Cover not available
Part of
Pragmatics of Accents
Edited by Gaëlle Planchenault and Livia Poljak
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 327] 2021
► pp. 85–114

‘Could I have an appointment for a viewing?’

Language-based discrimination and apartment searches with different accents in Germany

| Universität Bremen, Germany,
This paper represents a novel approach to the study of discrimination in the housing market. Beginning with detailed discourse analyses of several excerpts of apartment application conversations, it highlights how Standard German, Standard American and Turkish accents interact and how power relations are reproduced on a micro-level through interruptions and repair initiations. Furthermore, it includes the statistical report of the viewing appointments resulting from almost 300 phone calls placed in four different city districts of the city of Bremen, Germany, with Turkish, Standard American, and German names and accents. The neighborhoods, not the city per se, are a crucial aspect for predicting linguistic discrimination: in the more prestigious neighborhood, Turkish accented callers had significantly lower chances of receiving a viewing. In all but one city district, the Standard German callers received the most viewing appointments, and the American English accented callers had more chances than the Turkish callers speaking Standard German.
Keywords: discourse analysis, mixed methods, conversation analysis, linguistic profiling, high and low prestige accents
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background
    • Linguistic discrimination in social life and housing
    • Linguistic discrimination in housing
  • 3.Methodological background
    • Participants
    • Statistical procedure
    • The request for an apartment viewing and accent
    • Selected phonological features of Turkish accented Speech
    • Selected phonological features of US American accented German
  • 4.The German immigration context
    • Turkish migration in Germany
    • US American migration in Germany
    • Bremen demographic information
  • 5.Results
  • 6.Discussion
    • Analyses of applicant calls
    • Feedback with real estate agents
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgment
  • References
Published online: 11 October 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.327.04du
References (88)
References
Akinnaso, F. Niyi. and Cheryl S. Ajirotutu. 1982. Performance and ethnic style in job interviews. In Language and social identity, ed. by John J. Gumperz, 119–144. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Androutsopoulos, Jannis, Ingrid Breckner, Bernhard Brehmer, Kristin Bührig, Ronald Kießling, Julia Pauli and Angelika Redder. 2013. Facetten gesellschaftlicher Mehrsprachigkeit in der Stadt. In Mehrsprachige Kommunikation in der Stadt: Das Beispiel Hamburg, ed. by Angelika Redder, Julia Pauli and Roland Kießling, 13–28. Münster: Waxmann.Google Scholar
Allgemeines Gleichbehandlungsgesetz (AGG): 2013. GBl. I S. 1897.Google Scholar
Antaki, Charles and Horowitz, A. 2000. “Using Identity Ascription to Disqualify a Rival Version of Events as” Interested”.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 33(2): 155–177. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Antidiskriminerungstelle des Bundes. 2020. #machen#darüberreden. [URL] (Retrieved September 1, 2020)Google Scholar
Auspurg, Katrin, Thomas Hinz and Laura Schmid. 2017. “Contexts and conditions of ethnic discrimination: Evidence from a field experiment in a German housing market.” Journal of Housing Economics 35: 26–36. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Baugh, Gayle S. and George B. Graen. 1997. “Effects of Team Gender and Racial Composition on Perceptions of Team Performance in Cross-Functional Teams.” Group & Organization Management 22: 366–383. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Baugh, John. 2007. “Linguistic Contributions to the Advancement of Racial Justice Within and Beyond the African Diaspora.” Language and Linguistics Compass 1: 331–349. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2018). Linguistics in pursuit of justice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Baumgarten, Nicole, Inke Du Bois, and Victoria Gill. 2019. “Patterns of othering minority groups in telephone gatekeeping encounters in the Sheffield property market.” Journal of Language and Discrimination 3(2): 120–149. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bavan, Meena. 2007. “Does Housing Discrimination Exist Based on the “Color” of an Individual’s Voice?” Cityscape 9: 93–107.Google Scholar
