articles

4/29/2020 · Linguistics

By: Dr. Alan Perlman

What kind of a political campaign would it be if we didn’t have slogans? The political slogan is like a brand name, a brief thought that somehow summarizes the campaign and a candidacy.

Read Article

6/17/2019 · Linguistics

By: Dr. Alan Perlman

The famous Miranda warning – “you have the right to remain silent…” — is actually very difficult to understand, especially for non-native speakers, who often give up their rights without knowing what they are.

Read Article

10/21/2014 · Linguistics

By: Dr. Alan Perlman

Perhaps 25% of the cases I handle involve the authorship of anonymous, disputed, or forged documents. The client wants to know who's writing those nasty, threatening emails or letters. I typically ask the client for writing samples from the suspected author. Sometimes there's more than one suspect, and I have to decide which of them may be the author of the anonymous document(s).

Read Article

1/29/2014 · Linguistics

By: Dr. Alan Perlman

There are many different kinds, dozens of areas of emphasis. Ultimately one becomes one's own kind of linguist, depending on where one's interest and preferences lead.

Read Article

12/26/2013 · Linguistics

By: Dr. Alan Perlman

A forensic linguist must be exquisitely sensitive to nuances of text. Where a synonym exists, the very choice of each word represents a decision on the part of the author. Superimposed upon that is the way the word is spelled, abbreviated or capitalized. Truly, a text is a tangle of choices.

Read Article

11/19/2013 · Intellectual Property

By: Dr. Alan Perlman

All of a sudden, it seems, the search term Plagiarism Rand Paul gets over 40 MILLION Google hits. But the charge is somewhat bogus.

Read Article

6/21/2013 · Linguistics

By: Dr. Alan Perlman

I advertise myself (accurately) as a "linguistics expert" so I sometimes get questions about language usage.

Read Article