Linguistic Profiling:

Pilot Studies on Restaurants, Car Dealerships, and Apartment Rentals

Kedamai Fisseha, Nicolas Yannuzzi

Friday, January 12, 2007

We use a telephone audit study design to execute three pilot studies in which we test for
discrimination based on auditory cues. Using two auditors, one speaking a dialect called
African American Vernacular English and another speaking Standard American English, we
find that linguistic profiling is not a factor in obtaining a reservation at an elite New York
restaurant and has very modest effects on the starting prices quoted at luxury car
dealerships. However, we do find highly robust signs of racial discrimination based on
auditory cues in the Boston and Cambridge apartment rental markets. The auditor speaking
African American Vernacular English was half as likely to receive a return call from a
realtor and 1.67 times less likely to find available housing than the Standard American
English auditor. Our availability findings are statistically significant at the .05 alpha level
and yield a p-value of .039, suggesting that additional research needs to be done on
discrimination in the Boston housing market. We also aggregated callback rates, which were
even more significant,, with a p-value of .0067. We believe that the telephone audit design
has a significant place in social scientific experimental work on detecting discrimination.
 Audit studies were developed by fair
housing organizations in the late 1970’s
looking to uncover discrimination in
housing markets.i The technique makes it
possible to gauge discrimination in the act
and for this reason has become a popular
tool of researchers in the field. The audit
technique attempts to overcome the
significant problem of confounding that
plagued earlier discrimination research by
striving to eliminate as much non-racial
dissimilarity between subjects as possible.ii
The weak points of an audit study
depend largely upon the type of contact that
is being utilized. One general problem is
that by nature, audit studies are not double-
blind, so auditors may introduce
idiosyncratic qualities to the experiment that
favor a certain endpoint.iii Further,
individual discrimination observed in an
audit study may not serve well as an
indicator of market discrimination. These
problems are addressable, however, through
careful research and the utilization of a wide
body of audit data. Generally, however,
audit studies are characterized as quasi-
experimental and give the researcher a good
deal of power in assessing the types of
treatment that different races face in the
market. iv
Since its first use in ’79, the audit
methodology has been widely employed in
an attempt to discern broadly the presence of
discrimination. In 1987, George Galster
collected fifty separate audit studies from
different housing markets around the United
States. In his analysis of the data, Galster
used a conservative measure of racial
discrimination and concluded that African
Americans faced about a 50% chance of
discrimination in the U.S. housing market.v
A more recent study of car
dealerships also detected the presence of
discrimination in the market, this time
against both African Americans and women.
The data, collected by Ayres and Siegelman
from their study of over 300 paired audits at
new car dealers, showed, at a statistically
significant level, that African Americans and
women were quoted higher final prices than
white men. Based upon these findings, the
researchers attempted to identify the reasons
that dealers would be inclined to
discriminate. Their conclusion cited the
possible presence of non-economic tastes for
discrimination such as traditional animus or
bigotry and the use of statistical inference
(by the car dealers) to generalize about a
buyer's reservation price based on his/her
gender or race. The researchers note that car
sellers were probably inclined to infer a
buyer’s reservation price through
preconceived (race and gender linked)
notions of consumer knowledgeability, the
ability to search, and openness to prolonged
bargaining. vi
The astronomical time and monetary
costs associated with running audit studies
that rely on personal contact has led social
scientists to pursue alternative audit study
designs. Furthermore, some social scientists
have speculated that racial discrimination
might take place before the applicant and the
discriminator actually meet face to face.
The discriminator may rely on auditory cues
from the applicant’s voice before visually
observing race. Discriminating over the
phone might be a more efficient method of
screening applicants that could allow the
discriminator to avoid the discomfort of
rejecting the applicant in person.
To test this hypothesis, social
scientists have increasingly used the tactic of
phone auditing. However, in instances
where telephone audits are the contact
method of choice, the study is weakened by
the fact that auditors cannot convey their
race over the telephone with absolute
certainty. Further, since the audit method
necessarily stops a business transaction at an
early stage, it cannot gauge the presence of
discrimination in later stages of the business
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deal. For example, a real estate agent who is
open to all phone calls, but discriminates
during negotiations would not be detected in
an audit study.vii Phone audits studies have
been used mainly as a way to measure the
impact of racial auditory cues on the early-
stage success of home buyers and apartment
seekers.
