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POLYU
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT SEMINAR:
The Linguist as Detective and Expert Witness
Director of Research, Aston University
Biodata Carmen Rosa Caldas-Coulthard’s research focuses on the critical analysis of a variety of texts. She is currently investigating how identities are construed semiotically in discourse and how multi-modes of communication contribute to the overall meanings of texts. Her particular interest is the question of how gender and cultural representations are realised in the discourse of the media and in new technologies. The courses she teaches are: Discourse, Culture and Communication, Media Language, Language and Gender, Narrative Analysis, and Translation Studies. She is the academic tutor for the MA programme in Translation Studies at CELS and also convenes the new MA programme in Critical Discourse, Culture and Communication, also at CELS. Prof Coulthard is probably best known for his work on the analysis of spoken and written discourse and the books An Introduction to Discourse Analysis and Advances in Written Text Analysis. However, since the late 1980s he has become increasingly involved with forensic applications of linguistics. He was the Foundation President of the International Association of Forensic Linguists and the founding editor of the journal Forensic Linguistics, the International Journal of Speech Language and the Law. For the past 20 years he has acted as an expert witness in forensic linguistics and has been commissioned to prepare reports for both Prosecution and Defence in over 180 civil and criminal cases. he has given evidence on author identification in the Court of Appeal at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as well as in lower courts in England, Germany, Hong Kong, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Among his high profile cases are the Birmingham Six Appeal, the Bridgwater Four Appeal and the Ronald Bolden trial, at the conclusion of which, in 1989, the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad was disbanded.
Parking is available – please contact Zoe Mak to organise a parking voucher. (Tel. 2766-7573, egzoemak@inet.polyu.edu.hk) |