Seminar – The Philippine English Symposium

Dear PCU-Dasma students, especially the English majors,

At the request of Dr. Eunice Mercado, I am posting my notes from the Philippine English Symposium from my other blog here. (You may also want to read my notes from the Komperensya ng Wikang pambansa here.) I hope this will give you insights for your Sociolinguistics course and more knowledge about World Englishes (yes, there are many "Englishes") and especially the variety of English we have here in the country, Philippine English.

Sir G

Dr. Shirley Dita and Dr. Danica Salazar, organizers of the Philippine English Symposium. (Photo from Shirley Dita on Facebook.)

Last September 14, 2013, a Saturday, I attended the first Philippine English Symposium (PES) at the Henry Sy, Sr. Hall, De La Salle University – Manila. It was sponsored by the Oxford University, De La Salle University (DLSU), and the Linguistic Society of the Philippines (LSP).

I happened upon the PES when I was browsing on Facebook. Dr. Shirley Dita of DLSU, one of the organizers, he just posted it as an event and I was among the first to confirm my attendance. I think it was originally planned for an attendance of 150 (based on the number of kits prepared). But interest in the symposium swelled; reaching up to 500.

"Selfie" is not a Philippine English word. But maybe "we-fie" will. 

The participants were all welcomed by Dr. Dita and Dr. Danica Salazar of Oxford University the co-organizer of the symposium. Dr. Dita herself gave the first talk, which was about the unique grammatical features of Philippine English (henceforth referred to as “PhE”). Among these were:

• PhE tends to use based from and results to instead of the standard based on and results in. 
• PhE tends to say such + 0 noun (without the articles a, an, and the) instead of such a/an/the (thing). 
• PhE tends to use the word to assure with only the indirect object and without the direct object; i.e., The president assured the flood victims (of what? More typhoons to come?). 
• PhE tends to use the simple aspect (past and present) instead of the more complex forms such as the perfect aspect (had/has/have + past participle) and the progressive (forms of to be + -ing form of the verb; e.g., They lived in Manila vs. They had lived in Manila… and They are living in Manila. 
• PhE tends to use the “zero majority” as in Majority of the student instead of the standard A majority of students. 
• PhE also tends to use the singular form of the noun in expressions such as one of the student instead of one of the students. 
• PhE is fond of repeating intensifiers, such as the famous “major, major”. 
• PhE is fond of using disjuncts as “discourse fillers” such as Actually, okay, as a matter of fact, & c. 

Dr. Ariane Borlongan, also of DLSU, discussed the diachronic (‘across time’) features of PhE. He compares the Phil-Brown corpus with the International Corpus of English – Philippine corpus (ICE-PHI). He demonstrated the PhE tends to use quasi-modals (going to, have to, able to) just like in American English; while British English tends to use full modals (will, must, can). Also, Filipinos tend to see indefinite pronouns ending with –body (everybody, somebody, nobody) more “elegant” than those ending with 

Dr. Aileen Salonga began her talk on “the politics of PE” by showing Kachru’s “concentric circles” illustrating World Englishes (yes, the plural for “English”): The inner circle are countries which are native speakers (US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada); the outer circle includes countries where English is a second language (Philippines, India, Singapore, & c.); and the “expanding circle” includes the rest of the world (e.g., the rest of Europe and Asia). "Access to different varieties of English is not really equal," she says. "Philippine English is not really equal with the other varieties... They are judged asymmetrically." She talked about the use of English used by Filipino call center agents and their difficulties in communicating with foreigners who use other varieties of English.

Dr. Alejandro Bernardo presented an “endonormative pedagogical model” in teaching English; that is, that the norms of teaching English should be that based in the Philippines instead of those from other countries like the US (“exonormative”). He advocates a “pluricentric model” where both PhE and “standard” American English are taught. He also said that students should not be penalized if they use PhE syntax and accent when they are using English in the local context.

Dr. Danica Salazar talked about “Philippine English on the cutting edge of lexicography”. She shared her work at Oxford University and at the Oxford English Dictionary. The OED is now sponsoring a project to create a dictionary of Philippine English words (such as bananacue and carnapping). She also shared an online project to compile a “Pinoy English Community Dictionary”.

Dr. Danilo Dayag of DLSU, former chair of the Department of English and Applied Linguistics (DEAL) and former president of the LSP, presented the status of Philippine English. He cited the need for a connection between linguistic research and educational practice: "Research should NOT be done for research sake." He echoed Dr. Borlongan that students should not be penalized for the use of PhE because they can be understood in the country anyway. Nor should students waste their time and effort in correcting student’s pronunciation and grammar when they can be understood anyway.

The seminar ended with a round-table discussion with all the speakers of the seminar plus Jessica Zafra, a popular writer, Reynaldo Binuya from La Consolacion College, Kriza Kamille Santos from the Divine Mercy College Foundation, and Freddie Sale, a BSE-English student at DLSU. Ms. Zafra quipped, “I don't like Facebook but I can't fight progress.”