Book reviews 121

John Baldwin and Peter French (1990) Forensic Phonetics, London: Pinter.
viii +1 4 1 pp. ISBN 0 86187 786 1.

This slim volume is by no means the first publication to discuss issues

in forensic phonetics as is claimed on the dust jacket, although its publica-
tion did cause something of a ripple within the forensic phonetic
community in the UK at least. There has been a variety of sources of infor-
mation on this topic both in journal and in book form at, one of the most
notable of the latter being Tosi (1979).
When it appeared, the book became a battleground over which the argu-
ment about auditory and instrumental methods of analysis of disputed data
was fought. In Nolan's (1991) article his support for a combined approach
is very clear, as is his concern about whether one can ultimately and invari-
ably distinguish between two speakers. Nevertheless, he acknowledges that
phoneticians can make useful contributions to the examination of evidence
on tape, even if the quality of a recording is not suitable for acoustic analysis,
but that an analyst must be circumspect about the certainty with which
any findings are expressed. It would be hard to argue against exercising such
caution and one cannot deny that Baldwin and French's book is rather light
on the safeguards which might be employed to ensure that false positive
identifications and false rejections are avoided.
The book has two authors where the second contributes only one of
the six chapters. In this chapter, however, French counters Baldwin's main
claim about the sufficiency of auditory analysis alone. In effect, the argu-
ment which occurred outside the book is also to be found within its
pages. Baldwin considers that the British adversarial legal system fails to
make best use of its experts, but one cannot help wondering whether this
system is not inevitable if there is more than one way to analyse data and
experts cannot agree upon which way provides the most thorough examina-
tion of evidence. Rather than informing the legal profession, I wonder if
controversies in fo rensic linguistics might not rather lead to more of the
courtroom disagreements which Baldwin describes and so clearly feels to
be improper.
Although we are assured by Baldwin that the auditory method of analysis
is such a satisfactory tool, the book gives little information about how it is
carried out. In particular, we are told that there are phonetic symbols but
not shown how they are used. Variability is mentioned, but the role of tran-
scription in plotting the size and shape of this variability could have been
expanded. Detail on phonetic transcription comes in the form of the List
of Symbols (vii), the Cardinal Vowel chart (p. 30), and the full page
reproduction of the International Phonetic Alphabet chart (pp. 32-3). How
the reader with no background in phonetics is to relate to all of
this , including the two different vowel charts (pp. 30 and 33), is not
explained. The detail which Baldwin uses in his transcriptions, whether of
vowels or consonants, is not made explicit. Studies have shown that detailed
122 Forensic Linguistics
transcriptions may not be particularly reliable (for example Shriberg
and Lof 1991 ), bur it is understandable that Baldwin might not wish to
explore these arguments. Nevertheless, the inclusion in such a brief text of
so many symbols might lend a somewhat spurious air of mystery or exclu-
sivity to the work of the phonetician. It is remarkable, then, that it is French
in his chapter on Acoustic Phonetics who makes more use of the [PA
symbols than Baldwin who, on p. 35, after providing the IPA and vowel
charts, states that 'there is no need for the reader to be occupied with the
symbols'.
Perhaps the problem that reviewers face is in assuming that this is
intended to be an academic work with all the formal structure which that
entails. Superficially, we are given to believe that this is the case. There are
tables and figures and there is a bibliography of twenty seven items. Three
of these, not surprisingly, are legal references while three, rather more
surprisingly, relate to Speech and Language Therapy. The remainder are
references to the phonetics literature and four of these refer to forensic issues
(one in German and one partly in German) . All of this seems right and
proper in an academic work, except that one is struck by the relative scant-
iness of the list (compare for example Hollien (1990) which has over 200
references) and the fact that is is called a Bibliography rather than
References. In examining the single chapter by French and those by
Baldwin, there are signs of a different sort of tension between the two
authors from the one upon which previous reviewers have commented.
French's chapter uses the non-academic first person singular form as does
Baldwin. He also uses cases to illustrate his points. There the similarities
end. French structures his chapter by means of headings and subheadings.
He uses a number of figures in the text to illustrate his argument. Finally,
he uses a number of correctly cited references.
Baldwin's chapters appear to eschew academic prose wherever possible in
favour of what I can only describe as a rather chatty, even laconic style of
writing. They are readable, but sometimes give the impression that the
author is determined to catch the reader's attention by means of digressions
and a lack of a formal structure. Aspects of phonetic theory are presented,
but Baldwin comes perilously close to oversimplifYing the subject. On page l
he describes phonetics as 'the art/science of the description of the sounds
of speech'. He acknowledges the limitations of such a definition and sug-
gests that it will be remedied 'in full in Chapter 2'. That chapter is indeed
a fuller description of some aspects of auditory descriptive phonetics, but
cannot be taken as encompassing the entire discipline. Readers with a
phonetic background know this, bur it is these who are advised to skip the
chapter. There are no references, so the non-phonetician reading this
chapter will have to make up his or her mind which of the items in the bib-
liography might be the most appropriate in order to explore the subject more
deeply. This type of presentation does not encourage further reading
and could imply that further reading is indeed quite unnecessary for a full
 Book reviews 123
understanding of phonetics. For the phonetician looking for guidance on
the law relating to giving evidence both authors are silent.
The relaxed style enables Baldwin to communicate some useful pieces of
