Reshmi Nair LING 231 Final Paper

Linguistic Analysis of ransom notes to reveal the nativity of the speaker

Abstract Linguists, being familiar with different styles of languages can look at the style of an individuals second language, English and conclude with understanding about their nativity, if they do present their second language, English with a style similar to their native language. Analyzing the linguistic styles used by individuals and if the style can conclude to an individual, since it is not accepted as a norm but may be part of an individuals idiolect. But they cannot do a linguistic fingerprint from a questioned document and conclude to who is the actual author of the note, since it is impossible to analyze only language and conclude to the author unless there is sufficient evidence to a particular use of idiolect etc. (McMenamin 2011). I do hypothesize that even though we may not be able to use linguistic fingerprint and conclude to a particular individual, we can conclude to the nativity of the speaker based on the linguistic style they adopt in using their second language. My aim is to analyze the language used in ransom notes and the language used in it to linguistic fingerprint on the nativity of the author. For my analysis I will be using the ransom note from the Charles Lindbergh kidnapping, the Venna case and the Jon Benet Ramsey case. Analyzing the forensic stylistics of these three ransom notes I prove my hypothesis that authors do use a unique style that can reveal their nativity. In the case of Jon

Benet Ramsey, we can see how the writings were similar to that of Patricia Ramsey but due to limitations, it could not be successfully brought to a conclusion. INTRODUCTION Linguistics can be defined as the study of the nature and development of the internal system of language and also of the ways language is used in all its communicative contexts. (McMenamin 2011). Studying languages, linguists can analyze the stylistics used by an individual and conclude to the nativity of the speaker, but the idea of linguistic fingerprinting is not possible, unless there is a clear variation in the speakers style or idiolect from the standard language. The research question that I propose for my research is how can we analyze the linguistic contents in ransom notes to conclude about the nativity of the author of the ransom note. My hypothesis is that when the authors native language is not English and that they have some knowledge of the English language but is not fluent with it, they do use a linguistic style that may be similar to their native language. Analyzing this linguistic style that includes grammatical errors, misspellings etc. we can understand their nativity and their origin. For this paper, I will be analyzing three ransom notes to answer my research question and to either agree or disagree with my hypothesis that language content usage will reveal the non-nativity of the author. I will be using the narrative analysis and stylistic analysis methods to either prove or disprove my hypothesis. Applying the method of narrative analysis, we can research on the threat level the authors applied in their note. Narrative analysis is described as diverse kinds of texts that have a storied form. (Riessman 2003). They can be differed and defined in various ways, in the field of social history and anthropology, narrative can refer to an entire life story, in the field of sociolinguistics and other fields, the concept of narrative is restricted to brief topically specific stories organized

around characters, setting and plot, and in field of psychology, sociology, narratives consists of extended accounts of lives in context that develop over the course of single or multiple interviews. (Riessman 2003). Stylistics is the study of style in language and linguistic stylistics is the scientific interpretation of style markers as observed, described and analyzed in the language of groups and individuals. (McMenamin, 2011). Stylistics began as a distinct approach to literary texts in the hands of Spitzer (1948), Wellek and Warren (1949), and Ullmann (1964), for example, but it really emerged from the 1960s onwards as the different influences mentioned above came to be integrated into a set of conventions for analysis. From Formalism and practical criticism came the focus of interest on literature and the literary, and from linguistics came the rigor of descriptive analysis and the scientific concern for transparency in that description. Though stylistic analysis could be practiced on any sort of text, much discussion involved the specification of literariness and the search to define a literary language- this preoccupation dominated to such an extent that stylistics has come to be identified very strongly with the discussion of literature, with non-literary investigations delineating themselves separately as critical linguistics or critical discourse analysis or text linguistics, and so on. Of course, the notion of literariness makes no sense within a formalist or structuralist paradigm, since a large part of what is literary depends on the social and ideological conditions of production and interpretation. Nevertheless, stylistic analyses flourished in the 1970s, especially explorations of the metrics and grammar of poetry, and explanations of deviant or striking forms of expression in prose (Stockwell, 2005). As Cruse (2000) points out, the linguistic approach to meaning in language focuses on three key aspects. The first is that native speaker semantic intuitions are centre-stage. They

