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 Abstract
The phenomenon of serial killing poses an important challenge to standard methods of

criminal investigation. Such methods are based on the assumption that “every contact leaves a

trace” (Nordby, 1989). However, one of the commonly found features of serial killers is the

absence of evidence left behind. As a result, in the search for serial killers, one must incorporate

more diverse perspectives and identify more nuanced and implicit traces than would be typically

found in other crimes. Given the depth of the subconscious from which human language

originated, special attention is needed for the linguistic features extracted from the texts or

speech of these offenders. Based on each individual’s cognitive and cultural schematic

knowledge, the production and interpretation could vary from one to another (Fairclough, 2001).

In other words, serial killers’ linguistic signature or patterns, if identified, are invaluable in the

investigation process.

Although many studies have aided law enforcement in uncovering the motivations,

dynamics, and behavioral characteristics of serial murderers to a certain degree, yet, it is still

difficult to comprehend objective markers and the inhumane behavior of serial killers. Experts

from many areas have examined “serial killers” in depth, yet there have not been many experts

that have examined this topic under the lens of forensic linguistics. It would be particularly

interesting to examine and compare female and male serial killers’ language. This paper aims to

analyze male and female serial killers’ language to see what new information may be uncovered

by utilizing forensic linguistic methodologies. The goal of this study is to discover what stance

and attitude (emotions) these predators have embedded within their language patterns or through

the level of commitment to their acts (Gales, 2010). Perhaps if these discernible patterns were to

be recognized early in the investigation, it would further aid law enforcement to identify the

serial killers’ genders during criminal profiling.

2
 Table of Contents
Abstract 2
1 Introduction 5
1.1 Statement of the Problem 7
1.2 Purpose of the Study 8
1.3 Hypothesis 8
2 Background 9
2.1 Definition of Serial Murderer 9
2.2 Early History 10
2.3 Age and Nationality 12
2.4 Occupation, Education, and IQ 13
2.5 General Motivation and Method 14
2.6 Nature vs. Nurture 15
3 Literature Review 16
3.1 Social Factors in Gender Language 16
3.2 Theoretical Preliminaries: Gendered Language 17
3.3 Psychology of Serial Murderers 20
3.4 Language and Communication of Serial Murderers 21
3.5 Studies on Male vs. Female Serial Murderers 22
3.6 Stance and Evaluated Language 24
3.7 Stance markers in Gendered language 25
4 Corpus Compilation (Data) 27
4.1 Thirteen Male Serial Killers 28
4.2 Thirteen Female Serial Killers 29
5 Methodology 30
5.1 Systemic Functional Linguistics 30
5.2 Stance 31
5.3 Corpus Analysis 31
5.3.1 Word List 32
5.3.2 Keyword 32
5.4 Appraisal Analysis 33
5.4.1 Attitude 33
6 Limitations 34

3
7 Analysis 35
7.1 Corpus Analysis 35
7.1.1 Word List 36
7.1.2 Positive Keyness Words 37
7.2 Appraisal Analysis 44
7.2.1 Attitudinal Markers 44
7.2.2 Attitudinal Markers in Semantic Categories 46
8 Conclusion 47
8.1 Findings 47
8.2 Implications 48
8.3 Future Research 48
Bibliography 49
Appendix A: Full Appraisal of Male Serial Killers 56
Appendix B: Full Appraisal of Female Serial Killers 60

4
1 Introduction
Serial killing has remained one of the most grim crimes in the world which has over time

been a major source of concern to society. Despite this fact, serial killer crimes have fascinated

the public since at least the early 1960s in American society (Harmening, 2014). Over time this

topic has continued to gain significant attention in society. Most of the serial killers were mainly

males which caused a misconception that “there are no female serial killers.” This fallacy,

however, led to a wide range of literature studies predominantly focused on male serial killers.

Only until this recent decade, have those female serial killers been acknowledged. Studies are

done in the hopes to better grasp what compels these elusive offenders to kill (Holmes et al.,

1998; Serial Murder, 2010). This study would consider a compilation of approximately 4000

words for both genders of serial killers that have been collected from various true-crime books,

newspaper articles, court documents, and internet sites. Methodologies of Corpus and Appraisal

Analysis will be employed to examine these data. This is a corpus-based study including both

qualitative (Corpus and Appraisal Analysis) and quantitative approaches of two separate corpora

of female and male serial killers (see detail in section Data and Analysis).

Unlike most murderers, serial killers are commonly believed to be more mysterious and

perplexing (Newton, 2008; Fox et al., 2014). Throughout history, there have been many strange

serial killer cases. One of the very first modern serial killer cases that caught the public’s

attention worldwide was the sensational case known by its sobriquets as the “Jack the Ripper”

case. He was well-known for killing prostitutes and mutilating their abdominal region

(Harmening, 2014). This case occurred in 1888 in a large city in London called “Whitechapel”

(Hickey, 2016; Carnac, 2013). The Jack the Ripper case was also the very first example of

5
criminal profiling1 (Petherick, 2009). Criminal profiling has become a very useful tool in serial

killing cases (Hickey, 2002). The other most prolific serial killers such as Elizabeth Báthory,

David Berkowitz (Son of Sam), H.H. Holmes, the Zodiac Killer, and Ted Bundy are also quite

unique, and inconceivable (Infamous Serial Killers, 2014). In the Elizabeth Báthory case for

example, Elizabeth is well known for torturing and killing between 300 to 650 young women.

Elizabeth Báthory is known for her belief that harvesting and bathing in the blood of virgin

women would allow her to retain her youth (Hickey, 2003; Farrell, 2006). While the vast

majority of humans detest the idea of killing any fellow human, the curiosity and fascination

with serial killers remains. This curiosity is something akin to that of a catastrophic automobile

accident; generally, people do not wish to ever witness another human being hurt, and yet we

still feel the compulsion to slow down and look as we pass an automobile accident (Bonn, 2014).

It is human nature to be inquisitive when exposed to something that is so bizarre and beyond the

norm (Madden, 2009).

The vast majority of us will never cross paths with a serial killer in our lifetime.

However, with the combination of mass media along with the plethora of books and films

released on the topic of serial killing, many of these serial killers have become household names

(Schmid, 2006). The images of male serial killers are usually stereotyped as sexual sadists and as

more compulsive than female serial killers (Newton, 2006; Films about real-life serial killers &

murderers, 1900). Whereas the female serial killers are considered to be deliberate, socially

adept, mature, and highly organized (Silvio et al., 2006). Serial killers can be covered by the

media for much longer in comparison to other crimes. According to a criminal psychologist

named Eric Hickey, in the mid-1980s there were only 23 serial murderer themed films.

1
Criminal profiling is “best viewed as a way for law enforcement to focus its efforts in a particular area” – (Ressler
et al., 1988).
6
Following this there was an explosion of the genre. This raised the number of serial killer themed

movies from 23 to 117 in the 1990s (Hickey, 2002; Criminologist and Consultant, 2011;

Simpson, 2000). In the mid-1800s to 1900s, the popular media, such as the British True-Crime

Press and the British Weekly Magazine “Punch”, were extensively reporting the stories of serial

killers (Vronsky, 2007). With the proliferation of mass media, crime novels, television shows,

and films about serial killers, came an increased awareness of these predators (Hickey, 2002;

Bergeson, 2012; Indic, W., 2006; Hickey, 2002; Holmes et al., 1998).

1.1 Statement of the Problem

Many studies have aided law enforcement in uncovering the motivations, dynamics, and

behavioral characteristics of serial murderers to a certain degree (Serial Murder, 2010). The

studies performed were primarily focused on male serial killers. Most multiple homicide crimes

are committed by males (Hickey, 1997). The majority of criminal profiling was performed on

male serial killers in the past as well. There have been a few cases such as Belle Gunness,

Nannie Doss, Dorothea Puente, and other women who committed serial murders in the US

during the 1800s (Hickey, 1991). These cases were not very well-known by the general public.

This is partially due to the limited amount of female serial killers there have been throughout

history. Although many studies have been done, it is still difficult to comprehend objective

markers and the inhumane behavior of serial killers (Angrilli, 2013). Experts from many areas

have examined “serial killers” in depth, yet there have not been many experts that have examined

this topic under the lens of forensic linguistics. It would be particularly interesting to examine

and compare female and male serial killers’ language. This paper will research male and female

serial killers’ language to see what new information may be uncovered by utilizing forensic

linguistic methodologies.
7
1.2 Purpose of the Study

The phenomenon of serial killing poses an important challenge to standard methods of

criminal investigation. Such methods are based on the assumption that “every contact leaves a

trace” (Nordby, 1989). However, one of the commonly found features of serial killers is the

absence of evidence left behind. As a result, in the search for serial killers, one must incorporate

more diverse perspectives and identify more nuanced and implicit traces than would be typically

found in other crimes. Given the depth of the subconscious from which human language

originated, special attention is deserved of the linguistic features extracted from the texts or

speech of these offenders. Based on each individual’s cognitive and cultural schematic

knowledge, the production and interpretation could vary from one to another (Fairclough, 2001).

In other words, serial killers’ linguistic signature or patterns, if identified, are invaluable in the

investigation process. Most of the studies have looked at the minds of serial killers to understand

their behavior and intentions. This study will focus mainly on female and male serial killers’

language. The goal of this study is to discover what stance and attitude (emotions) these

predators have embedded within their language patterns or through the level of commitment to

their acts (Gales, 2010). Perhaps if these discernible patterns were to be recognized early in the

investigation, it would further aid law enforcement to identify the serial killers’ genders during

criminal profiling.