In his research on housing
discrimination in the San Francisco bay
area, Professor John Baugh has shown that
the presence of an African American
Vernacular English (AAVE) or a Chicano
English (ChE) dialect can affect the ability
of an auditor to confirm an appointment for
an apartment viewing.viii All of the phone
interviews were conducted by Baugh, who
was able to effectively “code-switch,” or
shift between dialects. Baugh and his fellow
researchers found that his trend was
particularly prevalent in primarily White
parts of San Francisco. In the Woodside
region of San Franciso, the researchers show
that auditors speaking AAVE and ChE are
less than half as likely as the auditors
speaking SAE to confirm apartment viewing
appointments. Results like these have been
an issue of contention for researchers and in
the court room where judges have
historically been unable to form a consensus
upon the complete viability of auditory cues
as a racial indicator.ix
In a 1999 University of Pennsylvania
study the presence of significant
discrimination in the Philadelphia housing
market was tested and confirmed.
Implemented as part of a sociology course,
the experiment utilized a multiracial group
of students that included native speakers of
different dialects. The dialects included
Standard American English as well as two
others, one the researches call Black
Accented English (which is identical in
nature to African American Vernacular
English), and another they deem Black
English, which is often perceived as a sign
of poor socioeconomic status. Using these
dialects and also separating the students by
gender, the researchers were able to design a
telephone audit study to test the implications
of vocal cues on housing availability. After
collecting apartment listings from a wide
variety of sources and executing 477 calls,
they discovered a consistent gap in the
success rate of three types of auditors with
respect to housing ability and the ability to
reach an agent. SAE auditors fared the best
while Black Accent English (or AAVE)
auditors lagged behind, and Black English
auditors faced the most discrimination.
Their results further advance the idea that
telephone audit studies can be used as a
tenable means of discrimination research
and also pose further questions about the
significance of speech as a racial cue.x
Although telephone audit designs
have shown consistent results uncovering
the existence of linguistic profiling in the
housing market, only a few studies have
deeply discussed the differences between the
vocal constitution or speech patterns of
African Americans and Whites and how they
are manifested. If an untrained ear can not
identify race solely off of auditory cues in a
reliable fashion, then linguistic profiling can
not take place.
Some phonetic or vocal
characteristics are purely genetic since they
depend on the anatomical features of an
individual. Scientific evidence has shown
that there is very little vocal variation
between African Americans and Whites.
Anatomically, the African American and
White vocal cords have been shown to be
highly comparable.xi Vocal tract length and
vocal fold density, that control laryngeal
aerodynamics and acoustic characteristics,
have not been shown to be significantly
different between the two racial groups.xii In
addition, a study that took vocal samples
from African American and White male and
female speakers, matched for age, height,
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and weight, showed that the aerodynamic
and acoustic characteristics of sounds
emanating from the larynx were comparable
in most acoustic measurements including
fundamental frequency and sound pressure
level.xiii
However, recent research has also
shown that individuals can discern race from
very little vocal information. Fifty black
and fifty white adult males were recorded to
produce a one-second acoustic sample
extracted from the mid-portion of a
sustained /a/ vowel. Untrained listeners
could determine the race of the speaker with
60% accuracy, and the identification of race
was independent of the listener’s race, sex,
or listening experience.xiv These results,
however, were not very convincing
considering the small sample size and
limited accuracy with which listeners could
identify a speaker’s race.
The most convincing work on racial
identification by vocal cues has pointed to
the multiple dialects of American English
previously mentioned in this paper. In his
work on linguistic profiling, John Baugh
notes that in comparison to SAE, AAVE
lacks sonorants such as /r, l, and n/ as well
as missing /-s/ suffixes from plural, third
person singular, or possessive forms. Some
consonants, specifically /t and d/, might also
be dropped in AAVE.xv
Although studies have not
convincingly shown that race can be
determined by a short vowel sound alone,
Baugh’s research has demonstrated that
differences in dialects can lead to accurate
and reliable racial identifications with just a
single sentence and to a slightly lesser
degree with the utterance of a single word.