Bilaniuk, Laada. 2003. “Gender, language attitudes, and language status in Ukraine.” Language in Society 32: 47–78. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Birney, Megan E., Anna Rabinovich, Thomas A. Morton, Hannah Heath, and Sam Ashcroft. 2020. “When Speaking English Is Not Enough: The Consequences of Language-Based Stigma for Nonnative Speakers.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 39(1): 67–86. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blommaert, Jan. 2009. “A market of accents.” Language Policy 8: 243–259. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bohnacker, Ute. 2013. “Null Subjects in Swabian.” Studia Linguistica 67: 257–289. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bonefeld, Meike and Oliver Dickhäuser. 2018. “(Biased) Grading of Students’ Performance: Students’ Names, Performance Level, and Implicit Attitudes.” Frontiers in psychology 9: 481–491. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1991. Language and symbolic power. Harvard University Press. Breckner,Google Scholar
Carmichael, Katie. 2017. “Displacement and local linguistic practices: R-lessness in post-Katrina Greater New Orleans.” Journal of Sociolinguistics 21: 696–719. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chadwick, Jan. 2006. “Linguistic Profiling.” Urban Affairs Review 41: 400–415. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cheshire, Jenny, Paul Kerswill, Sue Fox and Eivind Torgersen. 2011. “Contact, the feature pool and the speech community: The emergence of Multicultural London English.” Journal of Sociolinguistics 15: 151–196. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth. 2012. “On affectivity and preference in responses to rejection.” Text & Talk 32: 453–475. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Drew, Paul. 1997. “‘Open’ class repair initiators in response to sequential sources of troubles in conversation.” Journal of Pragmatics 28: 69–101. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Du Bois, Inke. 2019. “Linguistic discrimination across neighbourhoods: Turkish, US-American and German names and accents in urban apartment search.” Journal of Language and Discrimination 3(2): 92–119. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2013. “Chicano English und Kiez-Sprache: Sprachvielfalt und Sprachwandel?” In Das Andere denken: Repräsentationen von Migration in Westeuropa und den USA im 20, ed. by Gabriele Metzler, 301–326. Jahrhundert. Frankfurt am Main: Campus.Google Scholar
. 2010. Discursive constructions of immigrant identity: A sociolinguistic trend study on long-term American immigrants. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope and William Labov. 2017. “Phonetics, phonology and social meaning.” Journal of Sociolinguistics 21: 467–496. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Egbert, Maria. 2004. “Other-initiated repair and membership categorization – some conversational events that trigger linguistic and regional membership categorization.” Journal of Pragmatics 36: 1467–1498. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Flege, James E. 1984. “The detection of French accent by American listeners.” The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 76: 692–707. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Frumkin, Lara. 2007. “Influences of accent and ethnic background on perceptions of eyewitness testimony.” Psychology, Crime & Law 13: 317–331. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gal, Susan. 1978. “Peasant men can’t get wives: language change and sex roles in a bilingual community.” Language in Society 7: 1–16. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gal, Susan and Judith T. Irvine. 1995. “The Boundaries of Languages and Disciplines: How Ideologies Construct Difference.” Social Research 62: 967–1001.Google Scholar
Günthner, Susanne. 2013. “Communicative practices among migrant youth in Germany.” In Multilingual Identities: New Global Perspectives, ed. by Inke Du Bois and Nicole Baumgarten, 15–34. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Hall-Lew, Lauren. 2010. “Ethnicity and Sociolinguistic Variation in San Francisco.” Language and Linguistics Compass 4: 458–472. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hansen, Karolina, Tamara Rakić and Melanie C. Steffens. 2014. “When Actions Speak Louder Than Words.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 33: 68–77. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Haubert Weil, Jeannie. 2009. “Finding housing: Discrimination and exploitation of Latinos in the post-Katrina rental market.” Organization & Environment, 22(4): 491-502. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heller, Monica. 2010. “The Commodification of Language.” Annual Review of Anthropology 39: 101–114. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heritage, John. 2012. “Epistemics in Action: Action Formation and Territories of Knowledge.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 45: 1–29. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hinz, Thomas and Katrin Auspurgpage. 2016. “Diskriminierung auf dem Wohnungsmarkt.” In Handbuch Diskriminierung, ed. by Albert Scherr, Aladin e. Mafaalani and Emine Yüksel 1–20. Wiesbaden: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Holmes, Janet, Bernadette Vine and Meredith Marra. 2020. “Contesting the Culture Order: Contrastive Pragmatics in Action.” Contrastive Pragmatics 1(aop): 1–27. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Horr, Andreas, Christian Hunkler and Clemens Kroneberg. 2018. “Ethnic Discrimination in the German Housing Market.” Zeitschrift für Soziologie 47: 134–146. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Igoudin, Lane. 2013. Asian American girls who speak African American English: a subcultural language identity. In Multilingual Identities: New Global Perspectives, ed. by Inke Du Bois and Nicole Baumgarten, 51–66. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Jefferson, Gail. 1988. “On the Sequential Organization of Troubles-Talk in Ordinary Conversation.” Social Problems 35: 418–441. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Keim, Inken 2007. Die "türkischen Powergirls" Lebenswelt und kommunikativer Stileiner Migrantinnengruppe in Mannheim. Studien zur Deutschen Sprache 39. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.Google Scholar
Kleine, Jonas. 2018. “Identity negotiation in conversations between standard-variety and accented speakers: A Conversation Analytic approach to language-based discrimination.” Unpublished Manuscript. Potsdam, University of Potsdam.Google Scholar
Labov, William. 1963. “The Social Motivation of a Sound Change.” Word 19: 273–309. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1970. The Logic of Nonstandard English, Georgetown: Georgetown University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2001. Principles of linguistic change, Volume 2: Social Factors. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar
Lambert, W. Hodgson, R. C. Gardner and S. Fillenbaum. 1960. “Evaluational reactions to spoken languages.” The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 60: 44–51. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lewin, Kurt. 1947. “Frontiers in Group Dynamics.” Human Relations 1: 5–41. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lippi-Green, Rosina. 2010. English with an accent: Language, ideology, and discrimination in the United States. London, New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lohse, Sarah. 2019. Willingness to Participate in Decisions on Energy Projects based on Values: Effects of Value-Framing and Timing. Unpublished Master’s Thesis. Groningen. Rijksuniversiteit Groningen.Google Scholar
MacDonald, Heather, Jacqueline Nelson, George Galster, Yin Paradies, Kevin Dunn and Rae Dufty-Jones. 2016. “Rental Discrimination in the Multi-ethnic Metropolis: Evidence from Sydney.” Urban Policy and Research 34: 373–385. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McIlvenny, Paul. 1996. “Heckling in Hyde Park: Verbal audience participation in popular public discourse.” Language in Society, 25(1): 27-60. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Munro, M. J. 2003. "A primer on accent discrimination in the Canadian context." TESL Canada Journal: 38-51. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Perreault, Stéphane and Richard Y. Bourhis. 1999. “Ethnocentrism, Social Identification, and Discrimination.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 25: 92–103. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Planerladen. 2008. Ungleichbehandlung von Migranten auf dem Wohnungsmarkt. Testing zum Diskriminierungsnachweis dem Weuterungen und Empfehlungen zur Anwendung der Methode. Dortmund: Planerladen e.V. 1–28.Google Scholar
Purkiss, Sharon L., Pamela L. Perrewé, Treena L. Gillespie, Bronston T. Mayes and Gerald R. Ferris. 2006. “Implicit sources of bias in employment interview judgments and decisions.” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 101: 152–167. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Purnell, Thomas, William Idsardi and John Baugh. 1999. “Perceptual and Phonetic Experiments on American English Dialect Identification.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 18: 10–30. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Raymond, Chase W. 2018. “On the relevance and accountability of dialect: Conversation analysis and dialect contact.” Journal of Sociolinguistics 22: 161–189. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Roessel, Janine, Schoel, Christiane, and Stahlberg, Dagmar. 2020. “Modern Notions of Accent-ism: Findings, Conceptualizations, and Implications for Interventions and Research on Nonnative Accents.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 39(1): 87–111. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ruiter, Jan P. de and Saul Albert. 2017. “An Appeal for a Methodological Fusion of Conversation Analysis and Experimental Psychology.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 50: 90–107. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sachdev, Itesh and Richard Y. Bourhis. 1990. “Language and Social Identification.” In Social identity theory: Constructive and critical advances, ed. by Dominic Abrams, 211–219. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf.Google Scholar
