The Case for Cyber Forensic Linguistics
Rembrandt Klopper · Alternation eBooks · 2009
contribution focuses on one of the most vexing problems facing present- day higher education, namely how to identify, curtail and eliminate plagiarism among students and academics alike according to robust forensic audit protocols that do not leave institutions open to subsequent legal challenges. Academia is faced with the stark choice between taking a leap of faith by trusting software programs that algorithmically establish superficial similarities between text fragments on non-semantic grounds, or by using an array of text analysis procedures that scientifically determine degrees of similarity between texts on rational grounds by employing proven principles of linguistic and text analysis. This article presents a multi disciplinary conceptual framework that integrates Forensic Computing and Forensic Linguistics into a comprehensive forensic auditing framework within a mother interdiscipline like Informatics, Information Systems & Technology or Computing. I specifically propose the formal recognition of a new interdiscipline within the field of forensic analysis, namely Cyber Forensic Linguistics. This nascent area of learning can be created by identifying and integrating the analytical procedures used in disciplines like Linguistics, Informatics and Auditing into a coherent curriculum that will go a long way to combat plagiarism on semantic grounds, and help promote ethical academic writing.