1.3 Hypothesis

My null hypothesis for this study would be that male and female’s language will

extensively vary from one another because males and females generally speak differently. In

addition, the majority of known serial killers are mentally ill in the legal and scientific sense.

8
While some serial killers did not show any indications of mental illness, “it is commonly

accepted that there is some deviant or pathological process occurring within them which is

directly related to the commission of multiple homicides” (Carlisle, 1993). It is likely their

mental illness or pathological process will affect their ideology, perception, and reactions to the

world. “Words adhere to the pattern,” therefore their language patterns will manifest based on

the ideology they hold within them (Morton, 2005; Leonard et al., 2017). This can be analyzed

and detected with linguistic analysis. The process is comprised of a careful and thorough analysis

of female and male serial killers’ written and/or transcribed spoken language (such as official

statements, letters, confessions, and interviews). This can reveal what stance they may have.

Linguistic methodologies of “Corpus Linguistics” and “Appraisal Analysis” will be implemented

to test this hypothesis (see Data and Analysis section below).

2 Background

Serial killers may be condemned by society, but this does not change the fact that they

are still humans. They are just the same as rest of us, who come from all walks of life, and have

different backgrounds. This section will cover the basic information and history about serial

killers.

2.1 Definition of Serial Murderer

The most recent revision of the definition of the term “serial killer” was in 2005 at an

international symposium organized by the FBI. The definition is as follows: Serial Killing - “The

unlawful killing of two or more victims by the same offender(s), in separate events” (Fisher and

Lab, 2010; Douglas et al., 2013). The number of victims one must have to be considered a serial

9
killer was changed from three to two in this revision. The following factors were agreed upon in

the international symposium:

• “one or more offenders”

• “two or more murdered victims”
• “the incidents should be occurring in separate events, at different times”
• “the time period between murders separates serial murder from mass murder” (Serial
Murder, 2010).

Robert Ressler of the FBI claimed that he was the one who coined the phrase “serial

killer” when attending a lecture at the British police academy in England in 1974. At the lecture,

he said that the term “stranger killings” seemed inappropriate and later came up with the term

“serial killer” (Vronsky, 2004). Robert Ressler and John Douglas (head of the FBI’s Behavioral

Science Unit) were the premier profilers and had been investigating and interviewing serial

murderers since the 1970s (Philbin et al., 2009). Serial killing is a very serious issue. Serial

killers typically will not stop until they are caught. It is surprising to note that most apprehended

serial killers do not have prior criminal records (Farrington, 2000).

2.2 Early History

The earliest documented serial killer can be traced back to 331 BC in Ancient Rome2

(Newton et al., 2008). Records were kept very poorly before this time. Many serial killers before

this time plausibly were not documented. It is also reasonable to assume that files of serial killers

before this time, if recorded, could very well have been lost. Jack the Ripper was not the first

serial murder. He was however the first to attract considerable attention from the press. No one

knows of the first serial killer or the exact amount of serial killers that have existed throughout

2
Authorities convict 170 women of poisoning “countless” men.

10
history. American society once believed that serial killers kill five thousand people per year. This

number however was inflated by the media in the 1980s and was not factual at all (Hickey,

2016). According to the Radford/FGCU Serial Killer Database, the highest peak of known serial

killing was reached in the 1980’s. There are many theories about why in the 1980’s serial murder

was becoming so increasingly prevalent. Some theories include: Veterans traumatized during the

Vietnam experienced post-traumatic stress disorder (J.T.O. 2013). The growth of technology and

mass media may have led to the proliferation of dozens of serial killer related books, magazine

stories, and TV shows (Jacoby, 2012; Vronsky et al., 2014). With the increased media presence,

the number of serial killers may have likely increased due to “copy-cat” behavior (Ramsland,

2010). This example can be seen in the case of a female serial killer named Christine Falling.

Christine Falling had killed many babies during her career as a nurse. Christine Falling once

said, “…kill the baby… the way I done it, I seen it done on TV shows." (Wetsch, 2005). It is

reasonable to assume that at least part of the reason she committed these murders is because she

was inspired by things she saw others do. Similar to those who commit mass shootings, many

serial killers desperately wish to become famous before they die. A friend of Joanna Dennehy

(female serial killer) once asked her why she committed killing. She responded, “I want to

murder men. I want to be a serial killer, write a book, and be famous” (Estephe, 2011). The

attention that a serial killer gets could motivate them to do this as well, because of their state of

mind (Fox et al., 2014). After the 1980’s there was a steady decline in serial killing leading to

today. This decline is likely in part due to the fact that law enforcement now has more

sophisticated means of catching criminals (Aamodt, 2015).

11
2.3 Age and Nationality

There is no particular mold that can fit both female and male serial killers. Newton

(2008) stated that, “only a few begin to kill when they are very young, around age eight or nine.

Others wait for middle age, but most start in their later teens or early 20s. Those who can

describe their reasons list a range of motives: sex, greed, race, revenge, or even angelic or

demonic voices in their heads.” According to the statistics from Radford University/Florida Gulf

Coast University3 (25 years of data collection since 1992), the age of known serial killers ranges

from 9 years old to 72 years old. The average age of serial killers from the 1950’s to 2000 was

between ages 24 to 29. The average age of a male serial killer to kill their first victim was 27.5

years old. Whereas female serial killers’ first kill tends to start later than male serial killers. The

average age when female serial killers first commit murder is 31 years old (Holmes et al., 1998;

Aamodt, 2015).

According to Aamodt (2015), the total count worldwide for serial killers reached 4,743

and the total count for victims worldwide was up to 13,105 in September, 2016. It is striking to

see that America contains 4.44 percent of the world’s population, yet 66.7 percent of known

serial killers have been from America. America has the highest number of serial killers as well as

victims. It is interesting to note that China and India have the two highest populations, yet they

have the lowest known serial homicide rate (Aamodt, 2015). This is likely due to cultural and

biological (IQ, temperament, etc.) differences from country to country and accuracy of reporting

3
Most of the statistical information from heading 2.2 to 2.4 are came from the database of Radford University/Florida
Gulf University conducted and initiated by Dr. Mike Aamodt (a professor of psychology at Radford University) began
in 1992. In 1992 there were not many sources with information on serial killers. This motivated Dr. Aamodt to collect
and code data on serial killers. These are unbiased, reliable, accurate, and credible sources. These sources are compiled
from newspaper articles, online records, court documents, and public records. These compiled statistics have turned
into the largest non-government database of information on serial killers in the world.

12
deaths. Economic factors are also likely in part responsible. America’s economy and culture

allow it to have advanced technology and more sophisticated means of catching criminals than

do the majority of other countries (Blanco, 2017).

2.4 Occupation, Education, and IQ

FBI agent Resseler stated in his book, “seven of thirty-six serial killers have IQ scores

below 90, most were in the normal range, and eleven had scored in the superior range, above

120” (Ressler et al., 1993). The Radford/FGCU Serial Killer Database shows that those who kill

using a gun or kill via bludgeon tend to have a relatively low IQ. Whereas those who kill using

more sophisticated methods such as bombing have a relatively high IQ around 140 (Aamodt,

2015). The IQ also varies between organized and unorganized serial killers. Organized serial

killers usually possess higher than average IQ and social skills that rank above average. They

often have a skilled job or a professional job. In contrast to disorganized serial killers, which are

usually the exact opposite in this regard (Newton, 2008).

In terms of level of education and occupation there is no specific correlation between

them. Known serial killers have held a wide range of occupations and have completed a wide

range of education. There have been serial killers with little to no formal education, such as

Aileen Wuornos (Myers, 2005). Not surprisingly there have been serial killers that held a college

diploma, such as Ted Bundy, nurses Kristin Gilbert, and Charles Cullen (Devlin et al., 2007;

Selzer, 2017; Yorker, 2006). What makes serial killers so challenging to apprehend is that they

live seemingly ordinary lives. Serial killers come from all walks of life, so it is complicated to

find an individual that fits the profile of a serial killer. The profile of a serial killer that is seen by

the public (before the criminal is arrested) may appear to be an exact match with any other

ordinary citizen. Many citizens are ignorant and falsely believe things such as, “serial killers are
13
all dysfunctional loners.” Often serial killers have a family, a social life, a career, and hobbies

like most other people. It is not difficult for serial killers to keep hidden their deviant desires and

actions. This is what allows serial killers to fuse into society so effortlessly (Aamodt, 2015).

2.5 General Motivation and Method

Oftentimes, the information on female serial killers is unavailable, which contributes to

the lack of a comprehensive mold. Serial killers are unlike most murderers. It is very common

for non-serial murderers to murder their family members, friends, and acquaintances out of anger

or passion (Expanded Homicide Data, 20114 ). Whereas Serial killers do not murder out of

personal anger toward their victims. Serial killers often murder for their own personal mentality

gain. For example, the motivation that drives male serial killers to kill strangers is for their own

personal gain. Often this gain is not material gain, but rather it is a sense of satisfaction, most

commonly enjoyment (hedonistic killers), thrill, lust, fantasies, power, etc. According to the

Radford/FGCU Serial Killer statistics, the occurrence of male visionary serial killers (killers who

believe they are working for God or the devil) is more common than it is for females. Common

methods for male serial killers are usually shootings, strangling, suffocation, stabbings, or

bludgeoning. In contrary, female serial killers typically poison those close to them (most

commonly spouse or children) for monetary gain, comfort, profit, a perceived gain of power, or

histrionic attention-seeking (Miller, 2014). Often these women are referred to as “black widows”

or “angels of death” (Philbin et al., 2009).

