Select a region
A Jersey-born forensic linguist was featured on BBC television programme Crimewatch Live last week for her efforts to unmask cyber predators and combat online child exploitation.
Dr Emily Chiang – who works at Aston University's Centre for Forensic Linguistics – has pioneered research on the online habits of cyber predators, investigating how suspected offenders communicate via hidden internet forums.
The former Les Quennevais and Hautlieu pupil examines language in criminal and legal contexts, with the aim of assisting and improving the delivery of justice.
Dr Chiang's work was featured in a BBC Crimewatch Live episode last week.
Pictured: Emily Chiang spent three years on her PHD research that looked into aspects of language used within paedophile groups on the dark web.
In the Crimewatch episode, she explained how she looked at the online language of potential criminals to learn as much as possible about them "just by looking at the words on a screen".
Dr Chiang explained: "Sometimes the police will approach us because they have an anonymous user of a particular forum online and they want to know who that person is because they think they're quite a danger to society.
“When we are trying to identify an individual, we are looking for preferences in word choice or in form."
These “linguistic habits” can represent an person's “habitual language”, pointing to clues about who they are.
These habits could include, for example, how many kisses are put at the end of text messages, whether words at the beginning of a phrase are capitalised, whether full stops are used, and whether lines are used to divide various sections of a message.
A notable example of how forensic linguistics can identify criminals is the case of Richard Huckle, a prolific child abuser from the UK who was part of an underground child abuse community on the dark web – a shadowy realm of the internet accessible only through specialised software.
Linguists working on the Huckle case at the Aston Institute detected a particular language habit in the anonymous person's consistent use of the greeting "hiyas" on dark web forums.
Dr Chiang explained on Crimewatch that the linguists working on the case noted that "the person seemed to have knowledge of cars and came across somebody who was posting on a four-wheel drive forum and used the same greeting – 'hiyas'."
This "became a really important piece of information for the police," she said, leading to Huckle's identification and eventual arrest, as well as the rescue of numerous children.
I talked to BBC Crimewatch Live about forensic linguistics and authorship analysis/sociolx profiling - my bit starts around 35 mins in.https://t.co/XMBs4gHKNk
— Emily Chiang (@em_chiang) October 11, 2023
Dr Chiang's work also includes training police personnel for internet undercover operations, which has shown "really positive results".
Her expertise helps police officers understand the language of the communities they seek to infiltrate, enabling them to convincingly adopt personas that suppress aspects of their own identity while understanding the language and culture of the target community.
“Training police in undercover work involves providing some key principles about how language and identity construction works in online settings, and in relation to specific individuals or communities”, Dr Chiang explained.
In her pioneering 2019 study, Dr Chiang analysed online web chats involving over 20 victims – some as young as 12 – and a man in his early 20s who pleaded guilty to over 40 charges related to grooming, blackmail, and distributing indecent images of children.
Unlike most research in this field, which relies on transcripts between offenders and adults posing as children, Dr Chiang's study examined online instant messaging conversations between a convicted child sex offender and several of his real victims.
The study identified 19 linguistic 'moves' employed by the offender, who adopted 17 fake identities with distinct characteristics. These linguistic moves ranged from building rapport and maintaining conversations, to initiating sexual topics and extortion.
Dr Chiang highlighted the common strategy of the offender, who built rapport by asking questions like 'asl?' [What is your age, sex, and location?] and 'wuu2?' [What are you up to?] to establish relationships and trust.
She said the study also examined how the offender tried to force victims to send images or messages by threatening to distribute previously obtained pictures or videos of the victim.
"Victims were found to resort to bargaining, begging and expressing fear and vulnerability," Dr Chiang added.
You can watch the Crimewatch Live episode featuring Dr Chiang HERE.
Comments
Comments on this story express the views of the commentator only, not Bailiwick Publishing. We are unable to guarantee the accuracy of any of those comments.