The Intelligibility of Philippine English to a Selected ASEAN Country – Thailand
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.56498/31202148Keywords:
World Englishes, Philippine English, Acrolectal, Mesolectal, BasilectalAbstract
This paper is a sequence to a bigger research project that attempts to document the intelligibility of Philippine English (PE) to its neighboring countries, specifically those included in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) partnership. From this perspective, the study attempted to identify and demonstrate how intelligible PE is to Thais. The study examined acrolectal, mesolectal, and basilectal speakers of PE, and they underwent two tests, the pronunciation task, and the stress task. The listeners were given six tests, three cloze tests, one intelligibility questionnaire, one perception of PE, and one English proficiency self-assessment. These tests were to confirm that they really belong to the lectal category. The results revealed that PE is about 50% intelligible for Thais. The factors that have strongly affected this intelligibility rate are listeners’ familiarity with the variety and the speakers’ effort, choice of words, rate, and pronunciation. It has to be noted that English in Thailand is a foreign language, but then the listeners’ perceived language proficiency did not significantly affect the intelligibility of PE. Moreover, their perception of PE did not affect their understanding of the utterances of the speakers.
References
Bautista, M. L. (1997). The lexicon of Philippine English. In M. L. Bautista (Ed.), English is an Asian Language: The Philippine Context (pp. 49-72). Manila: The Macquarie Library.
Bautista, M. L. (2000). Defining standard Philippine English: Its status and grammatical features. Manila: De La Salle University Press, Inc.
Bautista, M. L. (2008). Investigating the grammatical features of Philippine English. In M. L. Bautista, & K. Bolton (Eds.), Philippine English: Linguistic and Literary Perspective (pp. 201-218). Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Bolton, K., & Butler, S. (2008). Lexicography and the description of Philippine English vocabulary. In M. L. Bautista, & K. Bolton (Eds.), Philippine English: Linguistic and Literary Perspective (pp. 176-200). Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
British Council. (2013). The effect English. Retrieved from http://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/britishcouncil.uk2/files/english-effect-report.pdf
Canagarajah, A. S. (2006). Negotiating the local in English as Lingua Franca. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 6, 197-218.
Canagarajah, A. S. (2012). Redefining proficiency in global English. In N. Zacharias, & C. Manara (Eds.), Bringing linguistics and literature into EFL classrooms. Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Publishing Scholars.
Dayag, D. T. (2007). Exploring the intelligibility of Philippine English. Asian Englishes, 10(1), 4-23.
Gustilo, L. (2011). Modal auxiliaries in Philippine English newspapers: A corpus-based analysis. Philippine ESL Journal, 6, 81-109.
Gustilo, L., Tocalo, A.W, & Calingasan, K.A. (2019).The Intelligibility and Acceptability of Internet Philippine English (IPE): Their Implications to English Language Teaching in New English Varieties. The Asian EFL Journal, (21)2.5, 83-104.
Halliday, M., McIntosh, A., Strevens, P., & Halliday, M. A. (1964). The Linguistic Sciences and Language Teaching. London: Longman.
Hu, X. Q. (2004). Why China English should stand alongside British, American, and World Englishes. English Today, 20(2), 26-33.
Hunt, L. (2014). English remains ASEAN's best policy. Retrieved from http://thediplomat.com/2014/01/english-remains-aseans-best-policy/
Jenkins, J. (2003). World Englishes: A resource book for students. London: Routledge.
Llamzon, T. A. (1969). Standard Filipino English. Manila: Ateneo University Press.
Mahboob, A. (2010). World Englishes and higher education. Kritika Kultura, 5-33. Retrieved from http://kritikakultura.ateneo.net/images/pdf/kk15/worldenglishes.pdf
Mizusawa,Y. (2020). Lexicogrammatical and semantic development in academic writing of EFL learners: A Systemic Functional Approach. Modern Journal of Studies in English Language Teaching and Literature 2(2), 105-117.
Ong, E.S., & Padilla, P.P. (2020). Explicit contextual and morphemic analysis instruction, vocabulary, and reading comprehension among Grade 4 students. Modern Journal of Studies in English Language Teaching and Literature 2(2), 75-104.
Prator, C. (1968). The British heresy in TESL. In J. Fishman, C. Ferguson, & J. D. Gupta (Eds.), In Language Problems of Developing Nations (pp. 459-76). New York: John Wiley.
Qi, G.Y. (2016). The importance of English in primary school education in China: Perceptions of students. Multilingual Education 6(1), 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13616-016-0026-0
Quirk, R. (1990). Language varieties and standard language. English Today, 21, 3-21.
Saito, K., & van Poeteren, K. (2012). Pronunciation-specific adjustment strategies for intelligibility in L2 teacher talk: results and implications of a questionnaire study. Language Awareness, 21(4), 369-385.
Smith, L. E., & Nelson, C. L. (1985). International intelligibility of English: Directions and resources. World Englishes, 4(3), 333-342.
Tayao, M. L. (2004). The evolving study of Philippine English phonology. World Englishes, 23(1), 77-99.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2021 Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work’s authorship and initial publication in this journal.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
