A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF PHILIPPINE ENGLISH

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A brief description of Philippine English Nguyen Thanh Binh notch up means “achieve something especially a victory”. Therefore, the word topnotchers means “high achievers”. The second extract is taken from a person named Armand Ines. He shared an experience on the website http://alohaworld.com when he was working in Long's Drugs in the Philippines: One day this old Filipino lady came up to me and said, "Excuse me boy, whea is dee SOOS?" I thought she said SAUCE so I said, "Oh, wat kine SAUCE?" She replied, "Dee CLEANER." I got all confused and said, "Da CLEANER?" She replies, "Yeah!" So she then takes me to where she usually gets this SOOS. When we got there, we ended up in the aisle with the mops, sponges, and scrubbers. She then pointed to an empty shelf. When I realized what item belonged there I tried not to buss out laughing. I then said, "Ohhhhhhh, you mean da S.O.S.!!" She said, "Yeah dee SOOS." Another incident was when this other Filipino lady came up to me and asked, "Hoy, whea is your KAKAROATS?" Then I said, "COCKROACH?" She replied,"Yeah." So I then take her to the Raid and roach sprays. Then she got small kine piss off and said, "NO, dee CEREAL!" So I'm thinking, "WHAT?" and I asked, "COCKROACH CEREAL?" She says, "Yeah, da one on sale!" All confused, I looked at the ad for a CEREAL. Then again I tried not to laugh and said, "Ohhhhh, the QUAKER OATS!" She replies, "Yeah, da KAKAROATS!" 5 | P a g e (Ines, 2001) For the two situations, the misunderstanding roots from the mispronunciation of some words in English, which has become so popular among Filipinos that they tend to accept it naturally. As mentioned above in the phonology section, the sound /ð/ is non-existent in native languages so the word “the” is pronounced as “dee‟ or “da”. Also, in Philippine English, the Filipinos do not often pay much attention to the final sounds since it is syllable-timed while American English and British English are stress-timed. In the question “wat kine SAUCE?”, kine meaning kind of or kinda is spoken without the final sound /d/. However, there is a hypercorrection of linking sounds that the abbreviation S.O.S is pronounced as a word SOOS. The pronunciation of paired consonants like /kw/ is also uncommon in Philippine English. Instead, /w/ is used to replace
A brief description of Philippine English Nguyen Thanh Binh /kw/ in pronunciation. Therefore, in the second situation, the woman said KAKAROATS (QUAKER OATS) which caused great confusion to the man. In terms of grammar, in Philippine English, they usually use the very short form of utterances when talking to each other. In the two situations, “yeah” is more used than “yes” or “yup” and “what” is more common than “what are you talking about?” Also, utterances without verbs or subjects are considered appropriate. In the third part of the paper, I would like to discuss some arguments and evidence why Philippine English is advantageous and disadvantageous in schools, in the media and in the society in the Philippines compared to the promotion of British English or American English. In the Philippines, today, English and Tagalog together are compulsorily taught in school. That‟s why one finds it easy to hear a student speaking English then switching to Tagalog. This process seems automatic with all students and teachers in schools. Most of the TV programs are also shown in English and Tagalog. A show with a Tagalog name is sometimes in English or vice versa. Also, in informal situations apart from schools and TV, English is used together with their native languages, which created a mixed code, Taglish. In this case, Taglish is considered as their “street English”. Despite the popularity of English in the Philippines, Thompson (2003, p.124) states that “a Filipino who uses nothing but English today among Filipinos is rare.” This means “any look at English in the media must look at codeswitching with its underlying social messages” (Thompson, 2003, p.124).Regarding the dominance of English usage in Philippines, it is very easy to say that Philippine English is really advantageous. Compared to American English from which Philippine English originated from, Philippine English should be maintained as the Filipino orientation should be the basis for teaching English (Rañosa- Madrunio, 2009). Since the post-independence era after 1946, Philippine English has become a variety of World Englishes, “associated with distinct accent, a localized vocabulary, and even a body of creative writing by Philippine writers in English.” (Lourdes, Bautista and Bolton, 2008, p.4.) Deciding English as an official language by the government is a very good step into making English as their own language rather than that of the Americans. It has been proposed that Filipino English should be standardized and regarded as a norm in Philippine English teaching instead of Standard American English (Llamzon, 1969). As a result, the spread of English in schools makes it appear on media officially as a language for all citizens. In addition, 70 percent of the commercials are in Philippine English (Thompson, 2003). Another reason why 6 | P a g e
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A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF PHILIPPINE ENGLISH

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