Baugh demonstrated this by
conducting a trial in which 421 Stanford
undergraduates were asked to identify the
race and gender of Professor Baugh saying
“Hello, I’m calling to see about the
apartment you have advertised in the paper,”
in three dialects: AAVE, SAE, and ChE.
The samples were randomized for
presentation. Identification of Baugh
speaking in AAVE as African American was
84%, SAE as White was 86%, and ChE as
Hispanic was 91%.xvi
Racial identification was also
considerably accurate when subjects were
presented a single word. In another trial, 50
University of Delaware students were asked
to identify Baugh’s perceived race when he
said the word “Hello” in the three dialects.
Listeners were able to correctly identify
between dialects 72% of the time.xvii
Studies have also tested the impact
of AAVE on listeners’ perceptions of the
speaker. In a psychology study, African
Americans who were native speakers of
AAVE, SAE, or a code switching dialect
(those who were able to speak both dialects
and vary their usage within their speech)
were recorded speaking about the same
content. A test group of African American
student subjects were then asked to listen to
a random sample of either AAVE, SAE, or
the code switching dialect and assess how
much they wanted to get to know the model
and how much they would want to work
with the model on a committee. Results
showed that the SAE model was more
likable than both the AAVE model and the
code switching Model. Thus, research has
shown that, within groups, listeners
unexpectedly may favor the SAE speech
pattern over the code switching dialect.xviii
Although Baugh’s work in housing
discrimination in the San Francisco Bay area
seemed convincing, we believed that there
was a considerable limitation to his study.
In our view, Baugh, a native speaker of SAE
and not AAVE or ChE, might be prone to
exaggerate or stereotype his dialects of
AAVE and ChE. In addition, he called each
realtor three times in a different dialect with
no more than thirty minutes between each
call. We find it hard to believe that even
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with the use of pseudonyms and varying
phone numbers that the realtors could not
discern that the callers were the same person
calling with different accents. We were
further inclined to perform our research
because we also knew that there were no
published telephone audit studies that
attempted to search for housing
discrimination in the Boston area.
With a clear background from the
literature, we decided to design a telephone
audit study procedure to test for housing
discrimination in several parts of Boston as
well as Cambridge, our very own 02138. To
accommodate for the problems we found in
previous work, we used two different
auditors and matched them with identical
profiles and scripts, except for pronunciation
and accent. With the limitation of only
having two auditors, however, we could not
obtain a critically large sample size.
Therefore, we set out to perform pilot
studies for proof of concept in several
different areas where linguistic profiling
might exist. Kedamai Fisseha, able to code-
switch between SAE and AAVE, took on the
persona of the AAVE auditor. Nico
Yannuzzi, in contrast, took on the persona of
the SAE auditor. Throughout the entire
process, Fisseha never spoke in ebonics, a
signal of poor socioeconomic status, but
instead adhered to a highly similar script to
the SAE auditor with changes only in
pronunciation of certain words. In this
manner, we could test for racial
discrimination and not discrimination based
upon socioeconomic status.
We believed that the simplicity of
our study design also lent itself to testing for
discrimination in other areas where
linguistic profiling could take place besides
the housing market. We decided to see if an
auditor speaking in AAVE would have more
trouble getting a reservation at an elite New
York City restaurant than an SAE auditor.
Next, we wanted to see if an AAVE auditor
would find it more difficult to schedule a
test drive at a luxury car dealership and
whether he would face price discrimination
over the phone. To test that our voices were
representative of each dialect, we recorded
each of our voices saying the sentence in our
respective dialect and then presented it to
student subjects of various races who
listened to the recording and stated their
opinion of the race of the speaker.
