Abstract:

While the so-called Rodney King video of a black man being beaten by a number of white policemen taken by a man named George Holliday on 3 March 1991 has been broadcast world-wide via CNN, the sound-track of that recording has attracted a much lesser degree of attention. This may in part be due to the fact that the quality of the sound-track is adversely affected by noise generated by a police helicopter. This case report focuses on different aspects of forensic phonetic work: enhancement of audio records of disputed utterances, and the examination of specific types of background noise.

Author: Angelika Braun