constitute the main source of primary data. The second is the importance of relating meaning to the manifold surface forms of language. The third is the respect paid not just to language, but to languages (Cruse 2000:11; Missikova, 2009). BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO CASE 1 The first case that will be analyzed is the Lindbergh case. Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. was a 20 month old boy of the aviator Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh. The child was kidnapped on March 1, 1932 around 9 pm from their home in New Jersey. A search of the area led them to find a ransom note demanding $50,000. There were no fingerprints at the scene. Employees of the household and estate were investigated. Later, a second ransom note was received on March 6, 1932 in which the ransom had increased to $70,000. In such a manner there were a total of twelve ransom notes that were sent via various ways even including an unidentified taxi driver. On May 12, 1932, the body of the child was accidentally found partly buried and half decomposed. The child was positively identified and was cremated in New Jersey on May 13, 1932. Later, after a series of investigations Hauptmann was found guilty after being caught for a series of ransom certificates. He was indicted on October 8, 1934 for murder. On February 13, 1935 he was found guilty for first degree murder by the jury. On April 3, 1936 he was electrocuted. (FBI.gov, 1936)

ANALYSIS Dear Sir! Have 50000$ redy 25000$ in 20$ bills 15000$ in 10$ bills and 10000$ in 5$ bills After 2-4 days

we will inform you were to deliver the Mony. We warn you for making anyding public or for notify the Police The child is in gut care. Indication for all letters are singnature and three holes. This is the transcript of the ransom note from the Charles Lindbergh case. Reading the note, we can hypothesize that the author was not a native speaker of English. The narrative analysis explains about how the speaker or writer gives and extended account. Narratives represent storied ways of knowing and communicating (Hinchman and Hinchman, 1997; Riessman, 2003). Even though, the note did have grammatical errors, the author let his message be conveyed in the note by communication. He uses the format of letter by using the header Dear Sir! but for the end, he writes singnature. In this note, we see the author may have made errors that revealed his nativity but as a narrator he is thorough about what he wants to express in his note. He explains how he wants the money but does not mention the child until the end when he writes, the child is in gut care. The threat in the note is not actually expressed since the author writes that he is warning them for making anything public or for notifying the Police, but does not express what it is that he is warning, that whether the child will be killed or if it is any other sort of threat toward the whole family. One of the main errors that leads us to believe that English is not his native language is the way he does not use any punctuation marks except for using periods three times but does not

use them at places where required and also the misspellings. Germans have a strict rule to punctuation but the author in the note does not use much punctuations. When he starts his new sentence with After, he uses a capital A to express that he is starting a new sentence but does not use a period before the word to express that he did end the sentence and a new one had begun. He only uses four punctuation marks in his note and does not use any comas and an exclamation point after the greeting. In his note, the author begins with the salutation, Dear Sir! which is not the usual way to start a threat, since the use of Dear would give the reader an understanding that there is a relationship between them and Sir is a term used in respect to another man, and so using such a greeting the threat level in such a note may be considered low. One of the main concept that is taught to us about writing a letter is that we start with the salutation as Dear and end it with a coma, while in this note, the man uses an exclamation point which hypothesizes that he may want to get the attention of the reader and so used an exclamation instead of an appropriate coma. He also writes 50000$, where he does not use the coma after 50 to separate the thousand (three decimal places). For Germans, they use a decimal point and not a coma for separation and so we may hypothesize that he did not want to confuse the reader and did not use either a coma or a period. He also uses the $ sign after the amount and not before the amount. This is not usual but when we do talk, we would say 50000 dollars and not dollars 50000 but when writing we would write it as $50000 and not use the $ sign after the amount. But interestingly, Germans use the pounds after the amount. The author also does not use any punctuation marks after making the statement Have 50000$ redy. He instead continues the sentence with 25000$ which makes the sentence

ungrammatical and leads to question whether the author had a fluent knowledge of English language. He does not mark his separation that he wants 25000$ in twenty dollar bills and 15000$ in ten dollar bills with a coma to separate them. He misspelled the word ready as redy. In his sentence We warn you for making anyding public or for notify the Police, he does not use the grammatically correct suffix to make his statement more grammatical using notifying, which shows he may not have a good knowledge of the English language. German language does not have the continuous tense form, and so he may not have the knowledge of using the suffix -ing in the proper manner. But he uses it when he writes We warn you for making where the continuous tense form of the verb is not required. This grammatical error of misplacing the use of the continuous tense form can lead us to conclude that the author was a German. He also does not add the clause, the child will die, if the police is notified. Hence, the warning that we warn you, which was supposed to explain what would happen if the readers did not take the warning seriously was not mentioned in the note. The author misspells signature as singnature, is a misspelling since Germans do use words such as gnome, where the gn sound is pronounced but the author may have learnt it as the /n/ sound and so that was used. In German languages, the /g/ sound succeeding the // sound is silent, which may have been the trait he applied here by switch the /gn/ sound with //. Another noted misspelling is the word good as gut. The German word for good is gut. They usually switch the /d/ sounds with /t/. When the /d/ sound is at the coda of a word, they pronounce it as voiceless and so it sounds as /t/. The word money is misspelled as mony, and where as were. Another misspelling is anything as anyding, where the // sound is switched for a /d/ sound, which is common with the Germans learning English.

BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND CASE The next case that I will be using for my analysis is the Venna case. On Monday October 22, 2012 at 1:14 pm officers of the Upper Merion Township, Montgomery County were responding to a 911 call in which a 61 year old woman, Satyavati Venna was reported to be dead. When they arrived at the scene they were told that the 10 month old daughter, Saanvi Venna was missing. After the family and their friends were questioned as part of the ongoing investigation, later a ransom note was revealed, where the kidnapper was asking for $50,000. During the questioning of the parents they had given the officers a list of the people they knew and one of them was Yandamuri Veerendranath who after being questioned for a while confessed that he did take the child and he had killed the grandmother. He was consistent with his statements that when the baby cried he put a handkerchief in her mouth and a towel around her head. He placed her inside a suitcase along with some jewelry that he stole from the home. He then said that he hid her body inside the steam room of the mens bathroom in the gymnasium; where she was found dead (Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 2012). ANALYSIS 2 Shiva your daughter has been kidnapped If you report this to cops your daughter will be cut into pieces and found dead If you inform this to anyone you will find your daughter bodyparts thrown into your apartments Our people are monitoring all your moves all the time, your emails & phones are being traced If you want your daughter alive and safe, follow our instructions carefully

we want $50,000.00 by end of the day your wife lata have to bring money to the location alone if we see you or your wife accompanied with (or) informed to anyone (cops/human). You will find your daughter dead. This is very serious. Its up to you to decide, you want your 1 yr old daughter or 5months of your income. By 8pm today, lata alone should get $50,000.00 cash and come to baha fresh at acme store complex. Once our person receives money from her at baha fresh, we will call you and tell the address where to pick your baby from. Any cunning act from anyone of you will lead to your daughters death. Be prepared by 8PM today with cash. We dont want any excuses. Remember that your baby is starving since morning As a narrator, the author explains the whole threat in a very detailed manner. He introduces the note with Shiva, and not any form of title preceding it, which is common with the South Indian style of writing, the dear being used only when the person is being really affectionate or have a very close relationship and sir only when one is in a higher position to demand the title of sir, otherwise it would be the name, which shows here that they probably knew each other but was not a close friendship or was not one where the other demanded the respect. He does not use an ending for his note and so the format cannot be called a letter but a note. As a narrator, he gets the attention of the reader by writing we have your child and then writes the threat that he will cut the child in pieces and if they want the child alive they would have to obey his instructions in the note. He uses the names of the readers, which may have led him to being a suspect.

The author introduces the note with Shiva, which is not the mans first name but is his middle name, which could have led the investigators to realize that the kidnapper must have been someone who knew the family. He also does not use any punctuation mark to separate the name from his content of the note. The author does not use any punctuation mark after addressing the note with Shiva, he just continues the note with your daughter has been kidnapped. He starts the note with what he holds to gain the ransom and he does not use a period. Another error was that he does not use a period after his sentence Shiva your daughter has been kidnapped to indicate that he ended the sentence but does begin his next sentence with a capitalized I to indicate that a new sentence had begun. As students of the English language we always do learn punctuations but in Indian languages, the punctuation marks are used but are rare and may have been another trait that he transferred to the English language but we see in his note that later he does use period. Such inconsistencies with his punctuation marks may have been another reason to conclude that he was not a native speaker of English. In Telugu, the period and question mark are the most used punctuations and that may have been a reason of the inconsistencies with the punctuations. The author then writes you will find your daughter bodyparts, where daughter is not marked as personal possessive indicated with s. To be grammatical it would have to be written as you will find your daughters bodyparts. He also marks the singular word apartment as plural by adding the suffixs and using apartments. Here also he does not use a period. The adding of the suffixs to words where it is not required is a trait common with Indians. Later he uses the possessive form singular with the word daughter by using daughters, which shows inconsistencies.

