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Chapter 17
Instructor’s Manual
This chapter covers:
How the court system blocked a California voter-approved bill to allow housing
discrimination in the 1960s
A list of discriminatory housing practices that are prohibited by law
A description of housing discrimination in the Latino community after Hurricane Katrina
and the methods that agencies use to investigate linguistic profiling
Baugh’s study which explores whether listeners can judge a person’s race or ethnicity
based on a speaking voice alone
Baugh’s study to investigate accent discrimination in housing (specifically discrimination
against speakers of AAVE and ChE)
Housing discrimination against Muslims in the U.S.
Sample answers to the questions from the text and the website
From the textbook
1. Watch the advertisement produced by the Equal Housing Authority on linguistic profiling, in
which an Anglo makes phone call after phone call about an advertisement for an apartment;
with each call he uses a different stigmatized accent. An informal survey of my own indicates
that the average person can identify all the accents (which does not, of course, mean that the
accents are technically accurate; it may be that individuals recognize the portrayal of an
accent). There are Asian and Middle Eastern accents included, though there has been no formal
investigation of how such accents are profiled in day-to-day telephone interaction. How might
such an investigation look? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_3mSW8XUZI
2. Imagine that you have a friend or coworker who applied for an apartment and has been the
victim of linguistic profiling, in your view of things. He or she is reluctant to register a
complaint. Investigate the process and put together the information and forms that your friend
will need to pursue the issue. Consider the following issues:
a. Does this process strike you as reasonable, or overly complicated?
b. Why might an otherwise intelligent, well established individual be reluctant to
pursue equal treatment under the law?
3. Read some of the articles about linguistic profiling provided. How would you describe the
tone: Any hint of an ideological leaning in one direction or another?
4. Can you recall any instances of linguistic profiling over the phone? Judgments made about the
stranger on the other end? Reactions?
5. Recently a major computer manufacturer announced a new policy in customer support. For a
significant annual fee, customers would be guaranteed a native English speaker on the other end
of the line. That is, the call would not be routed to a call center in India or Pakistan. What are
the implications here? Could this practice be illegal, or is it simply a fee-for-service
arrangement? What does this have to do with voice profiling?
From the website
Audio
1. Listen to the samples of the language varieties discussed in this chapter. Do you think you
could identify the races or ethnicities of these speakers? How confident are you that you can
identify racial or ethnic information about strangers on the phone?
Sample answer: For most of these samples I think I could identify the language variety that is
Video
―Eddie Pinder: Linguistic Profiling‖
ABC News, 07/12/2007
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Video/playerIndex?id=3372801
1. What do you think about James Johnson’s case? Evaluate the arguments of the plaintiff and
the defendant. Whose argument do you find more convincing and why?
2. If court cases like this one are successful, how do you think they might affect linguistic
discrimination in general? Why do you feel the way you do?
1. Try to recreate Baugh’s first linguistic profiling experiment to see how accurate people at your
2. Try to recreate Baugh’s second linguistic profiling experiment to investigate linguistic
discrimination in your area. Recruit people who speak language varieties associated with
