THE VOCALIZATION OF /L/ IN PHILADELPHIA

Abstract

The vocalization of /l/ results from the loss of contact between the tongue and the palate in the articulation of the liquid, which produces a glide that is acoustically similar to {u}. This phenomenon is documented in a number of languages in word-final and syllable-final position, and it has also been reported in a few dialects of American English. The case of /l/-vocalization in Philadelphia is unusual in that the vocalized variant occurs variably in every position in the word where /l/ can occur. This includes not only word- and syllable-final position, but also intervocalic, as in "really," syllable-initial clusters, as in "play," and word- and syllable-initial, as in "like" and "quickly." This study attempts to clarify the linguistic and social factors which condition /l/-vocalization in Philadelphia and to determine whether the variation is showing evidence of change in progress. The data were collected from tape-recorded interviews of 54 native Philadelphia men and women representing a range of ethnic and socioeconomic groups, ages, and neighborhoods in the city. (Blacks were not included in the study.) A total of more than 23,000 occurrences of the variable were collected. Most of these were coded for seven linguistic factors, speaking style, and five social factors. Multivariable analysis (VARBRUL2) was used to analyze the data. Initially the occurrences of (l) in each position in the word were analyzed separately, and later the tokens in certain pairs of environments were merged and reanalyzed to determine whether they behaved the same or differently. The bulk of the analysis was performed on postvocalic final and intervocalic /l/ since /l/-vocalization is most frequent in these positions: in the present sample, it occurs in both environments 19% of the time. The linguistic conditioning of the variation for the most part follows straightforwardly from the predicted effects of articulatory factors. Some exceptions are examined in detail. The social distribution shows a pattern of interaction indicating that /l/-vocalization in Philadelphia is receding. Although the overt stigmatization attached to vocalized /l/ is minimal, it appears that the upper working/lower middle class is leading a movement away from the use of vocalized /l/ in final and intervocalic positions. A survey of the use of vocalized /l/ was also carried out using data from tape-recorded interviews from communities all over the United States. The results of this study suggest that /l/-vocalization was an innovation of the Midland dialect region, with Philadelphia as the most likely point of origin. It has spread west through and beyond this area, as far as California; it has moved up the East Coast at a low level of frequency; and it has made some inroads into the northern cities, including Rochester, Cleveland, and Detroit, though there was no evidence of it in Chicago. The least amount of vocalized /l/ was found in the South.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 26 citations exist upstream.