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The politics of language in the Third World: Toward theory building
... Moreover, it is also clear that the framers of the Philippine Constitution -in the words of Commissioner Ponciano Bennagen -envisions a future where the national language "already becomes the primary language with the regional language as auxiliary and English as a subject, until such time again as the capabilities of the regions or the schools change." Strengthening the Filipino language is an imperative within the country's neocolonial, multilingual, and multicultural context for which developing, nurturing, and solidifying a strong national language for social cohesion at the very least, and to achieve the country's cultural, economic, and political emancipation at best, is necessary (Constantino, 1970;Villacorta, 1991;Atienza, 1998;Maceda, c.2003;Flores, 2015;Guillermo, 2016;San Juan, 2020c). The progressive potentials of a national language for social cohesion and socio-political emancipation is recently further highlighted by the young lumad's (indigenous people in Mindanao) embrace of Filipino language as a way to "shape nationalist, pro-people, and scientific education" (Dumapit, 2017) that unites and mobilizes the Filipino people for the country's socio-economic transformation. ...
This paper provides a practical guide in answering the unresolved question “What is the best medium of instruction” for Philippine schools?” The first part would discuss the second Marcos administration’s language policy and how it departs from the Philippine Constitution’s official language policy. The second part argues that while the Mother Tongue Based-Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) is a good compromise policy given the country’s multilingual, multicultural, and neocolonial status, its haphazard implementation has not (yet) delivered on its promises. The third part provides a deconstruction of myths surrounding various Philippine administrations’ and some education sector professionals’ and bureaucrats’ obsession with maintaining English as either the sole or main medium of instruction despite the fact that such policy goes against the Philippine Constitution’s official language provisions. The fourth part provides an alternative language policy (functional multilingualism), which may not be ideal, but could be a working compromise that would satisfy both national language advocates, MTB-MLE advocates, and foreign language enthusiasts too.
... A further step is Lingua Receptiva where speakers are not confined to using their mother tongue but may use other languages that may be effective in communication, such as a native speaker of Norwegian speaking Norwegian and a native speaker of Portuguese speaking English (ten Thije 2013: 137). 3 The apparent dominance of the Tagalog language, especially in the national and official language policies of the Philippines, has been evident in the history of the country (Gonzalez 1981(Gonzalez , 1991(Gonzalez , 1998(Gonzalez , 2001Villacorta 1991). The prominent late linguist Gonzalez explained that the historical circumstances allowed Tagalog to be chosen from among other existing languages to become the basis of the national language in-the-making, but he added that there was strong and continuing objection to this dominance by leading politicians from other regions, especially Cebu (Gonzalez 1991: 114-125). ...
How should national societies build legitimate and inclusive collective identities amidst prolific multiculturalism and linguistic diversity? We argue that cultural ownership of particular ways of framing ethics should be part of this collective identity building process. We should avoid unfair domination of minority cultural identities, but how do we do this when ethical discourses themselves tend to be shaped by particular dominant identities? We look into the case of the challenges that a particular multicultural society, the Philippines, faces in its ongoing collective identity building project on three levels: (1) ethnic and linguistic differences (e.g. differences between Tagalog, Cebuano, Maranao, etc.), (2) the historical layers of foreign culture (e.g. Islamic, Spanish, and American) that have each influenced these distinct cultural identities in different degrees, and (3) the apparent domination of Tagalog linguistic culture over others. Our answer to the question of legitimate and inclusive collective identity comes from an inter-linguistic dialogue that can be effected between cultures by harnessing similarities of ethical concepts, without compromising cultural differences. We present three different possible approaches under the following headings: (1) Pilipino ethics, (2) Filipino ethics and (3) Philippine ethics, each representing a particular stance to the dominant Tagalog linguistic culture. We argue for the third option, which is the most inclusive because of how it equalizes the status of all participating cultures in the dialogue. We also draw from the possibilities afforded by the phenomena of Scandinavian semicommunication (Haugen 1966) and what this practice offers in making collective identity building more inclusive.
Chapter 1 demonstrated the distinctiveness of language politics of North American integration in comparison with Europe and South America. This chapter further specifies North American distinctiveness by deriving a series of propositions about language politics there. Case studies in subsequent chapters (Chapters 3–6) build on these propositions, and a final chapter presents overall conclusions.
This essay examines the limits of the nationalist language policy in the Philippines which is aimed at dislodging English from its privileged position in the controlling linguistic domains.1 Following the suspect adoption of Filipino (a.k.a. Tagalog) as national language in the 1987 Constitution, the Philippines has witnessed a resurgence of nationalist rhetoric in defense of the privileging of one of the country's more than eighty languages as the de jure lingua franca. To the extent that English in the Philippines has evolved into a distinct variety, the essay advocates its institution as sole official language of the country, even as it urges the maintenance of the vernaculars, including Tagalog, as integral part of the Filipino people's multicultural heritage. Unlike Tagalog, which is viewed with skepticism by other ethnolinguistic groups, Philippine English has established itself as an indispensable medium of social and intellectual exchange and a legitimate vehicle of the Filipino people's vision. © 2008 by Hong Kong University Press, HKU. All rights reserved.
The Philippines is one of the most significant and most interesting English-using societies in Asia, where there has been a general awareness and recognition of a localized variety of English characterized by its own distinct lexicon, accent, and variations in grammar. © 2008 by Hong Kong University Press, HKU. All rights reserved.
This survey includes studies published mainly—but not exclusively—during the 1990s and focuses on literature that brings to the debate on world Englishes theoretical, conceptual, descriptive, ideological, and power-related concerns. The concept “world Englishes”—its genesis and its theoretical, contextual, and pedagogical implications and appropriateness—has been discussed during the past two decades in several programmatic studies and conference presentations (see B. Kachru 1994a). The concept, though not necessarily the term “world Englishes,” gradually evolved during the post-colonial period after the 1960s. It refers to the recognition of a unique linguistic phenomenon, and particularly to the changing contexts of the post-1940s. It was during this period that post-Imperial Englishes were being gradually institutionalized in the language policies of the changed political, educational, and ideological contexts of what were earlier the colonies of the UK and the USA. The earlier tradition of cross-cultural and cross-linguistic acquisition of English, its teaching, and its transformations were being reevaluated by some researchers. The major concerns of this reevaluation include the implications of pluricentricity (Clyne 1992), the new and emerging norms of performance, and the acceptance of the bilingual's creativity as a manifestation of the contextual and formal hybridity of Englishes. In other words, a critical evaluation of earlier paradigms was slowly initiated.
The academic literature on issues related to the Philippine English language and literature is substantial. This bibliography surveys relevant work on such related fields as ‘The sociology of language and language planning’, ‘Bilingualism, bilingual education, and languages in education’, ‘Language attitudes’, ‘Code-switching and code-mixing’, ‘Philippine English as a “new English”’, and ‘Philippine creative writing in English’. It is hoped that this bibliography will be of use to students and researchers overseas as well as in the Philippines.
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