4
“In 2011, in incidents of murder for which the relationships of murder victims and offenders were known, 54.3
percent were killed by someone they knew (acquaintance, neighbor, friend, boyfriend, etc.); 24.8 percent of victims
were slain by family members. The relationship of murder victims and offenders was unknown in 44.1 percent of
murder and nonnegligent manslaughter incidents in 2011.” (Expanded Homicide Data, 2011)
14
 Although both genders do kill for a perceived sense of “power,” they do tend to vary to

some degree. Ted Bundy, for example, chose to kill strangers he had no real connection to.

Bundy killed between 35-36 women that were neither friends nor acquaintances. In contrary,

female serial killers tend to kill their victims that they have contact with in life. Genene Jones,

for example, was a nurse that killed her patients for the feeling of power and control it gave her.

Jones killed up to 46 babies by injecting them with a fatal dose of a muscle relaxant (Aamodt,

2015). There are some exceptions to this. For example, female serial killer, Aileen Wuornos,

killed for revenge and control. This, however, does not fit the traditional female behavioral

profiling (Miller, 2014).

2.6 Nature vs. Nurture

It is also important to note that no one is naturally born to be a killer, even a person with

mental illness. As Ioana (2013) stated, “neither the intelligence, nor the thinking, the memory,

the imagination, or the language of a killer are the psychological causes of his murders, but the

deeper springs of his personality: the emotional, motivational, natural factors that were generated

not only by hereditary, biological factors, but by the factors related to education, socialization,

culture and, especially, the socio-economic environment the individual lives in.” There is no

definitive answer to causality or what compels a serial killer to start killing. However, studies

have shown that mental illness and childhood trauma have played an essential role in forming

serial killers (Morton, 2005). In general, people tend to use the term “psychopath” to describe a

serial murderer (Hickey, 2003). The two most common types serial killers are psychopaths and

sociopaths5. The difference between the two is that psychopaths were born with mental illness,

5
“Sociopaths are missing an essential part of what makes a person human: the ability to empathize with the pain and
suffering of others” (Philbin et al., 2009).
15
whereas the abnormalities found in sociopaths were learned. Serial killers who are lacking

feelings of empathy, pain, and remorse are likely due to their abuse as a child. This is akin to the

way a robot is capable of exhibiting expressions but is incapable of having genuine feelings

attached to these expressions. Sociopaths who have developed into serial killers likely do so due

to emotional trauma such as verbal, physical, or sexual abuse as a child (Morton, 2005). Overall,

not all serial killers are psychopaths, but they usually do suffer from similar mental conditions.

(Philbin et al., 2009). Mental illness and childhood trauma are unfortunately not all that

uncommon in serial killing. A combination of the two is unfortunately not very rare either.

3 Literature Review
There are few studies directly investigating gender distinctions in the language of serial

killers. I will compile relevant studies from which one can draw conclusions about the distinct

language use of male and female serial killers. It is important to discuss the distinction made

between male and female’s stance markers and styles. The different linguistic patterns, though

mostly regional, cultural, and ways of socializing in the whole language system, of men and

women are expected to, ceteris paribus, manifest themselves in the serial murderer community.

This study of discourse will also further aid me in analyzing the male and female serial killers’

differences in language.

3.1 Social Factors in Gender Language

Male and female languages are incredibly complex and intricate. This is due to the fact

men and women play different social roles. The current status of language can provide a glimpse

into the evolution of civilization and social structure. With distinct advantages and skills, males

and females have always played different roles in society throughout history (Grusec, 1998). It is

16
not a coincidence that we have language unique to gender. This can be traced back to a profound

history of the development of social structure (Beal, 1994; Sunderland, 2006). Gender

differences are conventional in every culture. Historically men have held a higher social status

and have had more rights and power than women. This is clearly no longer the case, but

interestingly, we still see differences in language from one gender to the other. This indicates

that differences in language are still influenced by culture and social factors (Jutta et al., 2015).

Gender language is closely connected to traditional society. Throughout history, women’s

social status was lower than that of men. Their societal role was to be home-orientated. Women

were considered to be extra vulnerable in our society (Vronsky, 2007; Lange-Küttner, 2017).

This is because women are physically much weaker than men. It was not until the nineteenth-

century when women finally had opportunities to work. In the end of the nineteenth century,

there were jobs such as clerks, typists, and shop assistants available for women (Emsley et al.,

1913). According to Lakoff (1975), “as a result of sex-role socialization, where girls and boys

learn to talk in ways appropriate to their gender, females are socialized into using inferior

language characterized by weakness, uncertainty, and excessive politeness”. Society would

intuitively link a killer to the male gender. Females are indeed capable of violence as evident

mentioned terms “black widow” and “angel of death. These terms are applied to women known

for killing family and friends for financial gains (Philbin et al., 2009; Kelleher et al., 1999;

Hickey, 2016).

3.2 Theoretical Preliminaries: Gendered Language

Gendered language has been widely studied in the history of sociolinguistic perspectives.

Sociolinguists are interested in investigating the style and form of social categories (including

gender) from individual interactions. From a sociolinguistic perspective, men and women’s
17
language differs in their linguistic style, form, topic, content, and use (Haas, 1979; Weatherall,

2002). Moreover, every individual has his or her unique style of utterance and writing. Perhaps

language is partially comprised of every individual’s own unique personal dialect including

features and characteristics (idiolect6) (Leonard, 2018). There are no two people in the world (as

far as we know) who will naturally have identical phonology, syntax, or lexical choice, which is

likely due to different schema7 (Leonard, 2004; Malcolm, 2004; Forensic Linguistics & Author

Identification, 2017).

One of the main factors causing this diversity in language is due to the social and

linguistic context in men and women. This leads to how gender language classification came

about (Sunderland, 2006). Although some controversial generalizations have been made on the

distinction between the language of men and women, only some groups would consider such

distinctions to be accurate. Some early studies have found that women are usually more

cooperative and facilitative in conversations (Labov, 1972). Women are believed to be more

polite, more attuned to perceived status and prestige, more keen for solidarity in interactions, and

speak more standardized speech than men (Trudgill, 1972). In Eckert and McConnell-Ginet

(1995)’s study on school oriented “jocks” and anti-school “burnouts' for example, the “jocks”

and “burnouts” stances illustrated that girls used prestige standard language more frequently than

boys. The girls who were categorized into “burnouts” used the most non-standard language. This

study however, does not represent the whole social differentiation between boys and girls. It can

only be applied to local school of “jocks” and “burnouts”. Moreover, these studies are not done

6
Every speaker has an idiolect, which is a distinctive and sometimes unique manner of communication.
7
A schema is “‘Schema’ is a term commonly used to refer to organized bundles of knowledge in our brains, which
are activated once we come across situations we have previously experienced, a ‘group schema’ being one such
inventory shared by many” – (Gregoriou, 2015).
18
in a huge corpus; a larger configuration and corpora are perhaps needed to attest the diversity in

gender language variables.

In the former literature review, some pre-assumptions demonstrated clear-cut differences

between men and women. For instances, men tend to talk more (Drass, 1986) and directly

(Lakoff, 1975), exhibit more dominance and competitiveness (Lakoff, 1975), interrupt more

often than women (Zimmerman et al, 1975), and focus on the content of the interaction and "the

task at hand at the expense of attention to their addresses" (Holmes, 1995). In Brizendine's

(1994) study, he stated that “women talk three times as much as men”. Also, women tend to

embed more features in their speech that make them sound tentative, uncertain, and hesitant (see

Lakoff’s (1975) “deficit model”). Examples of this include the use of tag questions, honorifics,

indirect questions, hedges, rising intonation, empty adjectives. According to Lakoff, these

characteristics deny women the opportunity to express themselves firmly and makes what they

are talking about appear trivial. Lakoff relates these claims to inequalities present at the time

between women and men, arguing that women's natural speaking style typically denies them

access to power. This is likely because in the pass women spoke the way women traditionally

spoke. Overtime, women have become more comfortable behaving in ways traditionally

considered masculine and socially unacceptable. The recent studies have observed new findings

that are meaningful differences from the pioneering studies on gender language. For instances,

according to Mulac et al, 2000, the study failed to see the instances of women use more

uncertainty and negation while men use more directives. Instead, it was the reverse situation

where women used significantly more the directives and men used more negations.

19
3.3 Psychology of Serial Murderers

Psychological components are the prominent cause of serial killing. Particular

psychological patterns or motives are reflected in language patterns in the criminals’ text or

speech. Therefore, the studies on the psychological underpinnings of serial murderers warrant

our attention.

Reid (2017) has put out the following set of consensuses that have been reached in the

literature regarding the psychology of serial killers:

● “Serial murder is a conscious and intentional act”;

● “The motives for serial murder are internal and/or primarily pathological. They do not
need to be rational.”;
● “The serial murderer experiences a compulsive drive or impulse to kill”;
● “Repetition and/or patterns are evident in the homicides of serial murderers”;
● “The psychological state of serial murderers, whether noticeable or not is, in some way,
abnormal.”

At the core of these psychological features that distinguish serial murderers from other

types of criminals lies “the notion that serial murderers experience a compulsive drive or impulse

to kill” Reid (2017). As Schlesinger (2004) said, “this compulsive drive to kill has been

described as a tension state fueled by the offender's fantasy life.” Such a drive is “believed to be

the result of this inner compulsion, and following the act, offenders return to their premorbid

(non-tension) state, and the cycle repeats itself” (Schlesinger, 2007). The compulsiveness reflects

“the main motivational dynamic within the offender that pushes him to kill” (Schlesinger, 2007).

