Linguistic Deception Detection DD is a well-established part of forensic linguistics and an area that continues to attract attention on the part of researchers, self-styled experts, and the public at large. In this article, the various approaches to DD within the general field of linguistics are examined. The basic method is to treat language as a form of behaviour and to equate marked linguistic behaviour with other marked forms of behaviour. Such a comparison has been identified in other fields such (...) as psychology and kinesics as being associated with stress linked to the attempt to deceive, typically in such contexts as examined here. Representative authentic examples of some of the most common linguistic indicators of deception that have been identified are discussed, dividing them into two general categories which we here introduce: language as revealer and language as concealer. We will argue that linguistic analysis for DD should be conducted relative to the subject’s individual linguistic patterns of behaviour, not on absolutes related to broad generalisations about what is supposedly normal or unmarked in the population at large. We will also briefly discuss some structured methods for linguistic analysis for DD and the prospect that technology and artificial intelligence will provide the means to automate and digitalise the linguistic DD process. We maintain that caution is advisable when considering these, as DD will, in all probability, always remain a work in progress, with the need for a flexible human evaluator ready to take into account many different aspects of the individual subject and the case in question. (shrink)

The right of Australian Indigenous groups to own traditional lands has been a contentious issue in the recent history of Australia. Indeed, Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders did not consider themselves as full citizens in the country they had inhabited for millennia until the late 1960s, and then only after a long campaign and a national referendum (1967) in favour of changes to the Australian Constitution to remove restrictions on the services available to Indigenous Australians. The concept of terra nullius, (...) misapplied to Australia, was strong in the popular imagination among the descendants of settlers or recent migrants and was not definitively put to rest until the Mabo decision (1992), which also established a firm precedent for the recognition of native title.This path to equality was fraught and made lengthy by the fact that the worldviews of the Indigenous Australians (i.e. Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders) and the European (mainly British and Irish) settlers were so different, at least at a superficial level, this being the level at which prejudice is typically manifested. One area where this fact is particularly evident is in the area of the conceptualisation of property and especially the notion of land “ownership” and “use”.In this paper, we will focus on these terms, examining the linguistic evidence of some of the Australian languages spoken traditionally by Indigenous Australians as one means (the only one in many cases) of gaining an insight into their worldview, comparing it with that underlying the English language.We will show that the conceptualisations manifested in the two languages are contrasting but not irreconcilable, and indeed the ability of both groups of speakers (or their descendants in the case of many endangered Australian languages) to reach agreement and come to develop an understanding of the other’s perspective is reason for celebration for all Australians. (shrink)