information or opinion (occasionally it is difficult to decide which) about
such diverse topics as the nature of phonetics, accents and their relative
desirability, the lack of Speech and Language Therapists, the presentation
of evidence, some of the things a forensic phonetician might be called upon
to do, the morality of covert recordings , the iniquities of the British legal
system, and some musings on a technological future which contrasts rather
sharply with Baldwin's current position. He takes great delight in adding
what can only be described as inconsequential asides into the text, such as
the possibly cunning way in which a working class boy was deprived of
access to a higher education by timetabling elocution lessons to coincide
with a subject which was a prerequisite for university entrance (p. 26) ; or
the incongruity of a particular manner of speaking in a suspect (p. 87);
or musings on why a person accused of a crime delayed changing his plea
for so long (p. 117). All of this can be entertaining or irritating depending
on your preference, but it does seem surprising in a work which is supposed
to be directed at lawyers and the police.
When it comes to describing exactly what a forensic phonetic analysis
is, Baldwin is less forthcoming on his working methods. We are told, for
example, that in one case 'Speaker A was clearly reading his part in the
conversation sentence by sentence' (p. 72) with no explanation as to how
this conclusion was reached. There are more detailed comments elsewhere
based upon vowels described by means of the Cardinal Vowel system
(pp. 66- 7) and some examples of the way in which consonantal allophones
can be examined for variability (p. 97). For a phonetician the level of
phonetic detail is low, with few examples cited or utterances transcribed.
There is some hint at the amount of material necessary for adequate iden-
tification, but how much of this is necessary for an identification at a given
level of certainty is not discussed.
The details on courtroom procedure are interesting but limited. I would
have welcomed more information on what the authors felt the evidence-
in-chief should contain and how it could be presented to the court. The
greatest detail on this aspect is given in respect of what was an unusual
case in which Baldwin's methods rather than his conclusions were subject
to scrutiny (pp. 118-25 and 128- 30). The people most likely to be inter-
ested in this might be the lawyer on the look-out for ways of undermining
evidence, policemen wondering if employing an expert to analyse a tape is
worth the expense, or members of the public who quite understandably
find such courtroom dramas highly engaging. In the end, the book tells us
a great deal about Baldwin's opinions but very little about his working
methods.
French's chapter goes some way towards correcting the imbalance by
systematically presenting aspects of speech which acoustic analysis may
124 Forensic Linguistics
illuminate. One aspect which acoustic methodology can extract relatively
easily and accurately relates to the timing of speech, for example the length
of silences and the duration of certain phonetically relevant phenomena.
Given this precision, it is notable that the case history French uses to illus-
trate this type of analysis is not of a normal speaker. Instead, he describes
a speaker who stammered and therefore exhibited periods of articulatory
arrest. One point which can be made about this example is that, having
worked with people who stammer for many years, I can only say that French
was fortunate in encountering a suspect with such stable stammering char-
acteristics. Of more interest perhaps is the lack of suggestions about how
timing may be used on non-pathological speech. The chapter is perhaps
too short to indicate the problems that timing measures are likely to
encounter, though French does indicate elsewhere that there is a need for
more normative studies of speech.
It was not surprising to find , on p. 53, the visual matching of spectra-
grams being rejected as a valid means of speaker comparison. What was
more surprising was the invitation in the next paragraph to use this method
to compare the speech of an unknown caller and a suspect. Visual infor-
mation is more readily processed than lists of figures, but it is perhaps risky
to provide examples of the way in which forensic phoneticians tend not to
work. Perhaps the brevity of the book inevitably precluded much of the
text in which cautions about the variability of speech might have been
contained.
As it stands, however, for most of the book (that is, Baldwin's contri-
butions) the task of the forensic phonetician appears to be fairly straight-
forward once a transcription system has been learned. Baldwin, in describing
his first case (pp. 92-9), does give an indication of the depth of the analysis
when he describes, on p. 97, that the task centred upon discovering whether
the suspect spoke 'with the same or similar accent' as the unknown speaker.
In effect a phonological rather than a phonetic analysis was called for. If
an auditory approach only is used, it is difficult to see how the analysis
could proceed much beyond a phonological level. This may be adequate
for the purposes, but the way in which important phonetic detail may be
overlooked by such an analysis should not be underestimated.
Overall, the book seems to offer opportunities for material and opinions
to be taken out of context. It is too brief to deal with the topics more than
superficially, and yet full of information which could be misconstrued as
being the way in which forensic phoneticians always work. I suspect that
the most appropriate target of the book is the curious lay person. Indeed,
I have found it popular amongst students on an introductory course in
Forensic Phonetics as an orientation to some of the work of a forensic
phonetician. Perhaps its publication simply marks a starting point for greater
interest in this area of applied phonetics. It is certainly by no means the
last word on the subject, but it may stimulate more people to take a serious
interest into an important area of research and practice.
 Book reviews 125
References
Hollien, H. H. ( 1990) The Acoustics of Crime: the New Science of Forensic Phonetics,
New York: Plenum.
Nolan, F. (1991 ) 'Forensic phonetics', j ournal of Linguistics, 27: 483-93.
Shriberg, L. D. and Lof, G. L. (1 99 1) 'Reliability studies in broad and narrow
transcription', Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 5: 225- 79.
Tosi, 0 . I. (1979) Voice Identification: Theory and Legal Applications, Baltimore:
University Park Press.