A consensus has also been reached regarding the fundamental nature of the motives behind the

serial killing. As quoted from Reid (2017), “the motivation of serial murderers is intrinsic and

based on one's unique psychological motives of personal gratification” (Adjorlolo & Chan,

2014). The denotation of the word “compulsiveness” refers “specifically to the patterned and

repetitive aspects of their crimes” (Reid, 2017).

20
3.4 Language and Communication of Serial Murderers

As mentioned previously, the idiosyncrasies of serial murderers include primarily the

impoverishment of traces they would leave behind the crime scene. This brings in immense

difficulty for investigators and law enforcement. Guillen (2002) noted that “often, the serial

killers avoid capture because they are highly mobile, tend to leave little evidence, and keep their

thoughts and deeds to themselves. Occasionally, serial killers will communicate with police or

the mass media with exasperated and ironic language. It may be a taunting letter, poem, or a

random telephone call”. On a similar note, Simpson (2000) mentioned that “for the more brutish

serial killers, language is to be avoided as much as possible, if not altogether.” This is likely

because serial killers possibly like to be in control. Serial killers often leave a very meager space

to negotiate with the law enforcement. Guillen (2002) also pointed out that “while serial killers

appear to have an innate ability to refrain from discussing their crimes before a case is solved,

there have been sporadic cases in which serial killers communicated anonymously with police or

news organizations during the murders.” Guillen used the word “communiqué” to refer to “any

anonymous message intentionally left at a crime scene by the killer or intentionally sent by the

killer to law enforcement or news organizations prior to a case.” The results of this study have

shown that communiqués are not sufficient in tracking down the offender in that they fail to

provide enough evidence or clues for conclusive drawings for the investigative agencies.

Nonetheless, the communiqués are particularly useful and important in “helping police convict

the perpetrators in serial cases.” “Once the serial killer had been identified, the communiqués

provided strong physical evidence–fingerprints, DNA, and handwriting samples – for

conviction” (Guillen, 2002). With this evidence, “the communiqués in the unsolved cases should

21
solidly link a suspect to a string of murders and ensure a conviction if an arrest is made

eventually” (Guillen, 2002).

Concerning serial killers’ verbal skills, Cronin (1996) pointed to the fact that “multiple

male killers have difficulty expressing themselves verbally.” Regardless of the reason, many

male killers seem to have difficulty in speaking or writing in an articulate fashion. Schurman-

Kauflin (2000) also said “this difficulty in communicating thoughts and ideas further separates

the multiple murderers from mainstream society. The lack of verbal skills serves to isolate these

killers once again, and this reinforces, to the killers, the notion that they are different from

others”. The lack of proper verbal skills is not typical of male murderers. Schurman-Kauflin’s

(2000) study discussed the situation of female offenders and mentioned the case in which six

women offenders all stated that they “experienced great difficulty communicating with both

adults and other children while growing up,” and their “inability to articulate their feelings

caused significant emotional distress.” For both male and female killers alike, this layer of social

isolation augments their “suppressed aggression” (Schurman-Kauflin, 2000). What was equally

interesting from this study is that even though these women murderers were struggling to express

their feelings, they had no issues keeping a clear and detailed record of their murder plans. For

them, “it was simple to articulate a methodical sequence that involved step-by-step instructions

for killing someone as opposed to writing about how they felt about doing those acts”

(Schurman-Kauflin, 2000).

3.5 Studies on Male vs. Female Serial Murderers

It is commonly held as a stereotype that most serial murderers are white males. Female

serial killers are being rare is a false stereotype that was invented in the late 20th century. In the

past, many people falsely believed that “all serial killers are male”. An example can be seen from
22
an FBI agent in 1998 named Roy Hazelwood: “there are no female serial killers” (profiles of

Murder, 2012). Another fallacy of “no female criminal” can be seen in "Marxian theories" during

the post-1960s, which stated that working-class men are most likely accounts for the criminality.

This erroneous claim is due to prejudice and chivalry; criminologists have traditionally avoided

looking at female styles of criminality seriously "(Estephe, 2014).

As stated previously, female killers have different motivations for killing and use

different methods to kill. While the male killer will favor strangling and a knife or gun, the

female killer would prefer poison. As stated in the analysis of Hickey (1997) that "62 female

serial killers revealed that most either used some poison (45%) or poison only (35%) in at least

some instances to kill their victims." Hickey (1997) also discussed that male serial killers tend to

attract media and law enforcement's attention more frequently than female serial killers due to

limited serial killers existed throughout history. This, however, resulted in female serial killers

killing over more extended periods of time before they are incarcerated.

Most of the known female serial killers appear to have been motivated primarily by

financial gain, although the psychopathology is undoubtedly much more complicated (Kelleher,

1998). Like most of their male counterparts, they came from broken homes were sexually abused

by parents or relatives or experienced other emotionally traumatic experiences in their youth”

However, the increasing number of female serial killers has caught researchers’ attention. Recent

studies have shown that approximately 16% serial killers are women in the past two centuries

(Vronsky, 2007; Hickey, 2010, Harrison et al., 2015). The first female serial killer to be

acknowledged by FBI profilers (Gurian, 2011) is Aileen Wuornos, who killed seven men in the

US between 1989 and 1990.

23
 Schurman-Kauflin (2000) discussed a case study where the former FBI agent Dr. Patricia

Kirby examined the relationship between gender roles and serial murder through interviewing

three female serial killers and five males. It was found that male and female serial killers differ in

several aspects. First, female killers are usually involved in caregiving jobs, while male killers

typically work more “masculine” jobs that demand physical strength such as construction work.

Female serial murderers tend to use subtle and covert methods of killing, such as using poison or

asphyxiation, rather than mutilation or torture. Male serial killers tend to use more explicit

methods. Female murderers may also have a different motivation for killing in that female killers

more often cite financial gain as a primary goal (Miller, 2014).

3.6 Stance and Evaluated Language

Many studies have critically examined the discourse analysis using appraisal framework

to evaluate the language in the targeted subject. According to Hunston (2010), “evaluative

language is that language which indexes the act of evaluation or the act of stance-taking”. An

appraisal framework from the Systemic functional model and critical discourse were

implemented in the study of Chiluwa, et al., (2016). Chiluwa, et al., (2016) evaluated the

language based on the feedback comments regarding the mass shooting that happened at a Navy

Yard in Washington D.C. and the attack that occurred in the Nairobi Westgate shopping mall in

September, 2013. Studies showed that the majority of feedback was negative. This comes as no

surprise as mass shootings are obviously not socially unacceptable. Mass shooters are perceived

as “social enemies” (Chiluwa, 2016). Words such as “anger”, “fear”, “shock”, and “frustration”

appeared most frequently in the data. These words are considered as negative and affective

stances due to the fact that this is a tragic event committed by mass shooters. From a cultural or

social perspective, this is ideologically judged as an adverse representation of our society.

24
 Another earlier study of Chiluwa in 2011 was focused on the “discursive construction of

Nigeria's Niger Delta ethnic militias in the Nigerian press” (Chiluwa, 2011). This was examined

using the methodologies of critical discourse analysis (CDA) combined with corpus-based

linguistics analysis. A corpus tool known as “WordSmith” was used to offer quantitative proof.

For instance, some lexical terms such as 'militants', 'thieves', 'cultists', 'criminals', or 'terrorists'

were found frequently used in the corpora of Nigerian media texts. The Nigerian press presented

the militia groups and their activities as insurgent. In Nigerian society, people have a similar

ideology and fear that the Niger Delta may become a danger to them. Chiluwa, (2011)

interpreted these labels as “motivated by the intention to establish a cultural norm or social

attitude around this group of social radicals or perhaps around the Niger Delta, people in general,

may therefore be viewed as evaluative judgmental and ideological.”

3.7 Stance markers in Gendered language

In the prior literature reviewed on stance, scholars will often make a statistical

distinction between affective and epistemic or evidentiality/commitment and affect on stance.

The difference between the two is that effective is associated with one’s personal or emotional

feelings regarding object of discourse. Whereas an epistemic stance is related to “the degree of

certainty concerning the object of discussion” (Chindamo et al. 2012). Previous corpus-based

works have successfully discovered some significant differences in gender language markers and

styles. According to the Newman et, al. (2008)’s study, “gender differences in language use”, an

analysis was performed on a dataset containing over 14,000 text samples. The result showed that

women had a greater tendency towards the use of words that are related to “psychological and

social processes” across different contexts. Whereas men prefer to use the words that are

associated with impersonal topics and object properties. (Newman et al., 2008). Some studies
25
have reported that “women used more references to positive emotion, but men referred more to

anger—a finding that is perfectly consistent with gender stereotypes” (Newman, et, al. 2008)

According to the Zareifard’s (2014) corpus-based study, “A Study of Interactional

Metadiscoursal Markers and Gender in the Defense Seminars of Persian Speakers”, a spoken

language on master thesis defenses was analyzed. The data was gathered from thirty minutes of

each of the nine female candidates and nine male candidates in defending his/her master thesis.

The data was tape recorded, and later transcribed, carefully read, and analyzed for different

features and markers in interactional metadiscourse. As table (1) shows, the significant uses of

hedges and attitude markers are preferred more by females. The metadiscourse that stands out in

the case of the males is “self-mentions”. Despite the fact that both males and females have a high

number of “self-mentions” metadiscourse, we can still assume that the emphasis on self-

mentions for males can be an indication of the thoughts of males in general. According to

Newman et, al. (2008), “the word ‘I’ intuitively connotes individualism or selfishness, which fits

the male stereotype better than the female stereotype”. However, Mehl, et, al. (2003) reported

that women tend to use more first-person singular pronouns than men. So perhaps the inner

thoughts of men and women are similar.