Sacks, Harvey. 1992. Lectures on conversation: Volume I. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Schmid, Laura E. 2015. Ethnische Diskriminierung bei der Wohnungssuche: Feldexperimente in sechs deutschen Großstädten. Konstanz: Universitätsverlag.Google Scholar
Schott, Malte, Martin, Pia, and Matthias Bluemke. 2018. “Diskriminierung Türkischstämmiger auf dem Kölner Wohnungsmarkt: Effektivität von Gegenmaßnahmen.” Politische Psychologie, 6(2): 311-331.Google Scholar
Sebba, Mark and Tony Wootton. 1998. “We, they and identity’ Sequential versus identity related explanation in code-switching. In Code-Switching in Conversation: Language, Interaction and Identity, ed. by Peter Auer, 262-289. London: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Settinieri, Julia. 2011. “Soziale Akzeptanz unterschiedlicher Normabweichungen in der L2-Aussprache Deutsch.” Zeitschrift für interkulturellen Fremdsprachenunterricht, 16(2).Google Scholar
Smith, Norval. 2007. “Contact phonology.” In Phonology in context, ed. by Martha C. Pennington, 76–108. Basingstoke, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Smith, Shanna L., and Cathy Cloud. 1997. “Documenting discrimination by homeowners’ insurance companies through testing.” In Insurance redlining: Disinvestment, reinvestment, and the evolving role of financial institutions, ed. by Gregory D. Squires, 97–117. Washington, DC: Urban Inst. Press.Google Scholar
Statistisches Bundesamt. 2018. “Migration and Integration.” Last accessed 28.28.2018 at [URL].Google Scholar
Statistisches Landesamt Bremen. 2015. “Bremer Otsteilatlas: Bevölkerung mit Migrationshintergrund.“ Last accessed 28 August 2018 at [URL].Google Scholar
Tan, Rachel S. K. Fauziah Taib, and Teoh M. Lin. 2017. “When blinkers come off: Undergraduate students’ performance at simulated job interviews.” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2017: 94. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Telep, Suzie. 2015. “‘Speaking French without an accent’: ideologies about phonetic accommodation among Cameroonian immigrants in Paris.” 6th Sociolinguistics Summer School, Aug 2015, Dublin, Ireland: 115–124. hal-01440360Google Scholar
Trudgill, Peter. 1986. Dialects in contact. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Tuppat, Julian and Jürgen Gerhards. 2020. “Immigrants’ First Names and Perceived Discrimination: A Contribution to Understanding the Integration Paradox.” European Sociological Review. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Warnke, Ingo H. and Beatrix Busse (eds.). 2014. Place-Making in urbanen Diskursen. Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wiese, Heike. 2006. ““Ich mach dich Messer”: Grammatische Produktivität in Kiez-Sprache.” Linguistische Berichte 207: 245–273.Google Scholar
Willemyns, Michael, Cindy Gallois, Victor J. Callan and Jeffery Pittam. 1997. “Accent accommodation in the job interview: Impact of interviewer accent and gender.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 16(1): 3-22. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wiese, Heike. 2009. “Grammatical innovation in multiethnic urban Europe: New linguistic practices among adolescents.” Lingua 119: 782–806. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2013. “What can new urban dialects tell us about internal language dynamics? The power of language diversity.” In Dialektologie in neuem Gewand: Zu Mikro-/Varietätenlinguistik, Sprachenvergleich und Universalgrammatik, ed. by Werner Abraham and Elisabeth Leiss, 207–247. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag.Google Scholar
. 2015. “‘This migrants’ babble is not a German dialect!’: The interaction of standard language ideology and ‘us’/‘them’ dichotomies in the public discourse on a multiethnolect.” Language in Society 44: 341–368. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2018. “Contact in the City.” Handbook of Language Contact. Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Winke, Tim. 2016. “Menschen mit Migrationshintergrund zahlen elf Euro mehr Miete pro Monat.” DIW-Wochenbericht 83(47): 1133–1443.Google Scholar
Wohnungsboerse.net. “Mietspiegel Bremen 2018.” Last accessed 28 August 2018 at [URL].
Yagman, Ece and Malcolm Keswell. 2015. “Accents, Race and Discrimination: Evidence from a Trust Game.” A Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit Working Paper 158. Cape Town: SALDRU, University of Cape Town, 1–30.Google Scholar
Zentella, Ana C. 2014. “TWB (Talking while Bilingual): Linguistic profiling of Latina/os, and other linguistic torquemadas.” Latino Studies 12: 620–635. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zimmerman, Don H. and Candace West. 1975. “Sex Roles, Interruptions and Silences in Conversation.” In Language and sex: Difference and dominance, ed. by Barrie Thorne and Nancy Henley, 105–129. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Zschirnt, Eva and Didier Ruedin. 2016. “Ethnic discrimination in hiring decisions: a meta-analysis of correspondence tests 1990–2015.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 42: 1115–1134. DOI logoGoogle Scholar