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15 Stan. L. & Pol'y Rev. 579 (2004)
Linguistic Profiling and the Law

handle is hein.journals/stanlp15 and id is 585 raw text is: LINGUISTIC PROFILING AND THE LAW Dawn L. Smalls* I. INTRODUCTION Linguistic profiling is a term used to describe inferences that are often made about a person's speech. Inferences may include where a speaker is from, whether he/she is male or female, or whether he/she is native born to the United States. These judgments reflect learned speech characteristics that communicate much of this information. However, this process can be used for discriminatory purposes and to the detriment of language and racial minorities. This Note seeks to document the occurrence of linguistic profiling in the law. This includes an examination of its use in employment discrimination, housing discrimination, and finally the criminal law. II. GENERALLY Linguistic profiling is a term that has recently been coined to represent the auditory equivalent of'racial profiling.' Whereas 'racial profiling is based on visual cues that result in the confirmation or speculation of the racial background of an individual, or individuals, linguistic profiling is based upon auditory cues that may include racial identification, but which can also be used to identify other linguistic subgroups within a given speech community. Linguists confirm this proposition. A study by Purnell, Isardi, and Baugh preliminarily indicates that (a) dialect-based discrimination takes place, (b) * Associate, Boies, Schiller & Flexner; B.A. in Linguistics, Boston University; J.D. Stanford Law School. This note is the product of a collaboration with Professor John Baugh and the American Linguistic Heritage Survey. I would like to thank Professor Baugh for introducing me to this issue and for being a great friend and mentor throughout the development of this note. I would also like to thank George Fisher for serving as my advisor for this project and for taking the time to offer many thoughtful and insightful comments, all of which I found incredibly helpful. 1 John Baugh, Linguistic Profiling, in BLACK LINGUISTICS: LANGUAGE, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS IN AFRICA AND THE AMERICAS 155, 155-63 (Sinfree Makoni et al. eds., 2003). 21d. at 158.

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