In the sentence, Our people are monitoring all your moves all the time, your emails & phones are being traced. The author uses the phrase Our people, which to the author may have been the idea to make the reader believe that it was a group of people who did the act of killing the grandmother and kidnapping the child, while actually it was only a one man act. In our study, we have seen how it is usually the case that when the author uses the term we our people or our group etc. it is usually a one man act to misinform the reader that it may actually be more than one person. Another interesting factor that we see is that he uses punctuations, using a coma to separate all the time and your emails. In the next sentence also we see that he does use a coma. But another interesting point is that he does not mark his separation when he wrote follow our instructions carefully and we want $50,000.00 by end of the day. An interesting factor in the note was the way he wrote $50,000.00. He used the coma to mark the thousand and he used the dollar sign before the number and not after the number. He also indicated the cent marker, but he does not use a period to indicate that it is the end of a sentence. He continues the next line with a small alphabet but does not use a punctuation before the sentence. He refers to the wife with her name Lata, which is another indication that he may have been known to the family. He writes your wife lata have to bring money, where instead of using the third person singular form has, he writes the first or second person singular form have. The author uses an interesting choice of words when he writes if we see you or your wife accompanied with (or) informed to anyone (cops/human). You will find your daughter dead. This is very serious. Instead of stressing that the woman, Lata should come alone to the

place, he writes if she is accompanied with cops/human, where the man distinguishes between the people as two sets, either a cop or a human, which a unique trait was found in this note. In his next line, he writes 8pm but does not mark it as 8:00pm but then he mentions it as today and not tonight. This is also consistent with Indian style of speaking since the night time will have to be specified but the fact that is that day and so today will be the word they would use which is a trait he uses when he writes 8pm today. In his last line, he does not use apostrophe to mark the suffixt in the word dont. He also uses the word excuses which shows he did have some education and writes how the baby is starving, which is another word that shows he may have some education, but again does not end with a period. A corpus based investigation of stance in threats revealed that threats are indeed replete with lexical and grammatical markers of stance; yet the linguistic markers and their corresponding functions do not always adhere to those expected in threats (Gales, 2010; Gales, 2011). Those studying and assessing threatening behavior have linked angry, insulting and pejorative language (Milburn and Watman 1981; Gales, 2011), language describing violent behaviors and weapons (Turner and Gelles, 2003; Gales, 2011), and profanity (Davis, 1997; Gales, 2011) with threatening language offering a heightened sense of violence and anger within the genre. (Gales, 2011). In the note, we see that the author did use threat that the child would be cut into pieces and thrown in the apartment if the readers did not obey to the commands given in the note. He introduces the violence by explaining how the child would be killed.

BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD CASE

The third case that will be used is the Jon Benet Ramsey case. Jon Benet Ramsey was the child of John Ramsey and Patsy Ramsey. Jon Benet Ramsey was a child pageant queen who was found murdered in her home in Boulder, Colorado on December 25, 1996. The body was found hours later in the basement of the home. She was head to have been struck on the head and was strangled. On October 25, 2013 sealed court documents were revealed showing that the grand jury had voted in 1999 to indict John and Patricia Ramsey in the murder of the child. This case has been analyzed and criticized by linguists, psychologists and law enforcement officers since the ransom note contained inconsistencies with grammatical errors and can be hypothesized that it was written by native speakers of English (Thomas and Davis, 2000). ANALYSIS #3 Mr. Ramsey. Listen carefully! We are a group of individuals that represent a small foreign faction. We xx respect your business but not the country that it serves. At this time we have your daughter in our possession. She is safe and unharmed and if you want her to see 1997, you must follow our instructions to the letter. You will withdraw $118,000.00 from your account. $100,000 will be in $100 bills and the remaining $18,000 in $20 bills. Make sure that you bring an adequate size attache to the bank. When you get home you will put the money in a brown paper bag. I will call you between 8 and 10 am tomorrow to instruct you on delivery. The delivery will be exhausting so I advise you to be rested. If we monitor you getting the money early, we might call you early to arrange an earlier delivery of the money and hence a earlier delivery pickup of your daughter.

