THE SCOPE OF THE PRESENT STUDY OF PHILIPPINE ENGLISH PHONOLOGY.

TWO OBJECTIVES:

1. To apply Llamzon;s 1997 “ lectal” approach to Phillipine English phonology to an analysis of actual
language data.
2. To evaluate this approach with reference to the continuing evolution of PEP.

Pointed out that although Philippine English is derived at American English, Filipinos rarely
conform to the norms of American English in all setting
“Approximation of the English Formal is what they want”.

Lack of Nasal Twang

Arolect Variety

- Approximation to General American English Formal Style

- Citing well known personages in the media and education as representative speakers
- Llamzon comments here that the vowel and consonant systems of the acrolectal variety "closely
resemble those of the General American English phonemes'

Mesolect Variety

- He then proceeds to identify other Philippine celebrities in government, academia, and the mass
media
- the phonology of which displays an increased number of differences in comparison with American
English.

Basilec variety

-one where the speaker's ethnic tongue forms the substratum, and more substitutions are made

than in the mesolect for the acrolectal phonemes'

Sampling of respondents was expanded compared with Llamzon's 1997 study

1. The acrolect group included lectors, ministers, home-users of English, and English majors.

2.The mesolect group consisted of professionals who were non-English majors but who used English
extensively in the workplace,

3.basilect group was made up of non-professionals like janitors who had limited use of English.

In the identification of groupings, not only linguistic features, but also sociolinguistic features

were taken into account. In order to identify a respondent as an acrolectal, mesolectal. basilectal speaker,
I also took a number of social variables into consideration.

These included
 (1) the reported frequency of use of PE in various domains (such as home, work, politics, church, etc.);
(2) reported preference for English for such activities as writing reading, watching movies and television
programs, listening to the radio, religious services.

(3) the respondents' self-assessment of their ability to use English when speaking and listening, and
writing and reading.

with particular reference to patterns of word stress in PE.

THE STUDY

The respondents

This study comprises a descriptive survey of the phonological features of PE, as represented by three
groups of Filipino speakers of English.

1.Acrolect, whose speech style closely approximates that of formal GAE and is accepted in educated
Filipino circles.

2.Mesolec group comprises those whose speech style may exhibit divergences from American English of
a kind that do not generally affect communication,

3. Basilect group, the speech of whom is heavily affected By their native language.

The respondents for this study numbered 80 in all, and were classified into three groups.

as acrolectal, meselectal and basilectal speakers of Phil Eng, on the basis of their responses to a
questionnaire which surveyed their background.

The acrolect group was composed of respondents who had English as their first or home language, those
whose work necessitated the use of spoken English in broadcast media, in academia, in religious services,
and professionals whose field of expertise was English or subjects allied to it, such as mass
communications, speech and drama, linguistics, etc. Other variables considered were the frequency of use
of English in different domains, self- assessment of one's command of the language and preference of
which language to use.

The acrolect group numbered 30 in all

The mesolect group was made up of professionals who used English in their line of work but who
sometimes or seldom used it in other domains except when discussing job. related topics. Those in the
mesolect group rated themselves 'good'. 'average, in some instances 'weak' but rarely 'excellent in their
English abilities. The mesolect group also numbered 30.

The basilect group consisted of non-professionals like clerks, janitors, technicians, household helpers in
English-speaking homes or convent schools. Some had finished secondary school and a few had even
studied post-secondary vocational courses. They sometimes used English when discussing job-related
topics or interacting with superiors but they seldom or never used it at home with relatives, when
interacting with friend’s over the telephone, or when socializing with peers. They also assessed
themselves as either "average' or 'weak' in the use of English. The basilect group numbered 20.
Data collection

-took place between June and October 2002 in my own university, and other localities in Metro Manila.
The data-gathering instrument was made up of two parts.

The first gave a demographic profile of the respondents in terms of such personal information as their
names, age, sex, educational attainment, and home language language. It also revealed their frequency
of use of English in indicated domains (home, work, church) to carry out specific language task or function
(discussing, interacting, socializing, quarreling, praying); with different interlocutors (superiors. Peers,
subordinates, Fiends): their preference for reading, viewing and listening materials in English and the
writing of reports and letters in English, and how they rated themselves in using the language.

The second part of the data-collection instrument elicited from examples of spoken English, which
were recorded on audio tapes.

AUDIO TAPES These consisted of four sections.

In the first two sections responses were given in the form of a monologue

where the subjects indicated their name, their length of service in their occupation, what

they thought and felt about their jobs, and what they perceived their roles in their institutions to be.

The third section elicited the reading style of respondents.

Here Respondents were asked to read aloud two passages from the Bible: this activity was considered
appropriate because a good number of the respondents were ministers, lectors. or commentators on
religious services.

The fourth section of part two comprised lists of two sets of discrete words, intended to elicit the
wordlist speech style of respondents.

The first set included a list of words that carry distinctive word stress in PE.

The second set included words with vowel and consonant sounds that are distinctive in PE because of

issues relating to the absent and coalesced categories (in comparison to GAE) discussed in the previous
section.

Respondents were first grouped according to their occupational and social backgrounds After the
recordings had been made these were then analyzed and a description of distinctive features in PE
phonology was constructed. Where 80 percent of the respondent’s in a given group used a particular
phonological feature, it was then classified as an element in the phonological inventory of that group.
Based on the frequency of occurrence of a given phonological feature, the analysis looked for trends
covering all three groups, within groups and across groups.