FBI Linguistic Analysis Unit (LAU)
Definition
The FBI division responsible for linguistic profiling, author identification, and threat assessment. The LAU produced the authorial profile used in the UNABOM investigation.
Related terms
- Authorial profiling
- The production of demographic and psychological inferences from a text's language, as opposed to attribution, which names a specific author. The UNABOM...
- Confirmatory evidence
- Evidence that increases the probability of a hypothesis already suggested by other means. In UNABOM, the linguistic analysis served this role: it...
- Idiolectal feature
- A linguistic habit characteristic of one specific person rather than a group. In the Unabomber case, phrase patterns such as 'feelings of...
- UNABOM
- The FBI case designation for the Unabomber investigation (Universities and Airlines BOMbing). The case ran from 1978 to 1996 and is one...
Explained in
- The Unabomber Case: Stylometric Attribution at ScaleThe FBI division responsible for linguistic profiling, author identification, and threat assessment. The LAU produced the authorial profile used in the UNABOM...