Four faculty members from the Department of English of the Faculty of Arts and Letters presented their respective academic research papers at the 14th Biennial Conference of the International Association of Forensic Linguists (IAFL) held at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University in Melbourne, Australia from July 1 to 5, 2019.
Paper presenters were Dean Prof. Marilu R. Madrunio, Ph.D., Assoc. Prof. Rachelle B. Lintao, Ph.D., Asst. Prof. Josephine B. Alarcon, and Asst. Prof. Raquel R. Jimenez. They worked on forensic linguistics (FL) studies, a new and fertile area of research in applied linguistics.
Dean Madrunio’s presentation was a colloborative research between her and her former mentee, Ms. Sabina Maria Mabutas, who is now a law student at the UST Faculty of Civil Law. Prior to the conference, Lintao, Jimenez, and Dean Madrunio participated in workshops on ‘Forensic Interviewing: Developing International Standards and Forensic Linguistics for Teachers’ under Dr. Georgina Heydon, a forensic linguist at the RMIT University, whose specialization is on police interrogation and investigation.
The four English faculty members were joined by students under the UST English Language Studies (ELS) who recently graduated and whose theses were in line with forensic linguistics research. They were: Aaron Tom de Guia, Phamela Edralin, and Danielle Nicole Rosario. Michelle Marasigan, a graduate of ELS in 2018, likewise presented her research. They were joined by Ms. Elsie Doreen Gersava, a UST Graduate School student who presented her research on police interrogation as part of her Ph.D. degree coursework on Forensic Linguistics.
Madrunio elected to Forensic Linguists Board
In a related development, UST Faculty of Arts and Letters Dean Prof. Marilu Rañosa-Madrunio, Ph.D., was recently elected as Ordinary Member of the Board of the International Association of Forensic Linguists (IAFL) for a term of four years. She was elected during IAFL’s 14th Biennial Conference in the RMIT University in Australia.
Dean Madrunio will serve the Board from 2019 to 2023. Madrunio, who was nominated by the IAFL board itself, joins Prof. Janny Leung of the University of Hong Kong, another Ordinary Member, who is continuing her term which will end in two years.
Dean Madrunio and Leung are part of the seven-member Executive Committee tasked to actively contribute to the IAFL’s affairs and take on specific responsibilities to forward the aims and objectives of the Association as well as plan for the future direction of the Association, among others.
The current members of the Executive Committee are: Professor Janet Ainsworth of Seattle University School of Law, Washington, USA (President), Dr. Isabel Picornell of QED Limited, Guernsey, Channel Islands (Vice President), Dr. Tammy Gales of Hosfstra University, New York, USA (Secretary), Dr. Ria Perkins of Aston University, Birmingham, UK (Treasurer), Dr. Rui Sousa-Silva of the Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal (Publicity Officer), Dr. Janny Leung of the University of Hong Kong, (Continuing Ordinary Member) and Prof. Marilu R. Madrunio, Ph.D., of the University of Santo Tomas (Ordinary Member). Except for Dr. Madrunio who serves until 2023, the rest of the members are to serve the association until 2021.
Winning by an overwhelming majority vote, Dean Madrunio is the first Filipino to be part of IAFL’s Executive Committee and has pioneered in forensic linguistics research in the Philippines.