I. Method
A. Racial Identification of Voice
The AAVE auditor, Fisseha, and the
SAE auditor, Yannuzzi, were recorded
saying the same sentence, “Hello, I’m
calling to ask about the apartment listing
you had on BostonApartments.com.” The
AAVE auditor stressed certain
pronunciations such as “ask” as “axe.”
Fisseha obtained a group of 30 random
Harvard students to listen to the SAE
recording of Yannuzzi and asked each
listener to decide if the speaker was White,
African American, Hispanic, or Asian.
There were no listeners in the sample that
had met the SAE auditor. Yannuzzi obtained
a separate group of 30 random Harvard
students to listen to the AAVE recording of
Fisseha and to note if they believed that the
voice was representative of a White, African
American, Hispanic, or Asian speaker.
None of the listeners in the sample had met
Fisseha.
B. Restaurants
The Zagat Online Survey was used
to obtain the audit sample. Restaurants in
the New York City area were sorted in terms
of price. The names, cuisine types, and
average price of the one hundred most
expensive New York City restaurants were
then gathered. Restaurants included twenty
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different cuisine types with the majority as
American, French, or Italian. Prices ranged
from $57 to $112 dollars per plate with an
average of $70.
Two profiles were constructed, one
for Standard American English and one for
African American Vernacular English. The
two auditors used racially neutral
pseudonyms, John Williams and Michael
Smith. Both auditors said the same sentence
but in different dialects. Yannuzzi spoke in
Standard American English, while Fisseha,
capable of Code-Switching, spoke in African
American Vernacular English, stressing
certain vowel sounds and pronunciations
(see Appendix A for script).
The Microsoft Excel random number
generator was used to randomize the order
of the restaurants called by each auditor and
to vary which auditor called first. Auditors
called each restaurant on Saturday evening
and asked for a 7:30 reservation for four
people on Sunday. If the reservation was
accepted, the appointment was booked and a
random contact number was left. If the
reservation was denied, the auditor asked for
an alternative time on Sunday evening. If an
alternative time on Sunday was available,
the appointment was booked and a random
contact number was left. If an alternative
time on Sunday evening was unavailable,
the auditor terminated the call. Notes were
also taken if the host or hostess mentioned
price or dress code during the exchange.
For restaurants that were not open on
Sunday, the same procedure was done
except the reservation was asked for 7:30 for
four people on Monday. If a restaurant took
reservations through a recording or was not
open on either Sunday or Monday, it was not
audited. In total 77 data points were
collected.
C. Luxury Car Dealerships
The names and zip codes of forty car
dealerships from Alabama, Florida,
Massachusetts, and New York were gathered
using the Yellow Pages Online. Car
dealerships were only selected if the name
of a specific luxury car was embedded in the
name of the dealership-for instance: “John
Crump Hummer.” Luxury car dealerships
used in the audit included Maserati, Porsche,
Hummer, Lexus, Cadillac, Audi, Jaguar,
Land Rover, BMW, Bentley, or Infiniti.
From the zip code of each dealership,
information on the average income and
population percentage White and African
American from each area was collected
using city-data.com, a website that pools
census data.
Two profiles were constructed, one
for Standard American English and one for
African American Vernacular English.
Auditors used racially neutral pseudonyms,
John Williams and Michael Smith. The
Microsoft Excel random number generator
was then used to randomize the order of the
dealerships called by each auditor and to
vary which auditor called first. The time of
day for which a test drive was requested
(either the next morning or afternoon) was
also randomized. Calls were made Monday
afternoon. Both auditors started each call by
asking for a sales person for a pre-agreed
upon type of car make, model, and year. Car
types were tailored to the name of the
dealership. When a sales person was
located, auditors asked to schedule a test
drive for the following day using similar
scripts except for pronunciation of certain
words. Identical profiles for each auditor
were also constructed in the advent that a
salesperson asked more questions (see
Appendix B for script, pronunciation, and
profiles). Yannuzzi spoke in Standard
American English, while Fisseha spoke in
African American Vernacular English,
6
stressing certain vowel sounds and
pronunciations.
