The Yorkshire Ripper Hoaxer: case study of Speaker profiling and speaker comparison in Forensic linguistics
1. Introduction
“[....] the listener does not necessarily hear what was said, but rather hears their construction of what they think is said; they subconsciously combine the speech signal (the sounds) with prior knowledge of speech, language and context in their own heads (Fraser 2003, cited in Coulthard, et al 2017 p.130).
Those words, indirectly, call for reconsideration of distinguishing a voice as a natural task. Coulthard, et al 2017 mentioned in the findings of a study done by Bruce (1958, cited in Fraser 2014) that notwithstanding the fact that they had listened to the same utterances, the participants perception to “masked” words they were listing to, has differed in reaction to key words, such as “weather.” This being said, this paper will not discuss the ability of the lay person to identify a voice. Instead, the focus here will be on forensic linguists who use the science to unveil the anonymity of certain speaker. This essay will present a study case of The Yorkshire Ripper Hoaxer in which the speaker profiling and comparison procedures were used successfully. In the part that follows the introduction, speaker profiling and …show more content…
Jessen, (2007) established two classifications for the concept of age: “chronological age and biological age (P.185).” Chronological age refers to the day a person is born, whereas, biological age is related to the aging of the organs and mental systems that are related to producing language (Jessen, 2007). Smoking, drinking, yelling are some of factors that can accelerate biological aging (Jessen, 2007). In addition, Jessen (2007) states that the vocal differences between the two types of aging can start after the age of 20-25. On another note, Kelly and Harte (2015: p. 175, cited in Coulthard, et al., 2017
1. Introduction
“[....] the listener does not necessarily hear what was said, but rather hears their construction of what they think is said; they subconsciously combine the speech signal (the sounds) with prior knowledge of speech, language and context in their own heads (Fraser 2003, cited in Coulthard, et al 2017 p.130).
Those words, indirectly, call for reconsideration of distinguishing a voice as a natural task. Coulthard, et al 2017 mentioned in the findings of a study done by Bruce (1958, cited in Fraser 2014) that notwithstanding the fact that they had listened to the same utterances, the participants perception to “masked” words they were listing to, has differed in reaction to key words, such as “weather.” This being said, this paper will not discuss the ability of the lay person to identify a voice. Instead, the focus here will be on forensic linguists who use the science to unveil the anonymity of certain speaker. This essay will present a study case of The Yorkshire Ripper Hoaxer in which the speaker profiling and comparison procedures were used successfully. In the part that follows the introduction, speaker profiling and …show more content…
Jessen, (2007) established two classifications for the concept of age: “chronological age and biological age (P.185).” Chronological age refers to the day a person is born, whereas, biological age is related to the aging of the organs and mental systems that are related to producing language (Jessen, 2007). Smoking, drinking, yelling are some of factors that can accelerate biological aging (Jessen, 2007). In addition, Jessen (2007) states that the vocal differences between the two types of aging can start after the age of 20-25. On another note, Kelly and Harte (2015: p. 175, cited in Coulthard, et al., 2017