Classes will vary in terms of format. Preliminary meetings will include a combination of traditional and interactional lectures. Near the end of the quarter students will make individual or group presentations, which will be discussed more fully during class. Students will be given considerable flexibility, and responsibility, in selecting presentation topics that are of substantial personal interest. Although we will share many common readings, particularly those derived from assigned texts, Professor Baugh will work closely with individual students to identify additional sources that are tailored to traditional term papers, or the creation of web pages that are devoted to aspects of linguistic conflict and/or the resolution of such conflict in the United States or elsewhere.

The common core of readings appear below, however, there will inevitably be additional material that is not formally assigned here, but which will prove to be of considerable value to student's independent research or class project. In some instances, students may wish to use assignments for this course to prepare an application to participate in a forthcoming seminar in Cape Town, South Africa (to be help in September, 2004). Every effort will be made to provide flexibility with some assignments to allow students to devote independent effort to topics and regions of greatest personal interest.

Course Schedule and Readings (Some readings are available on-line through links below).

January 9: Introduction: We will review course requirements and students objectives. Students will discuss their personal goals for the course, and we will consider several of the components that influence matters pertaining to linguistic foundations of racial strife in global perspective. To lend precision to this discussion we will review some of the early research on linguistic profiling as related to unequal access to fair housing.

Assigned Reading:

William Labov: "Academic Ignorance and Black Intelligence." The Atlantic Monthly (1972)

Michael Erard: "Language Matters" Legal Affairs. (August 2002)

John Baugh: "Linguistic Profiling." (link to PDF)

Thomas Purnell, William Idsardi, and John Baugh: "Perceptual and Phonetic Experiments on American English Dialect Identification." (link to PDF)

January 16: Linguistic Discrimination in the United States

Rosina Lippi-Green. English with an Accent: Language, ideology, and discrimination in the United States.

January 23: (No class meeting) The Ebonics Controversy and Educational Debate.

John Baugh: Beyond Ebonics: Linguistic Pride and Racial Prejudice.

January 30: The Latino/a American Linguistic and Educational experience.

Ana Celia Zentella: Growing up Bilingual.

Research/Project Abstracts are due on January 30. Please send them to jbaugh@stanford.edu as an email attachment. Ideally I would like to share all abstracts with other members of the class, but we will discuss this before I distribute them.

February 6: A brief Introduction to Linguistic Science

Handouts will be provided in class to introduce various linguistic concepts. In addition, please examine the International Phonetic Alphabet.

A portion of this class will be devoted to logistics. Individual or group presentation dates will be assigned. We will be flexible, allowing for the creation of groups after this date.

Febraury 13: Linguistic Foundations of Minority Languages and Dialects

Annotated Reviews are due on this date.

Carmen Fought: Chicano English in Context

February 20: The English Only movement, and "English for the children."

James Crawford. "Anatomy of the English-Only Movement."

James Crawford. Bilingual Education: "Disaster at the polls."

Readings related to Proposition 227.

February 27 (Guest Lecture: Professor Carmen Fought)

March: 5: Student Presentations

March: 12: Student Presentations

Final term papers or projects should be submitted by email, or hard copy, or url on the date that is scheduled for the final examination for this class.