Auditors first took note of whether a
test drive could be scheduled. If the test
drive was scheduled, each auditor then
asked for the lowest starting price on the
make, model, and year of the car being test
driven. A price was only requested outright;
bargaining did not take place. Finally, each
auditor also took note of any questions the
salesperson asked, specifically what car the
auditor was currently driving or the credit
situation of the auditor. Auditors did not
release information on their profile unless
asked directly. If the dealership did not
carry the pre-agreed upon model and year,
the call was terminated, and the dealership
was excluded from the analysis. If a
dealership was unreachable during the
calling window, the dealership was
discarded from the analysis. When a single
dealership listed multiple phone numbers
and names (with different car types), it was
audited only once. In total, 18 dealerships
were analyzed.
D. Apartments
Apartment rental listings for the
Boston and Cambridge area were gathered
using various apartment websites such as
BostonApartments.com. The majority of the
listings were from Back Bay, Beacon Hill,
the North End, and Cambridge. If a realtor
or landlord was representing multiple
rentals, he/she was only called in reference
to one of them. A total of 70 different
realtors and landlords were audited.
Two profiles were constructed, one
for Standard American English and one for
African American Vernacular English.
Auditors used racially neutral pseudonyms,
John Williams and Michael Smith. The
Microsoft Excel random number generator
was used to randomize the order of the
realtors called by each auditor independently
and to vary which auditor called first. Calls
were made Tuesday and Wednesday
throughout the course of the day and
evening. Both auditors called in reference to
a particular property and described it to the
realtor and called only once. The Standard
American English auditor and the African
American Vernacular English auditor
accomplished this using a similar script but
with different pronunciations. Yannuzzi
again spoke as the Standard American
English auditor, while Fisseha spoke in
African American Vernacular English,
stressing certain vowel sounds and
pronunciations in the dialect (see Appendix
C for the profiles and scripts of each
auditor). If an agent was available the
auditor asked if the specific property was
still available. The agent was then told that
that the auditor would call them next week
to discuss apartment visits. If an agent did
not answer, a message was left describing
the property and leaving a name and number
for call back. The amount of call backs
were then recorded for each auditor
throughout the course of the next day. A call
from an agent was only recorded as a call
back if it was received by 10pm the evening
after the message was left. If an auditor was
not called back after leaving a message with
a realtor, the apartment was scored as
“unavailable.” If a realtor or landlord had
multiple listings, he/she was called only
once and the other numbers were dropped
from the analysis.
II. Results
A. Racial Identification of Voice
In a total of 30 trials, the AAVE
auditor was identified by listeners as African
American 25 times (83%), as White 4 times
(13%), and as Asian once (4%). The SAE
auditor was identified as White 25 times
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(83%), as African American 3 times (10%),
and as ambiguous 2 times (7%).
B. Restaurants
In 77 total observations of New York
City restaurants, we did not detect the
slightest amount of linguistic discrimination
in terms of reservation acceptance and
general treatment during the exchange. The
auditor speaking in AAVE was accepted at
the primary slot in 76.6% of the
observations compared with 72.7% for the
SAE auditor. If denied the primary slot, the
AAVE auditor was granted an alternative
time in 22.1% of the observations in
comparison to 24.7% for the SAE auditor
(See Table II). Thus there were no
significant differences between the two
auditors in terms of obtaining a reservation.
We also recorded whether dress code or the
price of the restaurant was mentioned by the
host or hostess during the process. Both the
AAVE and the SAE auditor received the
same amount of warnings about the dress
code (11.7%) and the same amount of
mentions of the price (1.3%). Data from the
restaurant audit can be found in Table I.
Since the sample was restricted to New York
City restaurants, we decided to test for
discrimination in 5-10 restaurants located in
Georgia, Louisiana, and North Carolina
(Data not shown). These audits also did not
result in discrimination, displaying identical
results for the AAVE and the SAE auditors.
C. Luxury Car Dealerships
Little can be inferred from the small
number of observations in the test drive
audit (18 in total). However, we did find
that during the trial, neither the AAVE nor
the SAE auditor was denied a test drive
appointment. While this result was highly
indicative of equal treatment, we also found
that the AAVE auditor was asked about his
current credit situation (2/19) and his current
car (4/19), while the SAE auditor was not
asked these questions (See Table III).
