Blake Stephen Howald, Esq.

 

 

I am a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Linguistics at Georgetown University

and an active member of the District of Columbia Bar.

 

e-mail: bsh25 (at) georgetown dot edu

 

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Spring 2008

 

This semester, I am a research assistant for Dr. Deborah Tannen and writing my M.S. Thesis under the direction of Dr. Michael Lempert.

 

I am also giving two guest lectures:

 

Linguistic Aspects of Consent in Sexual Assault

Women, Men and Language (LING-343) (Jennifer Sclafani)

Wednesday, March 26, 2008 – 4:15-5:30 REI 283        

 

Introduction to Language and Law/ Forensic Linguistics

Introduction to Language (LING-001) (Sue Lorenson)

Monday, April 14, 2008

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Friday, April 18, 2008

9:15-10:05 WGR 311

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Research Interests

 

Pragmatics

Cognitive Linguistics

Discourse Analysis

Forensic Linguistics:

           The discourse, pragmatic, and cognitive aspects of offender-survivor interactions before, during and after the commission of violent crimes.

           The relationships between linguistics and domestic and international legal systems; in particular, evidence, criminal procedure and trial practice.

Offender and Geographic Profiling

Computational Linguistics

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Curriculum Vitae Highlights

 

Education

 

University of Detroit Mercy School of Law, Detroit, Michigan, Juris Doctor, December 2005.

 

University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Bachelor of Arts, Magna Cum Laude, Linguistics, May 2001.

 

 

Publications

 

Authorship Attribution under the Rules of Evidence: Empirical Approaches in the Layperson Legal System, Under Review.

 

Forensic Linguistics: The Emerging Paradigm and Academic Avenue of Implementation, Under Review.

 

Identifying Authorship by Byte-Level N-Grams: The Source Code Author Profile (SCAP) Method, with Georgia Frantzeskou, Efstathios Stamatatos, Stefanos Gritzalis, and Carole E. Chaski, International Journal of Digital Evidence, Volume 6, Issue 1, Spring 2007.

 

Big Brother May not be a Linguist – What Did They Mean? Detroit Legal News, Vol. CXI, No. 68, Pg. 3, April 5, 2006.

 

Big Brother May not be a Linguist – Who Wrote It? Detroit Legal News, Vol. CXI, No. 63, Pg. 3, March 29, 2006.

 

Big Brother May not be a Linguist – Who Said It? Detroit Legal News, Vol. CXI, No. 58, Pg. 3, March 22, 2006.

 

Comparative and Non-Comparative Forensic Linguistic Analysis Techniques: Methodologies for Negotiating the Interface of Linguistics and Evidentiary Jurisprudence in the American Judiciary, 83 U. Det. Mercy L. Rev. 285, Issue 3, Spring 2006.

 

 

Conference Presentations

 

International Association of Applied Linguistics, AILA 2008 – Multilingualism: Challenges and Opportunities, Essen, Germany, Cross-Cultural Jurisprudential Perspectives on Expert Testimony: The Role of the Linguist as Educator in the Administration of Justice, Symposium Participant – Forensic Linguistics Across Languages and Cultures, August 2008.

 

Arizona Anthropology and Linguistics Symposium, AZANLI 2008, Tucson, Arizona Variation of Spatial Reference in the Institutionalized Narrative of a Serial Offender: Linguistic Evidence for Cognitive Mapping as a Reflection of Environmental Offense Behavior, May 2008.

 

International Association of Forensic Linguists, 8th Biennial Conference, Seattle, Washington Authorship Attribution under the Rules of Evidence: Empirical Approaches in a Layperson's Legal System, Panel Participant with Hannes Kniffka, Ph.D., Carole E. Chaski, Ph.D., and Tim Grant, Ph.D., July 2007.

 

International Association of Forensic Linguists, 8th Biennial Conference, Seattle, Washington, Guilty Pleas as Grist for Crime Investigation and Prevention: A Discourse Analytic Case Study of the BTK Killer, July 2007.

 

Workshop on Language and Law, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, Linguistics and Law, State of the Field, February 2007.

 

Law and Society Association, Annual Meeting, Baltimore, MD, Text-Typing Threat Letters, with Carole E. Chaski and Judith Parker, July 2006.

 

Linguistic Society of America, Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM, The Problem of Stylistic Identity Dependency in the American Legal System, January 2006.  (withdrawn due to travel)

 

Arthur M. Sackler Colloquia of the National Academy of Sciences: Forensic Science: the Nexus of Science and the Law, Washington, D.C., Poster Presentation: The FLAT Characterization Method: Placing Linguistics into the Realm of Forensic Science and Evidentiary Jurisprudence, November 2005.

 

Michigan Linguistic Society, 35th Annual Conference, East Lansing, MI, The Problem of Stylistic Identity Dependency in the American Legal System, October 2005.

 

International Association of Forensic Linguists, 7th Biennial Conference, Cardiff, Wales, Comparative and Non-Comparative Forensic Linguistic Analysis Techniques: Methodologies for Negotiating the Interface of Linguistics and Evidentiary Jurisprudence in American Criminal Procedure, July 2005.

 

International Linguistics Association, 50th Annual Conference, New York, NY, Admission of Forensic Linguistic Analysis Techniques as Evidence in American Criminal Procedure, April 2005.

 

 

Service and Organizational Efforts

 

Organizing Committee for Georgetown University Round Table (GURT 2008).

 

Peer-Reviewer for Georgetown Working Papers in Language, Discourse, & Society, 2008.

 

Book Review of Hannes KniffkaÕs ÒWorking in Language and Law: A German PerspectiveÓ LINGUIST List Vol-19-751, March 2008.

 

Organizer of the Master of Arts in Language and Communication Workshop on Language and Law, Department of Linguistics, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, February 2007.

 

Book Review of Creating Language Crimes: How Law Enforcement Uses (and Misuses) Language by Roger W. Shuy, The International Journal of Speech Language and the Law, Vol. 14, No. 1, Pgs. 287-291, January 2007.

 

Book Review of Experts in Court: Reconciling Law, Science, and Professional Knowledge by Bruce D. Sales & Daniel W. Shuman, The International Journal of Speech Language and the Law, Vol. 12, No. 2 Pgs 309-315, December 2005.

 

Book Review of Forensic Linguistics by John Olsson, LINGUIST List, Vol-15-2774, October 2004.

 

 

Teaching Experience

 

Fall, 2007.  Co-Teaching Assistant for Introduction to Language (LING-001-05), Professor Sue Lorenson, Georgetown University, Washington, DC.

 

Spring, 2007, Teaching Assistant for Forensic Linguistics (LING-402-01), Professors Schilling-Estes and Hoffman, Georgetown University, Washington, DC.

 

Spring, 2006, Co-Teacher for Law and Logic Seminar, University of Detroit Mercy School of Law, Detroit, MI.

 

Fall 2004, Teaching Assistant for Law and Logic Seminar, Professor Layman Allen, University of Detroit Mercy School of Law, Detroit, MI.

 

 

Research Experience

 

Institute for Linguistic Evidence, Georgetown, Delaware, Research Associate for Carole E. Chaski, Ph.D., 2005-Present.

 

Georgetown University, Washington, DC, Research Assistant for Deborah Tannen, Ph.D., 2008

 

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, Research Assistant for Rachel Davies, MPH, 2007.

 

Georgetown University, Washington, DC, Research Assistant for Deborah Schiffrin, Ph.D., 2006.

 

 

Fellowships

 

Graduate Assistantship, Georgetown University Fall 2006 - Present.

 

Conference Travel Grant, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Georgetown University, February 2008.