L-Vocalization in Australian English

Barbara Horvath & Toni Borowsky

Fri. 9-10:40 A

L-vocalization is probably one of the most recognizable characteristics of London Cockney speech. It has been reported also to be a feature of some American dialects (Ash) and to be spreading to the southeast of England (Harris 1994: 267).

L-vocalization is present in Australian English and appears to have the characteristics of a language change in progress. In a pilot study of L-vocalization in Sydney English, Goldvarb analysis revealed that younger people were more likely (.67) to vocalize /l/ than older people (.19) and that vocalized /l/ was more likely in a reading passage (.58) than in a word list (.42). The linguistic constraints studied indicated that vocalization was more likely when preceded by high (.67) and back (.65) vowels.

Results of new research currently being conducted extend the study of L-vocalization in AE in a number of directions. First of all, a geographic dimension has been added and new data has been collected in Sydney, as well as in Adelaide and Perth; the change is more advanced in Adelaide than it is in Sydney. The results of a Goldvarb analysis of a number of social variables (age, social class, region and style) and of linguistic variables (preceding vowel height/frontness; following consonant, vowel or pause; and preceding consonant for syllabic /l/) will be reported. Phonetic investigations of the quality of preceding vowels allow us to assess the observations of Labov (1994: 275) concerning the lowering of vowels before dark /l/ and of Harris (1994: 257) concerning the reduction of the set of vowel contrasts before /l/. Phonetic investigation of the variants of vocalized /l/ allow us to report on Gimson's (1980: 202) descriptions of the variable quality of the back vowel resonance of dark /l/ and the amount of lip rounding associated with vocalization of /l/.

The overall aim of the study of L-vocalization is to address questions of relevance to both current phonological theory and the study of language change in progress. The approach taken is to base the description of the phenomena first of all on a data set consisting of a sample of three speech communities in Australia, to gain a firm understanding of the phonetic variation in the data, to use multivariate analysis to discover the basic patterns in the data and then to attempt to draw theoretical generalizations about the organization of a variable phonological system.

References

Ash, Sharon. 1982. The vocalization of intervocalic /l/ in Philadelphia. The SECOL Review 6:162-75.

Gimson, A.C. 1980. An introduction to the pronunciation of English. London; Edward Arnold.

Harris, John. 1994. English sound structure. Oxford: Blackwell.

Labov, William. 1994. Principles of linguistic change: internal factors. Oxford: Blackwell.