Table 1. The frequency of interactional metadiscourse markers in These Defenses (Zareifard, et,
al. 2014)
Types of Metadiscourse Male Total Female Total
(# of occurrence) percentage (# of occurrence) percentage

Hedges e.g., might, perhaps, about 164 10.3 310 17.8

Boosters e.g., in fact, definitely 363 22.8 366 21

Attitude markers e.g., unfortunately, surprisingly, I 243 15.3 424 24.3

agree

Engagement markers e.g., consider, note that, 189 11.9 250 14.3

Self-mentions e.g., I, we, my, our 627 39.5 390 22.4

Total 1586 100 1740 100

26
 Another corpus-based study, “Gender identity and lexical variation in social media” was

carried out in evaluating the relationship between social networks, linguistic style, and gender

(Bamman et al, 2014). A corpus containing 9,212,118 “tweets” of 14,000 Twitter users were

aggregated in the examination. The result indicated that women tend to use words associated

with emotions 40% more often than men. Table (2) below illustrates the difference in stance

markers that uniquely characterize women and men. Studies have found that female language is

more polite, standardized, and expressive. Profanity words are also considered to be expressive,

yet they appear more frequently in male language. The data also indicated that women tend to

lengthen words such as “yesss” and “nooo” (Bamman et al, 2014).

Table 2: Gender Markers (Bamman et al, 2014)

14,000 Twitter users Male Stance Makers Female Stance Markers

Pronoun Female you, u, ur, and yr

Kinship terms Mixed wife, wife’s, bro, bruh, bros, mom, mommy, sister, daughter, aunt,
and brotha auntie,grandma, kids, child, dad, husband, and
hubs

Swear words Male the anti-swear darn

Negation Mixed nah, nobody, and ain’t nooo, noooo, and cannot

Emotions / Female sad, love, and glad

emoticons

Hesitation Female um and umm

4 Corpus Compilation (Data)

In order to archive a generalized conclusion and avoid the restricted conclusion, a diverse

corpus is necessary. My corpus consists of 13 female serial killers and 13 male serial killers’ four

letters, four confessions, three statements, and two interviews. While choosing data for serial

killers, the data from male serial killers were selected randomly. The data on female serial killers

were limited. For this reason, the limited data available online and in books was used. These

27
 texts are aggregated and extracted from nonfictional books, newspaper articles, court documents,

and internet sites.

The two subheadings 4.1 and 4.2 are two tables about these thirteen male and female

serial killers. The tables include their names, locations where the crimes took place, time span of

killings, number of victims, methods of murder, characteristics, and word count in AntConc.

4.1 Thirteen Male Serial Killers

Word
Span of Method of Count
Name Location #Victims Characteristics Document
Killings Murder (total
7021)
Cannibalism/ coprophilia/
Stabbing/
Albert Fish New York, USA 1924 - 1934 3-10+ urophilia/ pedophilia/ Letter 554
strangulation
masochism
Claimed that neighbor's dog,
Harvey, was possessed by
David
New York, USA 1976 – 1977 6 Shooting an ancient demon, and that it Letter 370
Berkowitz
issued commands to
Berkowitz to kill
Strangulation/
Ohio/Wisconsin, Rapist/ dismemberment/
Jeff Dahmer 1978 – 1991 17 cutting his Letter 214
USA necrophilia/ cannibalism
throat
mutilating killed prostitutes and
Jack the Whitechapel, London,
1888–1891 unknown abdominal mutilating their abdominal Letter 204
Ripper England
region region
Andrei Cannibalism/ necrophilia/
Rostov Oblast, Russia 1978 – 1990 52 – 56 Strangulation Confession 103
Chikatil evisceration/ mutilation
Gary
Washington, USA 1982 – 1998 49+ Strangulation Rapist / necrophilia Confession 400
Ridgway
John Eric Michigan/Illinois,
1992 – 1999 5-18 Strangulation Rapist Confession 125
Armstrong USA
Holmed created his own
Indiana, “murder factory”/ found a
H.H.
Pennsylvania, Illinois, 1886 – 1894 27+ Several butcher's table, quicklime Confession 127
Holmes
USA – Canada vats, bones, bloody clothing,
and a crematory
Dennis Sedgwick County, Ligature
1974 – 1991 10 Sadist/ Fetishist Interview 2902
Lynn Rader Kansas, USA strangulation
Washington,
Beating with
Theodore Colorado, Utah,
1973 – 1978 14+ metal bar/ Rapist/ necrophilia Interview 1834
(Ted) Bundy Oregon, Florida,
strangulation
Idaho, Vermont, USA
David Alan 1981 / 1983 Shooting/ Alcoholic/ kidnapping/
Florida, USA 6 Statement 163
Gore strangulation rapist
Shooting/
Richard Los Angeles, 1984 - 1985 13 - 16 + Rapist / robberies/
stabbing/ Statement 805
Ramirez California, USA mutilation
beating
Dennis London, England, Ligature Homosexual/ necrophilia/
1978 - 1983 16 Statement 101
Nilsen United Kingdom strangulation dismemberment

28
 4.2 Thirteen Female Serial Killers
Word
Count
Name Location Span of Killings #Victims Method of Murder Characteristics Document
(total
4366)
A nurse, murdered her
Amelia Caversham, own and adopted children,
Unknown –1896 200-400 Strangulation Letter 152
Dyer England also other babies under her
watch
Nurse - Jones seemed to
thrill in putting the small
Poison (digoxin,
Genene San Antonio, children in mortal peril
1977–1982 11+ heparin and Letter 306
Jones Texas, USA and thrusting herself into
succinylcholine)
the role of hero when the
children pulled through
Her apparent motives
involved collecting life
Gunness Illinois/Indiana, Poison (strychnine) insurance, cash and other
1880s - 1908 13 - 42 Letter 161
Belle USA / Bludgeoning valuables, and eliminating
witnesses. Murdered men
and children
Joanna
England 2013 4 Stabbing Murder for entertainment Letter 289
Dennehy
Clementine (leader of a
voodoo cult called The
Lafayette,
Clementine Axe, cutting off Church of Sacrifice)
Louisiana, Texas, 1911 – 1912 35 Confession 340
Barnabet heads, butchered believes killing these
USA
sinners would lead them to
eternal life
Cynthia Little Valley, New Poisoned her husband and
1913 – 1915 5 Poison (arsenic) Confession 356
Buffom York, USA her four children
Poisoned her whole
Mary Kalkaska, family, relatives, and
1887 - 1903 12-18 Poison (strychnine) Confession 285
McKnight Michigan, USA babies due to the fact she
likes to go to funerals
In partnership with male
Greater
Cutting the throat / serial killer Ian Brady, she
Myra Manchester,
1963 - 1965 5 Strangulation with committed the rapes and Confession 78
Hindley England, United
a piece of string murders of five small
Kingdom
children
Aileen Shooting (.22- "I've hated humans for a
Florida, USA 1989 - 1990 7+ Interview 1033
Wuornos caliber pistol) long time"
Helen Battery/ exposure/
New York City, Baby farming kidnapping/
Geisen- Unknown - 1925 53+ frozen; neglect/ Interview 112
NY murder
Volk strangled
Leonarda Correggio, Emilia Beating with an Cannibalism/ turned their
1939 - 1940 3 Statement 173
Cianciulli Romagna, Italy axe bodies into soap
Center,
Lillie May Shooting (.22-
Texas, United 1938 6-9 Murdered children Statement 68
Curtis caliber pistol)
States
One of the youngest serial
Scotswood, killers in the United
Mary Bell 1968 2 Strangulation Statement 1011
England Kingdom/ aged 10 -11/
mutilation

29
5 Methodology

For this study, Corpus Analysis and Appraisal analysis will be implemented to

investigate linguistic issue such as stance markers of female and male serial killers’ language.

Thus, a multidimensional perspective combining the quantitative, qualitative, and computational

methods will be conducted. The analysis will examine and identify discourse patterns, features,

and variables of stance markers as they occur across texts. Corpus Analysis will reveal a

statistical pattern of discourse. Then, a more nuanced and fine-grained analysis of stance markers

found in female and male serial killers’ language will be carried out using Appraisal Analysis.

5.1 Systemic Functional Linguistics

The Systemic Functional Linguistics approach is characterized as functional, semantic,

semiotic and contextual. It is closely related to interpersonal meaning in language (Halliday,

1978). “Within SFL is an attempt to model language’s ability to express and negotiate opinions

and attitudes within the text” (Taboada, 2017). SFL was originally developed by Michael

Halliday along with his students in the 1960’s (Davidse, 2008). Halliday’s work was inspired by

his teacher, JR Firth (a British linguist influenced by the anthropologist, Malinowsky). Halliday

believes that the very fundamentals of human language and communication are metafunctions

and semantics. In addition, SFL considers language as inseparable from its context of use or

meaning (Celine, 2017). It is important to note that Appraisal framework would not have worked

without the design and theory of Michael Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics (Martin et

al., 2003).

