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Sun Media Corporation Sdn Bhd (221220-k)
speak up!
Govt must initiate
inter-faith dialogues
ON THE occasion of their Hijrah new
year, Muslims were reminded to be
close friends with non-Muslims and to
be in solidarity with them as they are
all fellow citizens. They were told by the
nation’s deputy Yang diPertuan Agong,
Sultan Abdul Halim Sultan Badlishah,
who is also the ruler of Kedah, that it
is the duty of all Malaysians to work
together at nation building. He said
Muslims must strive to be good Mus-
lims by understanding the message of
the Quran and the authentic collections
of the traditions of the Prophet Muham-
mad. Part of being a good Muslim is to
live in harmony with others.
Every year similar messages remind
Muslims of the need to be good Mus-
lims. Followers of other religions are
also similarly reminded every year on
the occasion of their new year and other
celebrations. It seems to be one of the
benefits of the multi-religious nature of
this country that Malaysians are never
short of reminders throughout the year
to be good citizens and to live in peace
and harmony with one another. It may
come in the form of messages from
the King, the various state rulers on the
occasion of their birthday celebrations,
the prime minister, the various commu-
nity leaders and the religious leaders of
the various religions. Yet, despite the
countless reminders, many Malaysians
are still unable to live according to the
messages, exhortations and appeals
of their leaders for them to exercise
t h e s u n s a y s
tolerance and to live in peace and har-
mony. The fault, perhaps, lies not with
the reminders and the messages but
in the apparent lack of commitment
and seriousness to encourage or allow
the necessary follow-up actions to
take place. Everyone can talk but it is
what comes after that is important. For
instance, everyone can call for inter-
faith dialogues but the most important
thing after the call is made is to have a
mechanism to facilitate such sessions.
At no time are inter-faith discus-
sions more urgent than now when a
lot of demands are being made by the
various religious communities and a lot
of changes are taking place in them.
Perhaps the government can play a
role as initiator and facilitator. Interfaith
dialogues can promote confidence
building among the religious leaders
after the initial reluctance and fear of
compromising their faith have been
overcome. At the very least it can help
them understand each other’s faith or
how it is being practised here better.
With lots of care and sensitivity the
dialogues can progress to be a way for
promoting better relations between
the religions by pruning away some of
their fripperies but which, because of
their presence, are developing into little
stumbling blocks to harmony. Perhaps
more people should be persuaded to
see that it is unwise to downplay the
importance of inter-faith dialogue in
our efforts at nation building.
TELLING IT AS IT IS
Acting Editor-in-Chief: Chong Cheng Hai
Consultant Editor: Zainon Ahmad
Executive Editor: Lee Boon Siew
Deputy Editor: Patrick Choo (Production),
Editor: R. Nadeswaran (Special Reporting)
Forensic
phonetics in crime
comment by David C.E. Tneh
PROFESSOR Magnús Pétursson
from the Institute of Phonetics,
General Linguistics and Indo-
European Studies, University
of Hamburg, recently gave a
lecture here on the principles of
forensic phonetics.
Forensic phonetics, a form
of forensic speech and audio
analysis is a relatively new
discipline that was founded
in the 1970s with the aim of
identifying suspects in crime
by analysing the characteristics
of the human voice and how
the sounds of language are
produced. It is essentially a field
of applied science that combines
the effective collaboration of
linguists, phoneticians and
computer technicians for an
effective and thorough analysis
of the human voice.
It allows the possibilities of
voice identification with the help
of computer identification that
encompasses auditive forensic
analysis, analysis by computer
and acoustic forensic analysis or
sounds that are distinctive (Eg a
physical oral characteristic of an
individual such as a tooth loss.)
There are several parameters
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rhythm of speech, speaking rate,
fundamental frequency patterns
and breathing behaviour.
Pétursson also spoke on
the influence of alcohol on
the speech and how it has a
paralysing effect on normal
speech pattern. Where age
is concerned, it is difficult to
distinguish disguised voices of
males within the ages of 20-40.
This is due to the individual’s
health and whether one is a
that would influence voice smoker because smokers tend
analysis that are relevant to sound more mature by 6-7
to forensic phonetics. An years. In addition, the voice of
individual’s emotions, males is harder to distinguish
physiology, speaking habits, than females who have a more
age, dialect, health and regular voice than their male
utterance would influence counterparts. Also, disguised
the speech produced while voices of males are harder to
the signal transmission of the decipher due to the linguistic
speech by electronic means competence and sound
would take into account the variances of males that exceed
environmental influences (such the female voice.
as echo), encoding and signal Because criminals in general
compression, the acoustic signal, tend to disguise their voice when
and noises made if an individual speaking, the German police in
is ill (if one has flu or a sore collaboration with Pétursson
throat). have established a database of
Forensic phonetics would dialects to aid their efforts in
also analyse and take into combating crime that involves
account the various parameters criminals who disguise their
that would have a bearing voices. There is growing interest
on forensic phonetics. This in the applied science of forensic
includes auditive speaker phonetics in crime solving and
identification, age, instrumental its importance is vital in forensic
procedures, the parameters speech and audio analysis.
of voice identification, the Perhaps it is timely that our
parameters of language, and police consider setting up a
manner of speaking. In the forensic phonetics unit.
parameters of language, factors
such as dialect, foreign accent, Tneh teaches English language
individual characteristics, and literature at the Dept of
level of education and socio- Modern Languages, Faculty
economic background must of Creative Industries, UTAR.
be considered. Factors under Comment: letters@thesundaily.
manner of speaking include com