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This paper aims to analyse the research contributions of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the field of applied linguistics (AL) indexed in the Web of Science core collection for the period between 2011 and 2020.

The author searched key terms in the Social Science Citation Index and Science Citation Index Expanded categories that publish documents in AL. The author compiled the data, classified these documents according to their research focus and investigated different metrics such as keywords analysis, citation analysis, overseas collaboration and productivity over authors, institutions and sources by using VOSviewer and Excel sheet.

Results found that publications in Saudi Arabia have tremendously increased around three times in the years 2016–2020 than before. As unexpected, highly cited researchers, sources and institutions for the social science and arts and humanities disciplines were higher than the scientific disciplines that investigated linguistic issues such as neurology, audiology and computer science. The area of language teaching and learning was the most researched area in which the highly cited author, journals and keywords analysis metrics occurred within its scope. The highly cited articles were those that collaborated with the world contributing authors and acted as corresponding authors.

The study contributes to the body of literature of AL which shares other categories that investigated language as a central issue. The study provides a fine-grained picture about the research productivity of AL in scientific and social science categories in Saudi Arabia.

Sustainability in higher education has gained the attention of researchers and academia; however, there is still a need to explore and assess it from different perspectives that are unexplored. This study aims to evaluate and report sustainability and sustainable development in the higher education sector of Pakistan.

There are 195 recognized and registered degree awarding institutes in Pakistan. A survey-based study was designed using self-administered questionnaires distributed among the deans of 145 Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) using a simple random sampling technique. Responses were recorded using five-point Likert scale. In this study, 74 HEIs participated while 69 responses were complete in all respects and used for data analysis. Responses were recorded and analyzed using descriptive statistics.

The results show little evidence of sustainability in all areas of HEIs (including; curriculum, research, faculty, stakeholder’s engagement and governance). Sustainability of campus (operations) was evident and, to a certain extent, apparent in outreach activities. The core objective of HEIs is teaching and research, however, HEIs in Pakistan have yet to accommodate sustainability in these core areas. Sustainability in HEIs of Pakistan is in the preliminary and the introductory stage. For the attainment of sustainability in HEIs, comprehensive planning and internal governance are required.

This study was based on a survey to report the overall situation of sustainability in Pakistan’s HEIs. Therefore, it has the limitation of being a descriptive study. Nevertheless, this study contributed to the body of knowledge by reporting sustainability practices from the Pakistani context. This study helped identify critical aspects of sustainability that require the attention of both regulatory authority and top management.

This is a comprehensive study based on extensive research survey techniques to present and report sustainability in higher education in Pakistan. The data collected represents the major HEIs in Pakistan and has contributed to the body of knowledge by presenting the contemporary and contextual situation of sustainability in HEIs of Pakistan.

When investigating missing persons cases, witness and suspect statements are often the only available evidence to investigators. As such, forensic linguistics can be useful to police when seeking information from individuals during investigative interviews. The presumption of innocence must be maintained in an investigation, and therefore this study aims to use a method focused on veracity detection, rather than the majority of studies using deception detection approaches.

The current research uses criteria-based content analysis (CBCA), a method that has been applied to a variety of criminal cases. Real-world statements of individuals convicted or found innocent of their involvement in missing persons cases were used in the analyses. Additionally, behaviour sequence analysis (BSA) was used to map language patterns within individuals’ statements.

Results indicated that two individual markers occurred at a high frequency across all four groups (the guilty and innocent statements of both case types); however, differences were noted in the sequences based on an individual’s ability to provide experiential details.

The current research contributes to the growing literature that aims to test CBCA in adult samples across crimes that do not pertain to sexual abuse, in addition to aiding researchers and practitioners to understand better the linguistic differences that occur in missing persons cases.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this type of research, using CBCA to assist with missing person's cases with a temporal method (BSA), has never before been tested. BSA has previously been used in forensic linguistics, and shown support for the method. The current research builds on this in terms of missing persons cases.

Understanding when an individual is being deceptive is an important part of police and criminal investigations. While investigators have developed multiple methods, the research literature has yet to fully explore some of the newer applied techniques. This study aims to investigate statement analysis, a recent approach in forensic linguistic analysis that has been applied to criminal investigations.

Real-world statements of individuals exposed as deceptive or truthful were used in the analyses. A behaviour sequence analysis approach is used to provide a timeline analysis of the individuals’ statements.

Results indicate that sequential patterns are different in deceptive statements compared to truthful statements. For example, deceptive statements were more likely to include vague words and temporal lacunas, to convince investigators into believing that the suspect was not present when the crime occurred. The sample in this research did not use one deceptive indicator, instead, electing to frequently change the order of deceptive indicators. Gaps in deception were also noted, and there was common repetition found in both the deceptive and truthful statements. While gaps are predicted to occur in truthful statements to reflect an absence of deception, gaps occurring in the deceptive statements are likely due to cognitive load.

The current research provides more support for using statement analysis in real-world criminal cases.

The purpose of this paper is to address the complexity of missing persons cases and highlight the linguistic differences that arise in this type of crime. Missing persons cases are typically very complex investigations. Without a body, crime scene forensics is not possible, and police are often left only with witness and suspect statements. Forensic linguistics methods may help investigators to prioritise or remove suspects. There are many competing approaches in forensic linguistic analysis; however, there is limited empirical research available on emerging methods.

This research investigates Statement Analysis, a recent development in linguistic analysis that has practical applications in criminal investigations. Real-world statements of individuals convicted of or found to be not guilty of their involvement in missing persons cases were used in the analyses. In addition, Behaviour Sequence Analysis was used to map the progressions of language in the suspects' statements.

Results indicated differences between the guilty and innocent individuals based on their language choices, for example, guilty suspects in missing [alive] cases were found more likely to use passive language and vague words because of high levels of cognitive load associated with the several types of guilty knowledge suspects in missing persons cases possess. Of particular interest is the use of untruthful words in the innocent suspects’ statements in missing [murdered] cases. While typically seen in deceptive statements, untruthful words in innocent statements may result because of false acquittals.

This research provides some support for Statement Analysis as a suitable approach to analysing linguistic statements in missing persons cases.