Moreover, in 11/19 audits, the AAVE auditor
was quoted a higher starting price than the
SAE auditor. In these 11 instances, on
average, the AAVE auditor was quoted a
starting price that was nearly $7K higher
than the SAE auditor. In only 2/19 audits,
the AAVE auditor was quoted a lower price.
Throughout the 19 audits, the AAVE auditor
was on average quoted a price
approximately $3,500 higher than the SAE
auditor.
D. Apartments
In 70 total observations of
apartments in Boston and Cambridge the
auditor speaking in AAVE had a 31%
apartment availability rate while the SAE
auditor had a 50% apartment availability
rate (See Table IV). Callback rates showed a
similar trend. The AAVE auditor had a 23%
callback rate while the SAE auditor had a
50% callback rate (See Table V). The
auditors made sure to record any pricing
information that was obtained as well as any
additional information about other available
apartments. With the exception of one
instance where the AAVE auditor was
quoted a price that was $2,000 higher for the
same apartment by the same agent that
spoke to the SAE auditor, the pricing
information was quite neutral. The auditors
also took notes to record nuanced
information about their conversations, and
the AAVE auditor seemed, on average, to
experience inquiries into employment and
current living conditions at a rate only
slightly exceeding the SAE auditor.
III. Discussion
Thus, our three pilot studies yielded
varying results. In our first experiment, we
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were unable to detect linguistic
discrimination in the process of obtaining a
restaurant reservation. Experiences for both
auditors in terms of reservation availability
and general commentary about price and
dress code were virtually identical. This
result could be due to two reasons. The
hosts and hostesses in our sample may
simply lack racial animus or have no reason
to engage in race-based statistical
discrimination. On the other hand, the noisy
and distracting environment in a restaurant
may make racial identification very difficult
for the listener.
In our second pilot study, we tested
for the presence of linguistic profiling in
luxury car dealerships. In the small sample,
the AAVE and SAE auditors were able to
schedule a test drive at every dealership
contacted. Dealerships showed no bias
when afforded the chance to get a potential
buyer into the showroom. In our second
endpoint, dealer starting price, we saw small
but consistent results which favored the SAE
auditor. Although the sample size is too
small to generate a causal interpretation, we
speculate that these price differentials were
signs of either taste based discrimination, as
a result of racial animus, or statistical
discrimination, relying on the fact that the
majority of African American buyers have
less consumer information and higher search
costs. After using a histogram to check the
approximate normality of the price data we
ran a t-test of significance for this data (this
technically has an ‘n’ sample size that is
large enough to justify doing so) and found a
p-value of .0381. This is significant at the
alpha = .05 level. We still remain highly
cautious about the small sample size in this
part of our study, however.
Our most robust results were found
in our telephone audit of Boston realtors.
Here we found strong and statistically
significant signs of linguistic profiling. The
SAE auditor was 2 times more likely to
receive a call back from a message left for
an agent than the AAVE auditor.
Furthermore, when an agent was finally
reached, the SAE auditor was told that the
particular apartment was available 1.67
times more often than the AAVE auditor.
Statistical analysis yielded a Chi-squared
value of 4.261 with 1 degree of freedom and
gave us a two-tailed p-value equaling
0.0390. This indicates that there, almost
surely, is a relationship between the row
variable, race, and the column variable,
availability. Our callback data was even
more significant yielding a chi-squared
value of 7.342 with 1 degree of freedom.
The resulting two-tailed p-value equals
0.0067. This indicates again the undeniable
presence of race as a factor in apartment
search outcomes and further indicates that
non-response is a discriminatory strategy
used quite frequently by real estate agents.
While our results show strong signs
of discrimination, we remain cautious about
identifying the reason for these actions. We
suspect that the agents had stereotypes about
African American buyers’ financing ability
or that they were motivated by racial
animus. As with all audit studies, however,
it is easier to document the existence of
discrimination than the mechanisms behind
it.
