My main research investigates the linguistic behavior of individuals who groom minors online, and my overall research question is: what linguistic strategies do groomers employ when exposing minors to sexual content during online grooming? Grooming is a manipulative and illegal communicative practice which poses an escalating societal threat. Although online grooming is a communicative practice, there is to date very little linguistic research into the phenomenon. Through digital conversation analysis my project aims to qualitatively study online grooming interactions from a linguistic perspective, with the overall aim of contributing to the development of research-based prevention programs and resources for minors, parents, and educators to recognize grooming language.

In addition, I am interested in pseudoscience related to lie detection and credibility analysis in a forensic-linguistic context. I examine the ethical challenges that arise when pseudoscientific language-analysis methods gain traction in police work and other institutional settings. A range of tools and training courses for so-called “credibility analysis” are marketed to police, prosecutors, lawyers, and even HR departments which, despite lacking scientific evidence, nevertheless gain authority through their intuitive appeal and practical uptake. I am interested in understanding why such unproven techniques take hold, what standards institutions should follow when relying on scientific methods, and why it is important for forensic linguists to clearly maintain the distinction between evidence-based research and pseudo-linguistic practices.

Fields of study: forensic linguistics, conversation analysis, digital conversation analysis, online sexual grooming discourse, pseudolinguistics.