CFL Staff
[Please replace the asterisk with '@' in the email addresses below when sending a message.]
CFL Director, Professor Malcolm Coulthard is best known for his
work on the analysis of spoken and written discourse and his 'An Introduction to
Discourse Analysis' (1977/1985) is still widely used. He is the founding editor of The
International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law and was the Founding President of
the International Association of Forensic Linguists. He is the author of 20 authored and
edited books, as well as 50 articles and chapters in books, and has supervised numerous
PhD dissertations on various aspects of language and law. Malcolm has been commissioned
to write reports in almost 200 cases and has given expert evidence in courts in England,
Scotland, Northern Ireland, Germany and Hong Kong.
m.coulthard*aston.ac.uk
Dr Tim Grant has qualifications in both linguistics and psychology and is
particularly interested in the interaction between forensic linguistics and forensic
psychology. He is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Languages and Social Sciences,
teaching undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Forensic Linguistics and Research
Methods. His main research interests are in forensic authorship analysis and in the
conversations which occur between attackers and victims in cases of serious sexual
assault and rape. He has publications in both of these areas in both psychology and
linguistics journals. His consultancy has largely involved the analysis of abusive and
threatening communications in many different contexts including investigations into sexual
assaults, murder and terrorist offences. It has also included cases of copyright infringement
and academic plagiarism.
t.d.grant*aston.ac.uk
Dr Krzysztof Kredens received his MA in English Studies and PhD in
English Linguistics from the University of Lodz. Formerly a Marie Curie Research Fellow in
the Department of English at Birmingham University, he is now a Lecturer in Applied
Linguistics in the School of Languages and Social Sciences. His academic interests include
corpus linguistics, translation studies and social applications of linguistics. His main
research interest lies with language and the law, as evidenced by his numerous publications
and conference papers in the area. He is particularly interested in the linguistics of the
individual speaker and its implications for forensic authorship analysis. He is a practising
public service interpreter.
k.j.kredens*aston.ac.uk
David Woolls is an Honorary Visiting Fellow in the Centre for Forensic Linguistics. He is well-known for his work on automated plagiarism detection, in particular for the Copycatch program used by both educational institutions and commercial companies. In 2007 his software company, CFL, was selected as technology partner by UCAS, the British Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, to provide a system to monitor the personal statements in all the 500,000 university applications to receive each year. His primary research interest is in how readers recognise similarity between texts and components as small as individual sentences and in whether
and how such recognition can be accurately modelled in computer programs.
He has published papers in the areas of forensic linguistics, plagiarism and multilingual
concordancing. For more information visit his website.
cflsoaa*copycatchgold.com
Doctoral students
Nicci MacLeod holds a BA in English Language from the University of Wales, Bangor and an MA (Distinction) in Forensic Linguistics from Cardiff University,
where she was also awarded the Dell Hymes Commendation for Sociolinguistics. She began working on her PhD, entitled 'Police Interviews with Rape Complainants: A Critical Discourse Analysis', at Aston University after
being awarded the Phill Newbury Scholarship in October 2006. Her research interests lie in the manifestation of power through linguistic structures, particularly in legal and investigative contexts. She is the PhD Abstracts
Editor for the International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law.
macleodn*aston.ac.uk
Isabel Picornell
Isabel Picornell holds a BA and MA in Ancient History & Archaeology from the University of
Birmingham, which led to her interest in the use of language as an investigative tool. Isabel
is a certified fraud examiner specialising in the analysis of written statements. She is
undertaking PhD research at Aston University into linguistic markers of deception in written
text with particular emphasis on investigative contexts. Her research interests lie in the
influence of high-consequence lying on the language and structure of written narratives.
Isabel is currently the UK membership secretary for the International Association of Forensic
Linguists.
isabel*qed.info
