CENTENNIAL LECTURES

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Today’s Pinoy English is a result of gradual drift in

language
Malicsi says English in RP is changing.

The English language in the Philippines has continued to change ever since English has been used as the country’s
official language and the medium of instruction during the American colonial period. Dr. Jonathan Malicsi,
Professor of Linguistics, identified some factors in the evolution of Philippine English, in his Rafael Palma
Centennial Lecture on August 8, entitled “Pinoy English: A Case of Language Drift.”

Malicsi

Describing the features of English in the Philippines today, Malicsi began using video
presentations of two non-English speakers with different ethnic backgrounds and with
English as their second language: one, Queen Rania of Jordan and the other, President
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
“Ikumpara natin ang dalawang babae na namumuno sa kani-kanilang lipunan. Pareho
silang nag-Iingles, pareho silang nagsusulong sa paggamit ng Ingles sa kanilang sariling
lipunan at pareho silang nag-aral sa mga kolehiyo, na Ingles lang ang ginagamit. Pero
ang isa sa kanila, nag-aral din sa United States [samantalang] yung isa sa kanila, nag-
aral lang sa rehiyon kung saan siya ipinanganak,” Malicsi said, illustrating how two
English-language learners learn the language differently, with President Arroyo learning
the indigenized form used in the Philippines.
English has become indigenized by those who use the language as an official language as
in many countries around the world. This includes Pinoy English, considered an “English
dialect.”
Malicsi said English has neither deteriorated in the Philippines nor is degraded, but
“English is changing in the Philippines.”
Language Drift: These “random changes” in the English language in the Philippines
resulted from a phenomenon which Malicsi referred to as the Language Drift.
“Pinoy English has particular linguistic features that arose out of a gradual drift in
language learning away from the native language speaker, such that generations of
Filipino learners of English have picked up the forms and rules of English from Filipino
second-language learners trained by other Filipino second-language learners,” Malicsi
explained, emphasizing the dependence of the English language professionals today on
the anthologies and grammar books of the English native speakers as their primary
sources for teaching.
To prove his point, Malicsi situated English learning in various modes of learning a
foreign language, beginning with immersion. Immersion is the first and best way to learn
a language – foreign or native - reiterating the importance of recognizing the relationship
between language and culture.
“...ating nakakalimutan na iyong mga forms, mga processes at yung meaning ng
language, naka-embed dun sa culture,” Malicsi said.
These ways of learning English have changed gradually, as may be seen even today.
“Lumayo tayo dun sa initial phase na iyon. Ang nangyari, hindi na contact with the
culture, o contact with the language speaker kung hindi contact through social sciences,”
Malicsi said, emphasizing the transfer of language and culture not by direct contact but
through available materials for learning.
Malicsi added, “Nababasa natin kung ano ang ugali ng mga Amerikano, hindi natin na-
experience ang ugali nila....sa halip na makarinig tayo ng mga salita sa mga native
language speaker, nababasa natin kung ano ang language nila at ano ang grammar
books nila… Dito na nagsimula ang tinatawag natin na Language Drift. Kasi nandun sa
kabilang ibayo ang mga nagsasalita ng taal na wikang Ingles, narito tayo pero wala
tayong contact.”
Diffusion: The new forms and meanings of the English language that resulted from
Language Drift, forming the features of today’s Pinoy English, are proliferated through
the process Malicsi called “diffusion.”
Diffusion for Malicsi is a “model of explaining human behavior,” much like the “spread of
a virus in a population.”
Malicsi provided five ways for diffusion to work. He said the individual must have the
object of diffusion and he must be connected with another by some kind of relevant
communication link. He must also “transmit the object of diffusion.” Another important
element is acceptance. The other individual must accept the object of diffusion. After
diffusion has happened, the object of diffusion is in both individuals involved, indefinitely.
Among the top diffusers are teachers, priests and ministers, media practitioners,
copywriters and administrators.
The Language Drift Hypothesis explains why a number of concerns and situations have
remained unsolved or unchanged, allowing Pinoy English to continue developing as an
English dialect.
First,
English language professionals (ELPs) are unable to determine errors in their English
usage. ELPS do not consider their English as “substandard,” emphasizing the role of the
milieu in “reinforcing the variety.” The “communicative” approach to English teaching
does not help ELPs to correct their English usage, since this approach allows errors to
occur for as long as the speaker or writer can be understood.
Second, administrators, though aware of the English language deficiency of their
educators, do not “seriously seek change as they seem to be concerned more with their
earnings than with providing quality educational service.”
Third, there is no English language degree program that requires a student to take an
international English proficiency test as a requirement in any course or a prerequisite for
graduation as an English language major.
Fourth, the school system has kept the situation in which English teachers with the
lowest level of proficiency teach in elementary school, while those with the highest level
of proficiency teach in college, with the unfortunate consequence that children are taught
during their formative years, for the longest period (six years) by the least competent.
Fifth, advertisements for job openings in call centers place no premium on a college
degree in English, Speech, or Broadcast Communication. In fact, even high school
graduates may qualify.
Sixth, ELPs resist learning and teaching International English (the English of international
print and broadcast media), especially when they realize that the shift involves
painstaking drills in many details, over a period of two to three years.
It takes strong administrative will to impose the shift and overcome teacher resistance.
Malicsi emphasized that the shift must be “systemic.” He said all teachers using English
as instructional language are de facto English teachers, and all personnel using English
as official language are themselves language diffusers; thus, they should all participate in
the paradigm shift.
scored the importance of studying Pinoy English: to satisfy “linguistic curiosity and
establish its identity apart from the other Englishes of the world.” He said Pinoy has
become an English dialect ever since English has been pluralized or when the phrase,
“Englishes of the world” has become popular. This popularity started with the recognition
of English as the official language of many countries in the world, resulting in a number
of English dialects like Singaporean English, Pinoy English and Indian English.
Another reason to study Pinoy English is to be able to “articulate the contrasts between
Pinoy English and International English.” That way, he said, “teaching of IE to Filipinos
can be better directed.”
There is a need to study English “to advise foreigners (like tourists, investors, managers)
dealing with Pinoys on the peculiarities of PE.
The presentation yielded an inventory of common English errors Filipino English speakers
commit. It also provided an overview of the continuing development of Pinoy English as
an English dialect. Malicsi expressed concern that the present government’s plan to make
English as the “primary medium of instruction, through legislation, will simply intensify
the drift.”

— Floyd Padilla
Information Officer
College of Social Sciences and Philosophy