Blake Stephen Howald, Esq.

 

 

I am a Ph.D. candidate 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

 

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

This semester I will be giving the following talks:

 

Anthropological linguistics of space

Language, Culture & Society (SOAN 274) Carleton College, MN

Thursday, October 15, 2009 – 3:10-4:55, Leighton 402

 

The spatial structure of narrative: Evidence from serial offender narrative discourse

University of Minnesota Linguistics Colloquium, University of Minnesota, MN

Friday, December 4, 2009 – 3:30-4:30, Nolte 229

 

I will also be attending the ISO-Space Working Group at Brandeis University on Tuesday, November 3, 2009

 

Research Interests

 

Law: Evidence, Criminal and civil procedure; (Social) Science and law

 

Discourse analysis: Narrative, Text-types, Spatiotemporality and discourse structure

 

Computational linguistics: Spatial semantics and mereotopology, Spatial ML, Discourse modeling and machine learning

 

Forensic linguistics:  Policy in application of linguistics in the legal system; Linguistics of criminal interactions - geographical and offender profiling

 

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Curriculum Vitae Highlights

 

Education

 

Georgetown University, Washington, District of Columbia, Master of Science, Linguistics, April 2008.

 

Thesis:              Shared spatial perspectives in serial offender narrative discourse and its implications for geographic profiling.

Advisor:            Asst. Prof. Michael Lempert, Department of Linguistics

 

University of Detroit Mercy School of Law, Detroit, Michigan

Cavanaugh Scholar

Juris Doctor, December 2005.

 

University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Bachelor of Arts, Magna Cum Laude, Linguistics, May 2001.

 

 

Publications

 

The Spatial Aspects of Victims in the Narratives of Serial Offenders: Linguistic Insights on Environmental Criminology and Geographical Profiling. Crime Mapping: A Journal of Research and Practice, in press.  

 

A Quantitative Perspective on the Minimal Definition of Narrative. Text & Talk, in press.

 

Granularity Contours and Event Domain Classifications in Spatially Rich Narratives of Crime.  In T. Tenbrink and S. Winter (eds.) Workshop on Presenting Spatial Information: Granularity, Relevance, and Integration, International Workshop in conjunction with COSIT 2009 (available online at http://repository.unimelb.edu.au/10187/5516).

 

Discursive constraints on space in narrative: Evidence from guilty plea discourse. Georgetown Working Papers in Language, Discourse & Society 3(1), 2009.

 

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

The International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law 15(2).219-247.

 

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.

 

What Did They Mean? Detroit Legal News, Vol. CXI, No. 68, Pg. 3, April 5, 2006.

 

Who Wrote It? Detroit Legal News, Vol. CXI, No. 63, Pg. 3, March 29, 2006.

 

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

 

Conference on Spatial Information Theory (COSIT09), Workshop on Presenting Spatial Information: Granularity, Relevance, and Integration, Aber Wrac'h, France, Granularity Contours and Event Domain Classifications in Spatially Rich Narratives of Crime, September 2009.

                  

Tenth Crime Mapping Research Conference, New Orleans, LA. The Role of Victimology in Geographic Profiling: Victim Anchored Activity Spaces in the Cognitive Maps of Serial Offenders and Other Insights From Linguistics, August 2009.

 

International Association of Forensic Linguists, 9th Biennial Conference, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.  Narrative Domains in Serial Offender Narrative Discourse: Implications for Geographic Profiling, July 2009.

 

American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS) 61st Annual Scientific Meeting, Denver, CO.  Forensic Linguistic Expert Testimony in the Authentication of Language Evidence, February 2009.

 

New Ways of Analyzing Variation 37, NWAV 37, Houston, TX.  Variation of Victim Reference in the Construction of Serial Murderer Identity, November 2008.

 

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, AZ.  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, WA.   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, WA.  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, DC. 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

 

Peer-Reviewer for The International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law, 2008.

 

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

 

Organizing Committee for Georgetown University Round Table (GURT 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 Reviews

 

Fighting Over Words: Language and Civil Law Cases by Roger W. Shuy, Georgetown Working Papers in Language, Discourse & Society, in press.

 

Working in Language and Law: A German Perspective by Hannes Kniffka, International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law, Vol. 15, No. 1, Pgs. 109-114, August 2008.

 

Working in Language and Law: A German Perspective by Hannes Kniffka, LINGUIST List Vol-19-751, March 2008.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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

 

 

Teaching Experience and Invited Lectures

 

Fall 2009, Guest lecture on the anthropological linguistics of space. Language, Culture & Society (SOAN 274), Professor Liz Coville, Carleton College, MN.

 

Spring 2009, Teaching Assistant for Forensic Linguistics (LING-402), Professor Natalie Schilling-Estes, Georgetown University, Washington, DC.

 

Spring 2009, Invited Guest Lecture for MLC Proseminar (LING-487), Perspectives on Language and Law/ Forensic Linguistics, Professor Anna Trestor, Georgetown University, Washington, DC. 

 

Spring 2009, Invited Guest Lecture for Introduction to Language (LING-001), Introduction to Language and Law/ Forensic Linguistics, Professor Sue Lorenson, Georgetown University, Washington, DC.

 

Spring 2009, Invited Guest Lecture for Women, Men and Language (LING-343), Linguistic Aspects of Consent in Sexual Assault, Jennifer Sclafani, Georgetown University, Washington, DC.

 

Fall 2008, Co-Teaching Assistant for Cross-Cultural Communication (LING-333), Professor Deborah Tannen, Georgetown University, Washington, DC.

 

Fall 2008, Invited Guest Lecture for Introduction to Language (LING-001), Introduction to Language and Law/ Forensic Linguistics, Professor Sue Lorenson, Georgetown University, Washington, DC.

 

Fall 2008, Invited Guest Lecture for Introduction to Language (LING-001), Introduction to Language and Law/ Forensic Linguistics, Marissa Fond, Georgetown University, Washington, DC.

 

Fall 2008, Invited Guest Lecture for Women, Men and Language (LING-343), Linguistic Aspects of Consent in Sexual Assault, Jennifer Sclafani, Georgetown University, Washington, DC.

 

Spring 2008, Invited Guest Lecture for Introduction to Language (LING-001), Introduction to Language and Law/ Forensic Linguistics, Professor Sue Lorenson, Georgetown University, Washington, DC.

 

Spring 2008, Invited Guest Lecture for Women, Men and Language (LING-343), Linguistic Aspects of Consent in Sexual Assault, Jennifer Sclafani, Georgetown University, Washington, DC.

 

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

 

Spring 2007, Teaching Assistant for Forensic Linguistics (LING-402), 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

 

National Institute of Justice Travel Grant, Tenth Crime Mapping Research Conference, August 2009.

 

Graduate Assistantship, Georgetown University Fall 2006 – Spring 2009.

 

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

 

Conference Travel Grant, Department of Linguistics, Georgetown University, April 2008.