30
5.2 Stance

According to Jaffe (2009), “All communication involves acts of stance, in which speakers

take up positions vis-à-vis the expressive, referential, interactional and social implications of

their speech”. Stance is associated with a speaker or writer’s personal emotions, attitudes, or

assessments corresponding with a theme, recipient, or proposition being presented (Biber et al.,

1999: 966). Through close discourse analysis, it can reveal prosodic meaning and manifest the

author’s stance. Stance can be neutral, positive, or negative in feeling and attitude. With various

context and attitudes, authors are able to adopt different stances. In addition, “Stance is central

to the interpersonal aspect of language and is manifested through linguistic markers which are

strewn throughout a text, ‘forming a ‘‘prosody’’ of attitude’ – or discourse cohesion” (Gales,

2010 citing Halliday et al., 1976) – “that reflects interpersonal meaning” (Gales, 2010 citing

Martin et al., 2003: 27). The interpersonal relationship occurs between language and

social/cultural context.

5.3 Corpus Analysis

Corpus is a large collection (thousands, even at times millions of words) of authentic and

naturally occurring transcribed spoken or written language. Corpus analyses are usually carried

out by sophisticated software programmers (e.g., AntConc). Linguists often study language

features and formulate hypothesis and theories. Corpus linguistic analysis allows to test a

hypothesis based on both quantitative and qualitative methods creating an empirical, statistical,

and systematic computerized result rather than a theory (Biber, 1998). Therefore, the advantage

of using Corpus Analysis is to analyze the study more objectively. For my analysis I will employ

a software program called “AntConc” to examine the lexical features of stance of male and

31
female language. In order to compare the similarities and differences found in male and female

serial killers’ language I have created two separate corpora. The contents are both transcribed

spoken and written language. The language expressed by these serial killers are personal voices,

utilizing linguistic aspects (e.g., using first pronoun or using uncertainty type of words) can

potentially reveal the stance makers they hold within their language. Moreover, the author’s

feelings and attitude can also be presented in the stance makers.

5.3.1 Word List

AntConc software is employed to examine and compare male and female killers’ lexical

of stance markers. The two main tools will be generated are the Word List Tool and Keyword

List Tool. Wordlist provides the total amount of words and unique words. I will also compare

high frequency of content words and where the word or phrase appears in the corpus (dispersion)

in both male and female’s language. Frequency is the number of times a word occurs in a corpus

(Gales, 2017). These functions could potentially reveal author’s word choice and their stances.

5.3.2 Keyword

Frequency of use also indicates the significance of a word in a corpus. Therefore, I will

use the Keyword List Tool to measure the significance of a word. This depends on the difference

of the frequency in targeted corpus to be higher or lower than the referenced corpus. I will first

use male serial killer’s corpus as the targeted corpus against the female serial killers as the

referenced corpus. Following this, the method will be used in reverse. This allows us to discover

what types of lexical items appear frequently and infrequently. Scott (1999) describes aboutness

keywords as adjectives, nouns, and lexical verbs.

32
5.4 Appraisal Analysis

Through the Appraisal Analysis, we can evaluate a writer/speaker’s ideology based on

how their language/vocabulary are used. Polarity and explicitness are the two main features for

evaluating attitude (Dong et al., 2018). A person’s attitude can be expressed and appraised as

negative or positive and explicit and inexplicit. The Appraisal theoretical framework was

primarily used for research, narrative, and investigation of the discourses. Author utilized

language to conduct an assessment from an interpersonal meaning perspective. Halliday’s

Systemic Functional Linguistics approach was later inspired by a group of researchers led by the

professor Martin of Sidney. Together they formed an elaborate system of a theoretical

framework called Appraisal framework. The appraisal system can be briefly explained as

illustrated below:

● “Attitude – Affect (emotional response – like, fear etc.), Judgement (evaluation of

human behavior, praise or condemn – corruptly, skillfully etc.), Appreciation (evaluation
of entities, reactions to things – beautiful, striking etc.).”
● “Engagement: negotiating heteroglossic diversity (perhaps, it seems, he says, I declare,
however, obviously etc.).”
● “Graduation: resources for scaling interpersonal force or for sharpening/blurring the
focus of valeur relationships (very, really; sort’v, somewhat).”(White, 1998)

5.4.1 Attitude

For this research, I will only conduct the system of attitude. According to Martin and

White (2004), appraisal theory focuses on the methods authors use to express their evaluation,

feelings, and the extent to which they approve or disapprove of the topic at hand. The appraisal

system can be further divided into three distinct semantic systems: attitude, engagement, and

graduation. Each system has its own sub-systems that fall under it. From the author’s written or

spoken texts, we can find sets of words that are associated with each of the subsystems of

appraisal theory. Attitude refers to the way we feel about ourselves, things, progress, or people
33
and the way we respond and disposition emotionally. Attitude can further breaks down to the

sub-systems of affect, judgment, and appreciation. Affect is a personal feeling consisting of

emotions such as happiness, security, and satisfaction. Judgment refers to self-judging other

characters - referencing institutionalized or social norms (how a person should behave). An

ethical or attitudinal evaluation of behaviors concerning their normality (how unusual someone

is), capacity (how capable someone is), tenacity (how resolute they are), propriety (how ethical

one can be), and veracity (how truthful someone is) (Gales, 2010; Martin et al., 2003). Lastly,

“appreciation can be divided into our reactions to things (do they catch our attention; do they

please us?), their composition (balance and complexity), and their value (how innovative,

authentic, timely)” (Dong et al., 2018 citing Martin et al., 2008). All of the above can construe

positive or negative feeling, attitude, and stance.

6 Limitations
One of the major difficulties of this research paper is the compilation of the female serial

killers’ data. There are a limited number of female serial killers documented throughout history,

so the sample size is relatively small. I had to search for transcribed spoken or written data

available for female serial killers. In total I was only able to find four letters, four confessions,

three statements, and two interviews for female serial killers. Another limitation that I came

across while aggregating data was register. I originally wanted to only focus on the written

documents by female serial killers. Due to the limited resources I was forced to combine both

written and spoken texts into the analysis. I am sure this has some impact on the results of the

analysis.

34
7 Analysis

It is not a coincidence that male and female language showed variations from one to

another. In the former and recent literature reviewed, the existence of stance marker differences

between women and men are pervasive. It is reasonable to assume that female and male serial

killers’ language may appear to be different. The differences may be unusual due to their

abnormal perception and reaction to this world. For my analysis, two analytic approaches will be

utilized. First, I will use AntConc to conduct an examination with a large quantity of text

samples that I have compiled. This will illuminate any patterns of stance markers that may occur

in male and female serial killers’ corpora using Corpus Analysis. Lastly, I will move on to a

smaller sized sample text and make use of a more fine-grained, nuanced examination of the

stance markers using Appraisal Analysis.

7.1 Corpus Analysis

After building the corpus, the AntConc tool was used to run through a separate Word List

to see the total amount of tokens and unique words in both male and female serial killers’ text

files. The total word counts found were approximately 4,532 and word types were about 1,105 in

female serial killer’s thirteen text files. Male serial killers’ thirteen text files consisted of

approximately 8,029 word tokens. Even though male serial killers’ total word counts are higher

than female serial killers, the unique words found were only 1,521. This surprised me as I was

expecting to see a higher number due to the drastically higher number of word tokens compared

to female serial killers’.

35
7.1.1 Word List

In the Word List, as expected, the high frequency words are function words in both male

and female serial killer’s language. However, the first-person pronoun “I” (occurred 551 times)

was drastically more common in male serial killer’s corpus than females’ (occurred 242 times).

In the Concordance Plot, ‘I’, occurred most frequently within the thirteen documents as shown in

the Figure 1 below. Due to larger text samples in plot 5 and plot 6, the word ‘I’ occurred more

frequently than it did in other plots. The distributions of the samples of my corpora are different

than one another. In order to compare two corpora and accurately identify stance markers that are

particularly salient and significant in each corpus, the normalization of raw frequencies is

required. After collecting keywords with significant value over 3.84 in the target corpus, I was

able to calculate the raw frequencies using mathematical calculation. The pronoun “I” for

instance, occurs 551 times in 8,029 words in the male serial killers’ corpus. The normed

frequencies will be 551/8,029*1000 = 68.63 times per 1000 words. On the other hand, “I”

occurred 242 times in 4,532 words in the female serial killers’ corpus. Applying the same

calculation, the norm frequencies will be 53.40 per 1000 words. After norming the frequencies,

the result showed that male serial killers used the pronoun “I” more than female serial killers.

This observation also replicates the finding of the first-person singular “I” in Zareifard’s (2014)

corpus-based study and Mehl et al., (2003)’s study.

36
Figure 1. Concordance Plot of the Pronoun “I” in Male Serial Killers’ Files in AntConc

7.1.2 Positive Keyness Words

The total amount of positive (significant value over 3.84) keyness words in male serial

killer’s corpus (targeted corpus) are 75 counts in comparison with the reference corpus (female

serial killers’ corpus). It is surprising to see that keyness words in female serial killers’ corpus

appeared to be higher containing 156 counts. It is especially surprising since females have a

smaller corpus as shown in figure 2 below. We can assume that words used by female serial

killers are often not utilized in male serial killers’ language contributions.

Figure 2. Comparing the Wordlist and Keyness Words

Total Word Unique Word Positive Keyword Total

Count Count Keywords types Keywords

Female Serial 4,532 1,105 156 911 3018

Killers’ corpus

Male Serial Killers’ 8,029 1,521 56 918 2911

corpus

37
 Everyone has a different semantic goal when constructing language. A slight variation of

tenses or part of speech of the same word may reveal different psychological perspectives (e.g.,

emotions and subconscious). After comparing the female serial killers targeted corpus with the

male serial killers as the referenced corpus, the two corpora were swapped to compare. A

thought-provoking finding I came across was that the keyness words “death”, “die”, and “died”

exist in both corpora. Male serial killers often use the noun “death” and the present tense verb

“die”, whereas female serial killers tend to use only the past tense verb “died” as shown in Figure

3. below.