There were several weaknesses to
the study. First, although we believed that
phone auditing would allow us to obtain a
high number of observations in a short
amount of time, the process was very time
consuming. Over four days, calling for 5
hours a day, we were only able to
accumulate 77, 18, 70 data points in the
restaurant, luxury car dealership, and
apartment rental studies, respectively.
Moreover, additional time was spent seeking
and coding the audit samples. While the
number of data points we were able to
collect was sufficient for a pilot study, a
team of at least ten auditors would be
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needed to execute a study that could produce
sufficient data to determine definitively
whether linguistic profiling exists in these
arenas and whether the relationship is
causal, especially on a market level.
The small number of observations
also limited the geographic region which we
could span. In the restaurant study, we only
targeted New York City establishments. In
the housing study, all of our observations
came from the Boston area, and in the test
drive study, we were only able to reach out
to dealerships in the Massachusetts and New
York area as well as several from Alabama
and Florida. The narrow focus of our study
brings up external validity questions.
Another limitation of our design and
telephone auditing in general is, again, that
it cannot detect discrimination occurring in
later interactions. For instance, telephone
auditing has no way of detecting
discrimination in terms of getting a good
table, service, or in waiting time upon
arrival at a restaurant. Similarly, most if not
all of the bargaining for a new car occurs
after the buyer has arrived to the dealership,
not over the phone. Finally, in the case of
apartments, much of the discrimination
might take place after meeting with the
landlord or realtor. Telephone auditing has
no way to detect discrimination occurring at
these points.
However, our experiment design did
allow us to improve upon earlier studies and
directly avoid some of the problems present
in the Baugh design. In his test for linguistic
profiling, Baugh took on all three dialects,
AAVE, SAE, and ChE, and called the same
agent three times with no more than thirty
minutes between calls. This design could be
vulnerable since it might be possible for the
agent to detect that the three simultaneous
calls were from the same person. Moreover,
since Baugh is not a native speaker of two of
the three dialects, he might be prone to
stereotyping or exaggeration of his non-
native dialects. By using native speakers of
each dialect and by using multiple auditors
we were able to avoid these problems.
However, with more than one auditor, we
also introduced a problem not present in
Baugh’s design, cross-speaker variation.
This again could be remedied by using a
larger cast of auditors to wash out any
potentially large differences between
speakers.
We also remain cautious about the
thin line between racial and socioeconomic
vocal cues. AAVE may send mixed signals
of both race and socioeconomic status to
realtors, and we realize that with this design
it is impossible to completely isolate race as
a variable.
Finally, the individual firm
discrimination we witnessed may not
necessarily imply market discrimination
since the firms we contacted may not be the
ones that African Americans seek when
searching for an apartment rental in the
Boston area. We do believe however, that
most renters, independent of their race,
begin their apartment rental search on the
phone, although renters might also utilize
other modes of correspondence, such as
email, in which linguistic profiling could not
occur.
IV. Conclusion
We believe that telephone auditing
has a place in social scientific studies on
discrimination, especially with regard to the
housing market. Telephone audits can suffer
some of the same problems that audits done
in person can. Trials are not double blind,
so sub-consciously auditors may act in a
certain way to achieve a specific endpoint.
However, for the most part, we believe that
this can be remedied by calling housing
agencies on off hours, leaving standard
messages, and recording call back rates. In
this manner, telephone audits provide a
10
much less expensive and quicker method of
testing for housing discrimination.
Our evidence suggests that future
research on linguistic profiling should
remain in the housing realm since our results
in restaurant reservations showed no signs of
discrimination and our findings in car
dealerships were modest at best. Our robust
findings in the Boston housing market
suggest that additional research should be
done to further document this trend, the
regions in which it is most prevalent, and the
possible reasons behind it. Another area that
might be interesting to survey with a
telephone audit is job vacancies that search
for applicants through classified
advertisements. Before additional studies
are begun, however, more research must
also be done on racial recognition through
auditory cues since previous studies have
not had large enough samples.

11
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