Courses in the Certificate
Course One: The Fundamentals of Forensic Linguistics
This course covers basic concepts in forensic linguistics, including a brief history of the field and the contexts in which it has been applied, such as author identification, discourse analysis, forensic phonetics, linguistic dialectology, and plagiarism detection. Case examples that include death threats and suicide letters, valid and false confessions, authorship investigations, and perjury will be surveyed to illustrate the use of forensic linguistics in criminal and civil court proceedings, investigations, and intelligence. Considerations related to forensic linguistics and the judicial process, such as admissibility under Frye and Daubert standards and the contexts in which forensic linguists have served as consultants to the justice system to support comprehensibility of a range of legal issues by laypersons both in the United States and internationally, will also be examined.
Course Two: Discourse as Evidence
This course provides an overview of the methodological approaches to language analysis, with a particular examination of the language of police interrogations, emergency calls, victim-witness and witness statements, confessions, and criminal threats.
Course Three: Evaluating Authorship
This course will teach students how to use metadata to evaluate linguistic patterns and variations that support accurate author profiling.
Certificates will be accepted for transfer credit toward select 3-unit courses in CSFS’s Master’s of Science Forensic Behavior Science or Master of Science Forensic Administration and Leadership. Up to two certificates can be transferred.
The California Institute for the Advancement of Forensic Behavioral Science, Public Safety, and Justice at the California School of Forensic Studies (CSFS) at Alliant International University is dedicated to providing law enforcement, security professionals, other first responders, and mental and allied health professionals with practical forensic education and training.
Advanced Practice Certificates are eligible for Continuing Education credit through the American Psychological Association (APA). CSFS is also an official corporate sponsor of the International Law Enforcement Education and Trainers Association (ILEETA).