M artin Duckworth
College of St Mark and St John, Plymouth

Cambridge Research Laboratories (1993) Police Communication and

Language and the Channel Tunnel: A Report, Cambridge: PoliceSpeak
Publications. ISBN 1 898211 00 0.

The opening of the Channel Tunnel means that for the first time the
UK shares a land frontier with a non-English speaking country. This
necessitated, among other things, a thorough investigation of the special
requirements which police communication between French and British
institutions will have to meet. Police Communication and Language and the
Channel Tunnel presents a three-year research project carried out by a team
of linguists, communication specialists, police officers and a computer scien-
tist. The project aimed at anticipating miscommunication problems which
might arise in a bilingual operational environment and at contriving means
of avoiding them whenever possible. Its published findings are primarily
addressed to those who are directly concerned, such as services and agen-
cies which are involved with the police, emergency services or the Channel
Tunnel. However, the authors have also realized that the project can benefit
the wider community of language and communication specialists.
The introduction emphasizes that, while it is tempting to draw compar-
isons with other international systems of communication developed for
special purposes (such as Air Traffic Language), a closed system would not
have been adaptable to the amount of variation found in police commu-
nication. It was therefore considered more appropriate to improve the
efficiency of communication through a natural language in an operational
environment.
The first chapter attempts to provide a brief overview of the Police-
Speak project and its history, while Chapter 2 presents an account of
the theoretical background on which it is based. Some of the under-
lying assumptions remain implicit, in that they are neither thoroughly
argued for nor illustrated by examples. The authors could have provided
precise references, especially when their claims are based on their own
former work.