The Indigenization of English....

Linguistic Realization of Norm-Shifts

Richards (1980) defined norm switching as something that describes the selection of a variable rather than a categorical feature from the speech code of the individual for particular types of speech event.

The variable features for instance in Manila, a speaker may code-switch between Tagalog and English through -out the entire length of a speech event, or in Singapore where speakers of English frequently switch effortlessly from a variety of English which is close to standard British English, to a variety of English which is quite different from standard British English. Thus, this norm switching is a major and distinctive characteristic of many indigenized varieties of English.

Richards (1980) included both the linguistic and the functional dimensions of language nativization that have lead to the development of language varieties. He elucidated the functional distinctions between rhetorical and communicative norms. A rhetorical norm is a variety of languages used for speech events that have the functional status of public, formal, high, and a communicative norm a speech repertoire used for speech events which have the contrasting functional status of private, informal, and low.

Considerably, his study on the linguistic realization of norm-shifts is far more interesting and related to the study of indigenization. Some of the processes that have been observed in Singapore English, Filipino English, Fijian English and Indian English are confined to the use of grammatical features that mark the shift from rhetorical to communicative norm (grammatical shift), the variable employment of morphemes from local languages attached to English sentences to mark a communicative norm (morpheme shift), and finally the replacement of a known English word by a word from a local language when the speech event calls for a communicative norm(lexical shift).

Code Switching vs. Borrowing

A part of his study dealt on the role of code switching and lexical borrowing. Crystal (1992) defined code switching as the use by a speaker of more than one language, dialect, or variety during conversation. Which form is used will depend on such factors as the nature of the audience, the subject matter, and the situation in which the conversation takes place. On the other hand, borrowing means the introduction of a word (or some other linguistic feature) from one language or dialect into another. Vocabulary borrowings are usually called loan words.

Holmes (1992) illustrated code switching and borrowing as evident in multilingual and bilingual communities. She explained that people sometimes switch code within a domain or social situation. Such situations include the following functions: (1) show status relations between people or the formality of their interaction (e.g. arrival of a new person); (2) code switch related to a particular participant or addressee (e.g. presence of a new participant); (3) signal of group membership and shared ethnicity with an addressee; (3) affective functions like disapproval (e.g. angry); interlocutors need not to understand the words but simply to get its affective message.

Code switching by its nature use brief phrases and words. Thus, it can be an interjection, a tag, or sentence filler in the other language that serves as ethnic identity marker. These switches are very well motivated in relation to the symbolic or social meanings of the two codes.

Holmes distinguished this kind of switching from borrowing. People borrow words from another language to express a concept or describe an object for which there is no obvious word available in the language they are using. Borrowing often differs from code switches in form, too. Borrowed words are usually adapted to the speaker’s first language; that is, they are pronounced and used grammatically as if they were part of their language.

Though there are still some unsolved linguistic constraints in using rapid code switching, other sociolinguists argue for greater attention to social and contextual factors. The points at which people switch codes are likely to vary according to many different factors such as which codes are involved, the functions of the particular switch, and the level of proficiency in each code of the people switching.

Richards (1980) gave a different view by distinguishing diglossic code switching from code switching as a linguistic device employed in nativized varieties of English. In diglossic code switching “code alternation is largely of the situational type”. Distinct varieties are employed in certain settings (such as home, school, work) associated with separate bounded kinds of activities (public speaking, formal negotiations, special ceremonies, verbal games) or spoken with different categories of speakers (friends, family members, strangers, social inferiors, government officials).

Moreover, he defined lexical borrowing, which refers to as the terms from local languages which have entered the speech code but which do not carry particular communicative or affective value and for which no English equivalent exists. However, it should be noted that the choice of a word from a local language rather than the English word appears to soften the effect of the speech event, making it more colloquial and informal.

Literary Devices

Literary devices are equated with linguistic devices in terms of functions. Literary devices are commonly used to make the story more artistic and that these devices help the author bring about a more dramatic scene in presenting the story. Alolor (1995) in his study on the journey motif in contemporary Filipino novels in English found that Filipino novelists deploy literary elements and devices to help manifest and modulate the journey motifs in their works. Not only do novelists use literary devices but short story writers as well. Fiction writers’ primary objective is to achieve a sense of reality and the reality of a work of fiction is its illusion of reality (Wellek and Warren, 1966). Thus, they utilize literary devices in the creation of this reality.

Alolor explained that:

Literary devices are tools that a [novelist] can use to
enhance and develop the artistry of his creation. These
devices become intrinsic to the work only in so far as
they contribute to the meaning and significance of the entire
work.