Figure 3. Female Serial killers- vs. Male Serial killers- Keyness Words of death, die, and died

Death Die Died

MSK 1.74 0.75 0.50

FSK 0.22 0 1.54

Frequency per 1000 words

Differences in the use of the words “death”, “die”, and “died” by male serial killers and

female serial killers could reflect their inner thoughts. According to these statistical patterns,

there must be a reason that male serial killers use the words “death” and “die”, whereas female

serial killers hardly use these words at all. In contrast, female serial killers prefer to use the past

tense of the word “died”. This form of the word is not as frequently used by male serial killers.

To take a step further, I investigated the bi-grams of these words. Perhaps the neighboring words

could denote or implicate any significance. In Figure 4 below, the collocated words are in the

parentheses and the following digits represent the normed frequency.

Figure 4. Female serial killers- vs. male serial killers- Bi-grams of death, die, and died
Terms Male Serial Killers Female Serial Killers

Died (Subsequently) died - 0.12 (Gertrude) died - 0.22

(Have) died - 0.12 (Gertie) died - 0.22

38
 (She) died - 0.12 (He) died - 0.22

(Mallory) died - 0.22

(Baby) died - 0.22

(Almost) died - 0.22

(It) died - 0.22

Die (Rather) die - 0.12

(To) die - 0.37

(Them) die - 0.12

(Will) die - 0.12

Death (The) death - 0.37 (No) death - 0.22

(To) death - 0.37

(Of) death - 0.25

(Whose) death - 0.25

(A) death - 0.12

(By) death - 0.12

(Deal.) death - 0.12

(My) death - 0.12

Frequency per 1000 words

There are consistent patterns of the words “died”, “die”, and “death” shown in Figure 4.

above. The use of the word “died” by male serial killers does not always immediately follow a

personal pronoun. Whereas in the case of female serial killers, the terms collocated with the

word “died” are mostly nouns or proper nouns. Collocations failed to detect the underlying

meaning of these words. This motivated me to analyze further in KWIC for the contextual

meaning of word by word basis. Interestingly, female serial killers used the word “died” for

finishing a thought (made evident by the fact that it was always followed by a period or comma).

Male serial killers however, employed the word “died” when describing how someone died.

With male serial killers the word “died” was never immediately followed with a period or

comma. Instead, the word “died” was followed by prepositions “at” and “from” and the article
39
“a”. The word “die” is used in a directive manner by male serial killers. For example, “I don’t

want to die”, “I love to watch them die”, “you will die”, “I’d rather die”, and “I deserve to die”.

This term is not used by female serial killers at all. The way male serial killers used the term

“death” confirmed suspicions that they held positive feelings about death. Male serial killers are

evidently quite comfortable talking about their own death and the death of their victims.

On the other hand, female serial killers only used the word “death” once (in the phrase

“no death certificate”). When the word “death” was used by female serial killers it had a

completely different meaning compared to the way male serial killers used the word. Female

serial killers used the term “death” only to refer to a type of certificate. Female serial killers did

not mention death of their own or the death of anyone else in such a direct way as seen from

male serial killers. Observing the big picture painted by the existence of these patterns, we are

given a glimpse into the psychology of male serial killers and female serial killers. It seems as

though female serial killers, either consciously or subconsciously, tend to leave the “death” in the

past tense, perhaps to create distance between themselves and death. This assumption is backed

by the fact that only the past tense form of the word “die” is found in the female serial killers

corpus. Dissimilarly, male serial killers seem to intentionally and directly mention and describe

explicitly their feelings and attitude about death. In the case of male serial killers there are many

examples of the present tense of the words “died” and “death”. I cannot confirm or disconfirm

the stereotype of males that males, and by extension, male serial killers, are more direct than

female serial killers. I can however say that based on statistical and contextual analysis one can

reasonably assume that male serial killers seem to be more direct, and seem to even take

enjoyment in, the discussion of death of themselves or of others.

40
 In addition to comparing the female serial killers and male serial killers corpora, what

also caught my attention were the two gender language stereotype features, hedging devices and

curse words. As mentioned in the literature review above, early studies have discovered that men

tend to use more curse words and women tend to use more tentative and uncertain speech. The

statistical analysis of both male serial killers and female serial killers however disconfirm these

popular stereotypes. It was striking to see that the common profanity word “fucking” is only

found in the female serial killers corpus (and is not found in the male serial killers corpus) with

normed frequency of 0.88 per 1000 words as shown in Figure 5. below.

Figure 5. Female serial killers- vs. male serial killers- Bi-grams of curse word fucking
MSK FSK

fucking None Fucking human - 0.22

fucking life - 0.22

fucking living bastards 0.22

fucking money - 0.22

Frequency per 1000 words

Analyzing the curse word “fucking” further in the text file, I realized that all of the

instances of the word “fucking” were used by the same female serial killer, Aileen Wuornos.

The violent and vulgar words were repetitive throughout Aileen Wuornos’ text file as shown in

the following excerpt. It seems as though Aileen Wuornos is the only female serial killers that

does not fit the traditional stereotype of female serial killers. Female serial killers are often

referred to as “black widows” or “angels of death”.

You sabotaged my ass, society. And the cops, and the system, a raped woman got executed. It

was used for books and movies and shit. Ladder climbs – reelections and everything else; I got

the put the finger on all your faces. Thanks a lot. You are inhumane. You’re an inhumane bunch

41
of fucking living bastards and bitches and you’re gonna get your asses nuked in the end, and

pretty soon it’s coming.

-Aileen Wuornos

Since there are many examples of profanity found in the in the excerpt below, I decided

to check the words “fuck”, “ass”, “shit”, “bastards”, and “bitch” and any affixes that can be

attached to the stem of these words. I only discovered the terms “ass” used twice and “fuck” used

once by male serial killers. The term “ass” was used in a sarcastic tone by the male serial killers.

In the male serial killers keyness word list I found many “unsure phrases” that fall under

the category of hedging devices. The hedge phrases such as “I think”, “I guess”, “I thought”,

“maybe”, and “kind of” are seen mostly used by male serial killers (see Figure 6. below). The

identification of hedging devices is one of the linguistic techniques that are used to distinguish

between women and men’s language. The presence of hedging devices indicates a speaker who

is uncertain and uncommitted to his or her own utterances. Hedging devices are also used to

mitigate or soften one’s language. Early studies have stated that women use hedging devices

significantly more often than men. Curiously, in the case of serial killers, male serial killers

actually used hedging devices more often than female serial killers.

Figure 6. Female serial killers- vs. male serial killers- Bi-grams of I think, I guess, and kind of
MSK FSK

I Think (I) think - 3.11 (I) think - 1.3

Kind of Kind (of) - 1.87 Kind (of) - 0.44

I Thought (I) thought - 2.4 (I) thought - 0.44

I Guess (I) guess - 0.99 none

Maybe Maybe - 0.75 none

Frequency per 1000 words

7.1.3 Semantic Categories

42
 While analyzing the comparison of two keyness lists in both corpora, I also looked to

examine the salient terms that may belong to the same semantic groupings. I aggregated all of

the keyness words with significant values of more than 3.84 that fall into the same semantic

category. Figure 6 and 7 below represent the semantic groupings of “methodology”, “religion”,

and “attitude/emotion” in both corpora. The methodology category consists of terms that

describe the approach of the serial killers using various styles, systematic approaches, tactics,

attitudes, procedures, and lines of attack. The parentheses contain the keyness score of 3.84 or

above.

Figure 7: Semantic Grouping Significant to Female Serial killers

Methodology Religion Attitude/Emotion

Poison (16.31) Hoodoos (6.12) Bad (6.12)

Throat (8.15) Lord (4.08) Glad (6.12)

Blade (6.12) Cried (4.08)

Strychnine (6.12) Faithfully (4.08)

Ear (4.08) Heinous (4.08)

Medicine (4.08) Inhuman (4.08)

Pulling (4.08) Struggling (4.08)

Razor (4.08) Care (4.08)

Scissors (4.08)

Neck (4.05)

Figure 8: Semantic Grouping Significant to Female Serial killers

Methodology Religion Attitude/Emotion

Bag (12.55) Evil (5.37) Thought (5.54)

Tied (12.55) Sam (5.37) Experience (5.37)

Strangled (8.96) Satan (5.37) Hope (4.48)

Part (8.06) Good (3.94)

Tied (12.55)

Body (5.37)

43
 Strangle (5.37)

Gun (4.48)

Shot (4.48)

Semantic Grouping Significant to female serial killers in Figure 7 consisted of ten

instances of methodology terms, two of religion, and eleven of emotion. Figure 8. consisted nine

instances of methodology terms, three of religion, and five of emotion. Based on this existing

evidence, emotion words are used more often by male serial killers. To enable in-depth

evaluation of the semantic groupings I have randomly selected one of each confession, letter,

statement, and interview in full length text to analyze in the word lists and appraisal system.

7.2 Appraisal Analysis

My primarily concern is the stance markers in the Appraisal Analysis. According to

Martin et, al., (2005), “appraisal is probably most closely related to the concept of stance”. This

is because when we utter or write it may accompany with an explicit or inexplicit attitude, which

can be evaluated into different formation of stances. For my analysis I will be using the systems

of attitude, attitude subdivides into affect, judgment, and appreciation. These subdivisions can be

further appraised to be positive or negative. According to the Appraisal Theory (Martin & White,

2005), there are three high-level attitude types: affect (a personal emotional state, feeling, or

reaction), judgment (an ethical appraisal of person’s character, behavior, skills etc.), and

appreciation (an aesthetic evaluation of semiotic and natural phenomena, events, objects etc.).

