Our research aims to describe perceptual and acoustic features of the word-final "l" sound across two different dialects of English: Midwestern English and Southern White Vernacular English. The English /l/ is an articulatorily complex sound that is considered one of the late-developing sounds. One common pattern used by both children with typical speech development and those with speech sound disorders is vocalization, which occurs when word-final /l/ is produced as a back vowel or glide (e.g., [bɛʊ] for bell). In addition, vocalization of /l/ is a normal feature of certain dialects of English. For our research, we recorded Midwestern speakers producing word-final /l/ in single words. Trained transcribers then transcribed the words and coded the degree of vocalization. Productions were also analyzed acoustically. The results were compared to a set of existing data for word-final /l/ produced by speakers of Southern White Vernacular English. Data analysis is ongoing, but preliminary results suggest differences in the degree of vocalization across dialects.