The purpose of the poets’ use of figurative language is not far from the short story writers’ point of view in using these literary devices. Coombs (1953) stated that in a good creative writer’s hands, the image fresh and vivid, is at its fullest used to intensify, to clarify, to enrich; a successful image helps to make people feel the writer’s grasp of his subject. Indeed, these literary devices clarify and illuminate the subject to which it is relevant.

Filipino Culture and Value Systems

Andres(1981) explained that culturally, the population of the Philippines reflects a great variety of external influences which have impinged upon and blended with the original Malay culture: Arabian, Chinese, Indo-Chinese, Hindu-Indonesian, Spanish – Catholic, and American Protestant. Thus cultural traits have been borrowed somehow, but combined in such a way that the result is distinctly “Filipino”. He divulged that the lineal village, the strong family unit, the kinship relationships extended through marriage and leadership, the authority vested in family heads and elders were all existent even before the Western contact.

Similarly, Graves (1974) disclosed that the Filipinos seek only the immediate satisfaction of their basic physiological needs. Though they live purely on the basis of physiological needs, they also aim for advancement to a higher social class or position for the improvement of one’s lot and one’s family, as well as for the enjoyment of accompanying rewards, influence, power, and prestige through education. This explains why Filipino parents work hard to send their children to exclusive schools.

Certainly, the Family and the kinship system is the most important and highly valued segment in Philippine society. The father is the head of the family but which he rules, the mother governs. For it is the mother that reigns in the home, she is the educator, the financial officer, the laundry woman, and the cook (Agoncillo and Alfonso, 1961). Primarily, rural women are housewives but share in the farm work and are especially active in planting, harvesting, and raising chickens and pigs. Also, if they are restricted in occupational opportunities, so is the husband, who is usually engaged in work relating to agriculture.

Accordingly, Ortigas and Regalado (1978) specified a number of rural cultural patterns in the Philippines. Family care begins with infancy and early childhood. The pregnancy of a woman and the coming of a child is regarded as a truly “ blessed event” to be celebrated with appropriate ceremony. Later, the Filipino parents exercise almost absolute powers over their children. Hence they expect their children to be forever grateful to them.

The Filipino family dwells in a relatively simple house, of nipa, bamboo, or wood, sometimes located along a main road and sometimes so isolated that only a footpath can reach them. Farming is still the predominant interest in the rural area. Almost all family members including the children are a labor force in farming. More and more the boys help their father in the tasks of the farm and the girls assist their mother in the household routine.
Although farming is one of the sources of income in the barrio, it is also one of the unending problems. Economic conflict is often one involving a landlord and a tenant or a farmer, which leads to factionalism. Segmentation of rural folks is also based upon residence, age, language use, religion, kinship, economic status, or any combination of these traits. On the other hand, there are also many Filipino values that may perceive as something worth keeping.

Reciprocity (utang na loob) indicates a debt which cannot be expressed in quantitative terms. This act is so natural that a person should develop a feeling of reciprocity toward those who have helped to his/her endeavors. Awa or compassion is another operational principle and norm of the Filipino. It is a sentiment of sympathy, mercy, or pity aroused when someone suffers misfortune or injustice.

The theoretical concept of the Philippine-Value-System of Graves(1974) as noted by Andres (1981) focused on the various levels of existence of the Filipino value system such as tribalistic, egocentric, saintly, materialistic, and personalistic. The tribalistic existence includes personalistic view of the universe, supernaturalistic world-view, nonscientifuc and nonrational beliefs, cyclic and psychological time-orientation, bahala na, suwerte, gaba, awa ng Diyos. The egocentric existence involves amor propio, hiya, kaulaw, ka-ikog, kataha, tayo-tayo system, Filipino subservience, ambivalence and noninterference. The Filipino values within the saintly existence are pagtitiis, solidarity, bayanihan, utang na loob and reliogisity. On the other hand, the materialistic existence comprises economic security, social mobility, palakasan, nepotism and relation, and Filipino concept of property. Finally, the social acceptance, pagsasarili, acceptance of the person, fear of rejection, sensitivity to personal affront, smooth interpersonal relations, pleasantness, desire to please and not to hurt, pakikisama, euphemism, use of go-between, Filipino hospitality, and love for affiliations embody the personalistic existence.

In addition, even the language of the Filipinos has truly affected their behavior, speech, attitudes, values and generally, their culture.

Language and Culture

In Philippine History, the ancient Filipinos had a culture that was Malayan in structure and form. They had written languages that traced their origin to the Austronesian parent-stock and used them not only as media of daily communication, but also as vehicles of their literary moods (Agoncillo, 1990). However, as time changes, the Filipino language and literature have also changed dramatically during the American period. A few English words were adopted into Tagalog like ining (inning), plorlider (floor leader), kendi (candy) and a lot more, had become part of the Filipino vocabulary. Later, English phrases and idioms have been translated into Tagalog which resulted to unconscious humor, such as kalangitang ipinagbawal (forbidden glory), sa pagitan ng mga talata (between the lines), magbukas ng apoy (to open fire), mapanganib na lumulipad (dangerous fly) and others. Agoncillo noted that the continued use of English makes it a potent force in the cultural life of the people. Thus, the English language has in one way or the other a part of the Filipino culture.

