Liverpool English, commonly known as ‘Scouse’, is often reported to be a low prestige variety of English. Despite its low prestige, it has been suggested that Scouse has displaced the traditional variety of the neighbouring Wirral peninsula. To this end, this study's objective was to investigate whether Liverpool and Wirral speech differ from one another as revealed through both an ultrasound and acoustic analysis of the lateral phoneme in teenage speech. The acoustic results showed that, surprisingly, teenagers from both Liverpool and the Wirral produced clear onset and dark coda laterals. Interestingly, the ultrasound findings revealed that both Liverpool and Wirral males displayed a preference for ‘less standard’ velarisation as a darkening mechanism, whilst females showed a preference for ‘more standard’ pharyngealisation. Differences between these darkening strategies were only evident through the ultrasound analysis. Therefore, in general, our findings showed that covert articulatory variation was evident between male and female adolescent speakers on the Wirral and in Liverpool.