Any deviation of my instructions will result in the immediate execution of your daughter. You will also be denied her remains for proper burial. The two gentlemen watching over your daughter do not particularly like you so I advise you not to provoke them. Speaking to anyone about your situation, such as Police, F.B.I., etc., will result in your daughter being beheaded. If we catch you talking to a stray dog, she dies. If you alert bank authorities, she dies. If the money is in any way marked or tampered with, she dies. You will be scanned for electronic devices and if any are found, she dies. You can try to deceive us but be warned that we are familiar with Law enforcement countermeasures and tactics. You stand a 99% chance of killing your daughter if you try to out smart us. Follow our instructions and you stand a 100% chance of getting her back. You and your family are under constant scrutiny as well as the authorities. Dont try to grow a brain John. You are not the only fat cat around so dont think that killing will be difficult. Dont underestimate us John. Use that good Southern common sense of yours. It is up to you now John! Victory! S.B.T.C ANALYSIS OF CASE #3 The note as a narrative is lengthy and explanatory. They introduce the note with a Mr. Ramsey, portraying that it is formal and contains some sort of business and not friendly. By writing Listen carefully, they are starting with a warning to read the note carefully to comprehend the situation. They introduce themselves as a foreign faction who does not like the country but does like the business. Writing the child is safe and unharmed and that if you want to child to see 1997, the narrator is explaining how the child is safe but when warning the

parents about the child life, they write it as if you want to her to see 1997, they mention the future year but not just write out the future. Or even just that if you want her to live, which leads to the style of the author. In such a detailed manner, the author mentions their identity, explains their ransom wants and how they want it, childs safety, warning to the child if the Police is notified and the waiting time period for the phone call, and thus writes out the narrative in a consequential manner that shows that it was very well though and they end the note with Victory with an exclamation mark to conclude the note to mark the SBTC. In this note, there was a greeting Mr. Ramsey, where the author did know the reader of the note but the author uses the correct punctuation, coma. They start the note with Listen carefully! which can be analyzed as a warning but it is interesting that they use the verb listen, which is an act done when one speaks and another hears or listens to what is being said, since this is a note, the author should have used Read carefully! But he does use the exclamation mark to give emphasis to the expression. The author interestingly did something that was unique to this note which was introduce himself as being part of a group of individuals that represent a small foreign faction, then writes about how they respect the business but not the country. This may be a reason to lead to the conclusion that it was written by someone within the family since in most actual ransom notes they do not identify themselves. The author is inconsistent with the writing of the cent markers, but the dollar sign ($) appears before the amount. All the amounts were written in the number forms. The author writes about calling within a time period of two hours and then advices the reader to rest well since the whole act of giving the ransom and collecting the child is going to be exhausting. The author explains that if the money is arranged early, the pickup of the child will be early. Here, there is

use of the word hence, which is not a commonly used word. Writing If we catch you talking to a stray dog, she dies. the threat is expressed that the reader should not do the act of talking about it to anybody. The thorough manner in which the author writes about the ransom and the threat, can let us conclude the man was educated. Comparing with the other two notes, the author identified with the group SBTC which the other authors did not do. This may have led to conclude that it had to be written within the family and not by another individual or any group. McMenamin analyzed the note using known documents, writings of both John and Patricia Ramsey. Analyzing the known documents against the known documents, he explained how there were similarities to Patricias writing but there also were inconsistencies. In the Known documents after writing Victory, she added an exclamation mark which was consistent with the Questioned document, but in her other writings she changed the punctuation to coma and period. She also wrote the amount in word form in the first document and others in the number format. She was consistent with writing the dollar word out instead of the sign $. She also misspelled the word advize consistently, while the author of the note wrote the word with the appropriate spelling. The author misspelled business as bussiness, which was not an error that she made. She misspelled scrutiny as scruitny in two of the writings. In the case study they picked out writers to write the note to look at the style, but it was not a helpful. A limitation that was explained in the study was that the writers were suspected to be from Colorado but if that had not been the case, the writing samples may not have been helpful. Due to the differences between the writings the author concluded that it may not have been her writing (McMenamin, 2002).

COMPARISON BETWEEN THE THREE NOTES Analyzing the three documents, we can see that all the three authors wrote using their own style. We see that in two cases, there were inconsistencies with using punctuations but with the Ramsey case, they were consistent. As linguists, we see how each author has a unique writing style that does express their own nativity and their own knowledge of the English language. Some of the unique traits found in the Lindbergh note was that he never mentioned a name, he introduces the note with having the ransom ready, he only writes that the child is in good care towards the conclusion. He writes the time period to wait for the instructions as After 2-4 days, which is unique in itself since usually when using a range we would write, within 2-4 days and using after, we can conclude that he may not have a fluent knowledge of the language. He writes we warn you for doing the action of notifying the public or the authorities but the warning is not expressed as whether the child will be killed. In Venna case, the names being mentioned was a unique trait that may have been the indication that he knew the family. In his note, we see that he never mentions about the child being safe unless, he writes that if you want your child safe and unharmed, you have to follow our instructions. But in the other two notes, they do mention that the child is safe and unharmed. He expresses the time as 8pm today, where he is not giving the readers the time limit that was given by the other two authors in the other cases. This may have been a trait that may be used by South Indians, since when given a range of time, they tend to usually show up later than the time of range and so to keep the threat real and actual, the author just used a time and not within a range. He questions the parents about which is more important, the childs life or five months

