional organizations
• interdisciplinary challenges and promises
• the future of FL/FP education
• teaching ethical standards in FL/FP research and application.

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If you are curious about the picture at the top of this post, Mainz is home to the Gutenberg Museum – one of the oldest museums of printing in the world.