Perlman Communications, Ltd.
Alan M. Perlman
815
Hill Street
Highland Park, IL 60035
(Map It)
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(847) 433-8569
(847) 433-8569
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About Us:
Alan M. Perlman offers clients exceptional quality, experience,
and expertise as a Forensic Language Expert and Expert Witness (Litigation Support - Questioned Documents).
FORENSIC LINGUISTICS:
The application of the principles and methods of linguistics to the
language of legal proceedings and documents.
Alan M. Perlman has a PhD in linguistics and
more than 20 years of experience as a forensic language consultant. His expertise represents a unique combination: a deep
theoretical understanding of the workings of language...together with extensive experience in the application of linguistic
principles to real-world communications.
He brings an extraordinarily
high level of linguistic sophistication and expertise to his professional practices as a Forensic Language Consultation and
Expert Witness (Litigation Support - Questioned Documents).
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE AS FORENSIC LANGUAGE EXPERT,
1979-present: (Examples)
- Opening and closing arguments for trial lawyers.
- Expert opinion on status of compound words (trademark infringement litigation).
- Expert opinion on plagiarism of song lyrics (copyright litigation involving
musical group The Who).
- Authorship analysis of e-mails in Florida union dispute;
- Expert opinion on plagiarism of home-study course subject matter.
- Preliminary analysis of e-mail authorship issues in medical malpractice
case.
- Authorship analysis of anonymous letters to corporate Board members.
- Expert opinion on the similarity of words in trademark infringement case.
- Authorship analysis of anonymous and known writings in business-partnership
dispute.
Qualifications:
A professional lifetime devoted to the analysis of language
and the understanding of stylistic nuance:
- Doctoral dissertation (University of Chicago, 1973): an analysis of code-switching (i.e., variation in the speaking style of an individual).
- Undergraduate and graduate studies of English syntax: with an in-depth understanding of language structure, Alan can (1) identify the
vocabulary and grammatical choices that characterize an individual writer's style and (2) recognize errors that no native
speaker would make and thus determine whether a document has been written by a speaker of a foreign language.
- Twelve years of teaching English linguistics and composition (including
graduate seminars in stylistics and in the structure and process of written language) have sensitized Alan to (1) the correlation between a writer's level of education and his/her deviations
from Standard English and (2) the particular locutions favored by individual writers.
- Twenty years as a corporate speechwriter/ghostwriter have provided an even deeper understanding of the nature and variation of individual
style, as Alan analyzed and replicated the natural speech of many different speakers - a challenging task, because most of
them came from the same general background, and the differentiating elements were often few and subtle.
- He also wrote for executives who had distinct and idiosyncratic speaking
styles, e.g., Burroughs CEO (an economics PhD, former Treasury Secretary and German immigrant); Philip Morris CEO (an Australian);
Kraft Senior VP of R&D (an Englishman).
- Examination of thousands of student papers, corporate publications,
and countless other written documents has enabled Alan to offer expert opinion on plagiarism and anonymous or disputed
authorship by judging whether particular words, phrases, or other linguistic elements could occur by chance in two separate
documents - or whether the documents are the product of the same hand.
- Alan has developed an original, multi-dimensional approach to
stylistic analysis that goes beyond language elements to include rhetorical strategies and intellectual breadth/depth, thus
enabling him to identify stylistic similarities (the "writer's fingerprints") at deeper and more subtle levels.
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