salary. This sort of questioning to choose between the ransom demands and the childs life is unique to this case and is not found in the others. In the Ramsey case, the author uses the name Ramsey and John which shows that the author knew the family. They also give themselves an identification of SBTC (Foreign faction) which is a trait unique to this case and may have been an indication that the author was someone within the family, since the other two ransom notes, they used we to sound as though it was a group even though they were individuals but they never claimed that they were from a specific group. The threat to the child is present when the write Speaking to anyone about your situation such as Police or F.B.I. etc. will result in your child being beheaded). The time limit is written as between 8 and 10 am. The limitations to looking at the notes using stylistic analysis is that unless the person does express his second language with errors caused because of his native language and the phonetic, phonological and syntactic errors they make in their second language, but if the author may be a native speaker of English and may have their own unique traits that are part of their idiolect but may not be sufficient enough to conclude to the author as in the Ramsey case. The multivalent position of stylistics has its roots in the histories of language study and literary criticism, and the institutional make-up of modern universities and department divisions which fossilize particular disciplinary boundaries and configurations. Stylistics has therefore come to be regarded as an essentially interdisciplinary field, drawing on the different subdisciplines within linguistics to varying degrees, as well as on fields recognizable to literary critics, such as philosophy, cultural theory, sociology, history and psychology. (Stockwell, 2005).

One central tenet in modern stylistics has been to reject the artificial analytical distinction between form and content. Contrary to the practice of traditional rhetoric, style cannot be merely an ornamentation of the sense of an utterance, when it is motivated by personal and sociocultural factors at every level and is correspondingly evaluated along these ideological dimensions by readers and audiences. Style is not merely free variation. Even utterances which are produced randomly are treated conventionally against the language system in operation (Stockwell, 2005). As Toolan (1990: 42-6_ points out, stylistics can be used for a variety of purposes, including the teaching of language and of literature. It can also be used as a means of demystifying literary responses, understanding how varied readings are produced from the same text; and it can be used to assist in seeing features that might not otherwise have been noticed. It can shed light on the crafted texture of the literary text, as well as offering a productive form of assistance in completing interpretations, making them more complex and richer. Stylistics can thus be used both as a descriptive tool and as a catalyst for interpretation (Stockwell, 2005). Cross-cultural pragmatics comes to play when culture specific aspects appear in a text. Thus an effort to enhance cultural awareness is crucial in language class is justified, and at least some cultural sensitivity is crucial in understanding texts with reflections and indications of particular cultural context. (Mikov, 2009). Stylistics is a method of textual interpre CONCLUSION Analyzing the three ransom notes, we can see how the linguistic contents in the ransom notes can be analyzed to reveal the nativity of the author. In two of the cases, we see how the authors did make errors in their writing that would have been beneficial in concluding about the nativity of the person. In the Ramsey case, we see that the note may have been written by a

native speaker of English and using the analysis done by McMenamin we see how the writing was similar to that of Patricia Ramsey but was inconclusive. There are limitations to stylistics analysis which are the selection of stylistic variables used for comparison and contrast has been said to be arbitrary and subjective; the frequency of occurrence of stylistic variables is not well defined, resulting in analytical methods that do not include rigorous statistical analysis of written texts; given that reference to a linguistic norm is needed for the analysis of linguistic variation, a norm that is inaccessible for any reason weakens the analysis; The inability to clearly differentiate between group v. individual variation; The relative significance of stylistic variables cannot be determined because it is not yet possible to determine levels of conscious intervention as stylistic choices are made in the writing process, assuming that the most telltale markers are those least consciously used (McMenamin, 2002). These limitations are some concepts that as linguists we have to consider while analyzing the documents to reveal authorship. Thus, we can answer the hypothesis that the nativity of an author can be revealed based on the linguistic errors that they make in their writings.