7.2.1 Attitudinal Markers

Due to the word token differences in both male serial killers and female serial killers

corpora I have normed the total to 100% in order to achieve statistical accuracy. The full
44
Appraisal Analyses of male serial killers and female serial killers are included in Appendix A

and B. While separating positive and negative potential miscellaneous terms for Attitude (affect,

judgement, and appreciation) I have checked each token in the context. This is because the

expression of attitude may result in ambiguity if based on the word itself. Depending on context,

the meaning of the same term may be interpreted in various ways. Overall, the majority of the

attitude tokens were appraised to be positive in both corpora. The total attitudinal markers

consist of 86 in male serial killers and 46 in female serial killers. Out of 86, there were 44 tokens

of affect (36 positive, 8 negative), 19 of judgement (18 positive, 1 negative), leaving 25

judgement tokens (12 positive, 13 negative). Whereas in female serial killers the total attitudinal

markers are 46. This consists of the following lists: affect (9 positive, 0 negative), judgement (5

positive, 8 negative), and appreciation (22 positive, 2 negative). This data is visually represented

in Figure 9. below.

Figure 9: Comparison of Attitude Tokens

Attitude Tokens in Male Serial

killers - vs. Female Serial Killers - Narratives
0.6

0.5 2
8
0.4

0.3
22
0.2 36 1 13
8

0.1 18
5 12
0 0
9
Male Serial Female Serial Male Serial Female Serial Male Serial Female Serial
Killers Killers Killers Killers Killers Killers
Attitude Judgement Appreciation

Positive Negative

45
 According to the table above, the affect tokens of male serial killers are primarily

comprised of their positive feelings about the process of killing people, as well as the death of

their victims or self. Female serial killers expression focused more on a personal emotional state

for their love partners, lord, and themselves. It seems peculiar for serial killers to judge other

people ethically because being a serial killer, according to most, should result in deprivation of

the right to evaluate other people on a moral or ethical level. Male serial killers assessed their

family members, friends, and victims positively. Female serial killers judged their loved ones,

women in general, and baby both positively and negatively. Female serial killers also spoke of

society as a whole in a negative manner. Male serial killers evaluated objects and past events that

led to them becoming serial killers in both a positive and negative way. Female serial killers

spoke of the murder weapons and murder process in a positive way. In society’s point of view,

the majority of the positive attitudes and ideas expressed by both male serial killers and female

serial killers are considered to be utterly negative, unacceptable, and unethical.

7.2.2 Attitudinal Markers in Semantic Categories

Emotion tokens were evaluated and found to be primarily positive in both the male serial

killers and the female serial killers corpora. There were not any negative emotion tokens found in

the female serial killers corpus. The emotion tokens in the male serial killers corpus that were

appraised and found to be negative were directed towards the female victims and the male serial

killers’ flashbacks/dreams. Female serial killers used terms of methodology for processing and

killing the victims. There are not many methodology groupings found in male serial killers

corpus. Male serial killers used more mental process terms to describe their motives for their

crimes. Both male serial killers and female serial killers used religious terms in a positive

attitude. Male serial killers used religious terms in cases such as discussing spirits that they

46
claimed possessed them. Female serial killers used religions terms purely to refer to the “lord” in

the same manner most people would.

8 Conclusion

Overall, the language choices used by male and female serial killers are different from

one another. It was important to use stance because it allowed me to understand underlying

interpretations and the interpersonal relationships of serial killers. Stance revealed their attitude

and ideology, as well as how they viewed themselves, others, and everything else they have

mentioned in their narratives. There have not been any studies conducted on the differences

found between male and female serial killers’ language using Corpus and Appraisal Analysis. I

hope this paper may be of use to researchers interested in uncovering the features of male and

female serial killers’ language.

8.1 Findings

Even though this study is not without its limitations, the results have showed some

interesting comparisons between male and female serial killers and the language they use. Male

serial killers do not use profanity as often as female serial killers. The use of the pronoun “I” was

used more frequently by male serial killers. While talking about death (of self or of their victims)

male serial killers were shown to be more comfortable with the topic. Surprisingly, male serial

killers used more hedging devices than female serial killers. I have also looked at the context to

see where the use of these hedging devices occurred. It seems as though male serial killers like to

use sarcasm and hedging devices to make light of their killings. This may be an indication that

death means very little to them. Male serial killers and female serial killers both show a positive

attitude about killing. Both enjoy the process of killing their victims. Neither male serial killers

47
nor female serial killers show any genuine indications of feeling any remorse for their heinous

crimes. Despite the fact they acknowledged that killing is an unacceptable thing, they do not feel

any guilt for what they have done. Everything that they feel positive about is things viewed as

unacceptable and unethical by society.

8.2 Implications

The findings in this study show the differences that set male and female serial killers

apart from one another, as well as the similarities that connect them. Throughout history, serial

killings have always been one of the most intricate crimes. This study utilized Linguistic

approaches to comprehend how male and female serial killers use their languages and how the

language reveal their stance markers. This may further aid law enforcement to identify the

gender of serial killers during an investigation.

8.3 Future Research

Since there have not been any studies directly focused on the male and female serial

killers’ language using Corpus and Appraisal Analysis, I hope this study may be of use for other

researchers in the future. I was not satisfied with the sample texts. This is because there are only

examples of thirteen male and female serial killers’ text. If possible, it would be ideal to examine

a bigger sample of text. If the sample texts were large enough, the result would be more accurate.

It would also be very interesting to investigate on different and particular registers to see how

male and female serial killers are different from average citizens.

48
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Appendix A: Full Appraisal of Male Serial Killers

Attitude Token Affe Judgeme Appreciatio Person/Thing

ct nt n /
being
Appraised

1. Good + Christian
Home

2. Good + Friend

3. Good + Memory

4. love + People

5. love + Hunting

6. love + People of
Queens

7. Think + Pornography

8. Think + Women

9. Think + Anyone

10. Think + Self

11. Destructive - Energy

12. Destructive - Segment

13. Difficult - (Describing)p

ornography

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14. Difficult - (Taking
about)
pornography

15. Difficult - (Say)

pornography

16. Experience + (Own) death

17. Experience + (Others)

death

18. Hard (time) + Women who

he killed

19. Hard - Murders

20. Harder + Addiction

21. Harder + Women

22. Thought + Prostitutes

23. Thought + (To kill)

prostitutes

24. Wanted + Kill women

25. Wanted + Women

26. Wanted + (To kill)

prostitutes

27. Young + Boy

28. Young + Boys

29. Dangerous + Impulses

30. Deliciated + Parents

31. Diligent + Parents

32. Easy + Victims

33. Graphic + Pornography

34. Graphic + Books

35. Honoring + Self

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36. Honoring + Act of death

37. Hope + Anyone

38. Hope + Victims

39. Loving + Parents

40. Responsible + Death of

victims

41. Terrible - Murders

42. Terrible + Behavior

43. Tranquil + Self

44. Tranquil - Self

45. Violent - Self

46. Wonderful + Home

47. Aggravating - Situation

48. Awful - Something

49. Blaming + Pornography

50. Brutal + Urge

51. Clear + Mind

52. Committed + Murder

53. Craving + Addiction

54. Drunk + Father Sam

55. Enjoying + Death

56. Ethical - Feeling

57. Grief - Victims

58. Happy + Everyone

59. Hate - Prostitutes

60. Hated - Decay and

dissection

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61. Horrible - Dream

62. Horrified - Murder

63. Influenced - Media

64. Learned + Barriers

65. Liked + Driving

66. Liked + Sam liked to

drink blood

67. Miss + Victims

68. Moral + Feelings

69. Motivated + Men

70. Needs + Sam

71. Old + Sam

72. Pleasure + Victims

73. Pornographic + Violence

74. Positive + Killing

75. Possessed - Dream

76. Prettiest + Women of

Queens

77. Pretty + Women

78. Realize - Murder

79. Remembering - Murder

80. Resting + Victim

81. Satisfied + Killing

82. Scares - Cable T.V.

83. Selfish + Killing

84. Steadfast + Murder

85. Tasty + Meat

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 86. Worshiped + Death

Appendix B: Full Appraisal of Female Serial Killers

Attitude Token Affe Judgeme Appreciati Person/Thing/

ct nt on being
Appraised

87. Love + Gary

88. Love + Self

89. Confessed + Lord

90. Feel + Lord

91. Nervous - Gertrude

92. Thought + Self

93. Better + Self

94. Bad - John’s feeling

95. Think + Self

96. Best + Death

97. Realized - Death

Certificate

98. Thinking + Discover of

the body

99. Unruly - Babies and

animals

100. Trained + Children

101. Like + Matter

102. Love + Gaz

103. Fat + Flesh

104. White + Flesh

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105. Melted + Body

106. Sweet + Women

107. Better + Cakes

108. Respect + John

109. Strong + Feelings

110. Platonic + Love

111. Refused - John

112. Hardest + Self

113. Annoyed - John

114. Yellow + Satchel

115. Working + Strychnine

116. Thick + Mush

117. Dark + Mush

118. Sextual + Relationship

119. Meaningless - Apology

120. Pointless - Apology

121. Informing + Him

122. Emptied + Mush

123. Fear - Gary

124. Clear + Relationship

125. Coagulated + Blood

126. Dried + Blood

127. Wrong - society

128. Understable - society

129. Strong + Gary

130. Creamy + Soap

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131. Crunchy + Tea cakes

132. Caustic + Soda

62