Seminar – The Philippine English Symposium

 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).

It was difficult to choose among all the activities that seemed to have converged on that day, the Feast of the Holy Cross. There was another seminar, the Emy Pascasio Memorial Lecture at the Ateneo de Manila University (I was able to attend last year in spite of a typhoon), also co-sponsored by the LSP. There was also the annual Manila Book Fair at the SMX Convention Center, SM Mall of Asia. A former bishop of ours in The United Methodist Church, Dr. Emerito P. Nacpil, would launch his second book on the same day; and my confreres in the Order of St. Luke (OSL) are attending that. There would also be a lecture by respected columnist Dr. Isagani Cruz in the evening.

Back in Cavite, I was supposed to attend a meeting of church workers in our district and also a seminar led by the host of Hardin ng Panalangin on DZAS, the Rev. Joey Umali, also a UMC pastor.

So many events, so little time!

I decided to attend the seminar at La Salle because: 1) since I am in the academe, I need to attend a seminar that is related to my field; 2) the topic, Philippine English and lexicography, interests me as a linguist; and 3) it was free.

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. To my surprise, a lot of my former classmates in the graduate school at Philippine Normal University – Manila have also signified their attendance, making it an impromptu reunion!

I arrived at DLSU a little before 12 noon. The symposium’s venue, the Henry Sy, Sr. Hall, is an imposing edifice. It was supported on the ground floor by huge concrete pillars, creating an open space beneath the building. When I arrived, some students were executing formations for their ROTC training.

I met one of my former classmates, Mam Gwen So, at the first floor. There were the registration tables, with statuesque Dr. Dita herself at the head. We were handed our seminar kits—a status symbol meaning you are among the first registrants. It was a foldable blue “eco-bag” that are the rage these days. It was stamped with the name of the Oxford English Dictionary, a sponsor of the symposium. Since we didn’t have lunch yet, Mam Gwen and I looked for somewhere to eat before we went to the seminar venue on the fifth floor (not before we got caught it a sudden downpour).

The foldable OED eco-bag. Geeky.

When we arrived at the seminar hall, we were quickly spotted by our former classmates: Phoebe, Mark, Jessica, and Guia. There was also another former classmate, Karren, who was with her boyfriend. One professor, another Methodist, recognized the cross-and-flame logo on my shirt. I also spotted Chelsea, another friend, on the other side of the hall. Pictures were quickly snapped and we prepared ourselves for the start of the symposium.

"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 tend 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.”

* * *

After the seminar (or rather, “shortly” before it ended), Phoebe, Mark, Jessica, Guia, and I hustled over the Book Fair to catch Dr. Cruz’s lecture. We were crestfallen when we found out that there was a registration fee that was a bit steep. So we decided to browse some books at the Book Fair itself. We drooled over the books (not literally) but a lot were simply out of our reach. We crossed over to Mall of Asia to have dinner before going home.

 Photos courtesy of Phoebe Sarah Montubig.