The integration of the English language to the Filipino culture resulted to recodification of orthography, phonology, lexicon, and grammar. For instance, the grammar of American Standard English has some features which simply do not occur in the grammar of Filipinos (Holmes 1992). Holmes explained that language varies according to its users, according to where it is used and to whom, as well as according to who is using it. The addressees and the context affect the choice of code or variety, whether language, dialect or style. In as much that there are clear indications that the Filipinos used English in a different way, the changes have also suited their way of using the Western language. As the English language was introduced to them, the Filipino writers were influenced by its complexity. Nevertheless, one can still infer the ethnicity or cultural background of the writer, or better yet the setting and the theme in which a particular culture is introduced, for the Filipino writers often use a language to signal their membership of particular groups.

The Filipino short story writers use short phrases, verbal fillers, or linguistic tags which signal ethnicity. Moreover, they incorporate linguistic signals of the speakers’ ethnic identity. This pave way to the idea that one’s culture can still be found in a strange language. This is so because languages are not purely linguistic entities, they also serve social and cultural functions.

Fishman, Ferguson, and Gupta (1968) clearly explained that Language is not only a powerful lever in social, cultural,
and national development but it is a constant ingredient of such
development and, in its realization as speech or writing, a powerful
indicator of interaction networks, social institutions, role-relationships,
domains of aggregative activity,dominant value clusters, and national
missions or symbols.

Even the sociologists have become sensitively aware of language as a clue to societal change and development and furthermore, aware of language as an area or object of societal change and development per se. Indeed, a language has its special feature that brings development among men of different cultures.

Moreover, language has the ability to capture massive transformations of social institutions, economic structures, lifestyles, traditions, and culture. Jose (1988) explained that praxis exists in different levels of any social formation which makes mankind advances understandably. The inexorable emergence of the new in mankind's efforts to conquer nature and himself, including the formation of a new society, has indeed been demonstrated many times over in history and in literature. Thus, short stories and any other literary works which contain folklore inevitably becomes part of praxis which operates on different levels of society and reflects its varied ranges of human activities.

Ponteras (1984) clearly elaborated the idea of folk medicine and folklore in relation to the written records that preserved the traditional beliefs and practices of the Filipinos. He defined folk medicine which is also known as traditional medicine as a 'lore of the people' which is passed from generation to generation by word of mouth and example. It is integrated in the belief system of the people, making it difficult to delineate fact from imagination, and magic from religion. Thus, one hears of critics, skeptics calling folk medicine as 'superstition' practiced among the ignorant, unlettered, and the mass of humanity of low socio-economic status. However, recent investigations have a 'second look' at folk medicine. There are a few works which even suggest the adoption of the indigenous medical system as an 'alternative' approach to health and illness of the mass of humanity, especially those in the developing and under-developed countries. Ponteras strongly believed that folk medicine as a form of folklore is a valid institution within the cultural contexts of the people and a rich field for scholars and laymen.

Recio(1981) elucidated that Philippine folk medicine includes divination, exorcism, massage, bone-setting, faith healing, herbal therapy and more. Also, therapeutic procedures encompass rituals, prayers, decoction and infusion of herbs, plasters, massage, among others. Therefore, she deliberated that there is a need for systematic correlation of objective of pathology, as determined by western clinical method with the diagnosis and explanations of the native. This can reconcile the folk and western orientation in medicine which results in holistic approach.

On the other hand, Mojares (1988) claimed that folklore is generated in a field of conflict, where competing moral claims are made by various social groups. It is mediated by the structures of being and knowing of times past, or times different from ours; by language and artistic conventions; by the teller of the tale and the particular contexts of the telling. In addition, Rosal (1988) stressed that the task of modernization and development in relation to Philippine folk beliefs must consider the temperament, the folkways, the values and the belief systems of those for whom the change for development is intended. Otherwise, the efforts to institute change for progress will only succeed in provoking the hostility and bitterness of the folks, thereby causing fissures in the social system that will be very difficult to bridge.

Finally, Santos (1988) explained that above all the issues and concern regarding the study of Philippine folk belief which includes the real concept of folk medicine, folklore, and its modernization and transformation, the empirical and philosophical standpoint structural transformations of folk literary works are about as logical as the evolution of linguistic conventions.

(Please email the author for a sample linguistic analysis on one of Manuel Arguilla's short stories.)

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