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Stylometry

Definition

The quantitative measurement of writing style, using features such as sentence length, word frequency, function-word distribution, and character n-grams. Stylometric methods now underpin much computational authorship attribution.

Related terms

Corpus linguistics
The study of language through large, principled collections of texts or transcripts. In forensic work, corpus methods are used to count how...
Entrapment analysis
The examination of recorded conversations between undercover law-enforcement agents and suspects to assess whether the agent's language induced the suspect to commit...
IAFL
The International Association of Forensic Linguists, founded in 1992, is the main professional body for the field. It publishes the journal Language...
Linguistic profiling
Broadly, any use of linguistic features to infer a speaker's identity or background. In its pejorative sense, the discriminatory use of accent...
Verbatim record
A written document that purports to record speech word-for-word, such as a typed-up police interview or a court transcript. Linguistic analysis of...

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