Maggie Ronkin

Sociocultural Linguistics and Linguistic Anthropology

Curriculum Vitae

Teaching

Resources for Students

Short Writing Samples

Forensic Consulting

Family

Contact

Practitioners of forensic linguistics or 'language and the law' apply tools of linguistics, including discourse analysis, to natural language data, written, spoken, and sometimes signed.  We work systematically with monologic and dialogic documents, conversations, and legal processes to provide expert advice, testimony, and evidence.  Our scope of practice may include voice and author identification, various kinds of discourse analysis, language origin and language proficiency analysis, various kinds of veracity analysis, and contextualization using sociocultural expertise.  Trained in Roger Shuy's last Georgetown University class, I accept inquiries from parties interested in the services of a linguistic consultant or linguistic expert witness.  My experience with actions and cases includes:

Client Action Outcome
Private (Immigration) Appeal of CIS's incorrect calculation of aging out Decided in favor of client
Private (Compensation) Small claim against private university Settled in favor of client
Washington College of Law Students (Immigration) Appeal of South Asian's US asylum case Decided in favor of client
Roger W. Shuy, Inc. (Labor) Database search on language use and stress Delivered per agreement