Regional Variability and Domain-Specific Acceptance of Philippine English Expressions Among Younger Filipinos

Abstract

Philippine English (PhE) is a dynamic variety of the English language influenced by local languages and cultures. Despite its widespread use, PhE acceptability studies have often focused on Metro Manila, neglecting regional variations. This study aims to explore the acceptability of PhE expressions or Filipinisms across different regions and communication domains among younger Filipinos, addressing the gap in regional representation in previous research. We gathered data employing the Philippine English Acceptability Questionnaire (PEAQ) involving 160 undergraduate students from Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao, and the National Capital Region. The questionnaire included 100 items from various etymological origins and asked respondents to rate their acceptability across formal and informal, written and spoken domains. Our findings indicate a high overall acceptability of PhE expressions across all regions, with the National Capital Region showing slightly lower acceptance rates. Certain expressions were preferred in specific domains, such as legal terms in formal contexts and everyday terms in informal settings. The study confirms the strong acceptance of PhE expressions among younger Filipinos, suggesting a move towards endonormative stabilization of PhE, challenging previous findings of limited acceptance and highlighting the influence of digital media on language use. In addition, our findings have implications for language planning and policy reforms, suggesting that PhE local expressions can be more prominently included in academic and professional settings. Despite limitations in sampling and geographic representation, this study significantly contributes to the understanding of PhE’s evolving status in the linguistic landscape of the Philippines.

1. Introduction

Philippine English (henceforth PhE), a nativized postcolonial variety of English in the Philippines, remains to be one of the most extensively studied varieties in World Englishes (WE). English in the Philippines, introduced by the Americans, dates back to the early 1900s. However, scholarship in PhE started gaining traction when Teodoro Llamson claimed the emergence of a standardized English variety in his book Standard Filipino English in 1969 (Bolton 2023; Borlongan 2023a). Research endeavors on PhE blossomed upon the introduction of the World Englishes (WE) paradigm (Bolton 2013), which originated from the pioneering work of Kachru (1976) on the identity of English in postcolonial contexts. Its base argument lies upon the notion that English now belongs to all those who use it (Brown 1995 in Bautista 2000), and that no variety should be regarded as better than the other (Kirkpatrick 2007). WE perspectives catapulted the claim that the PhE variety is an “indispensable” and “legitimate” vehicle of Filipino thought and identity beyond functional affairs (Borlongan 2023a; Schneider 2023; Gonzales 2017; Manarpaac 2003), a so-called autonomous variety with its self-contained system (McKaughan 1993). Kachru’s legacy has likewise given Filipino scholars and teachers of English the boldness to resist linguistic hegemony (Martin 2014) emanating from the Inner Circle (or misleadingly called the “native speaking” world).

The Kachruvian legacy and the concept of PhE ownership fuel linguistic research in the Philippines, which has produced voluminous works by prominent Filipino scholars like Andrew Gonzalez, Bonifacio Sibayan, Emma Pascacio, Ma. Lourdes Bautista (Bolton 2023), and their students. The most recent and wide-ranging resource for PhE is Borlongan’s (2023b) edited book, which covers wide-ranging topics that include PhE’s history, resources for investigation, linguistic structure, sociolinguistics variation and change, linguistic variation and change, literary canon, psycholinguistic dimensions, learning and teaching, and contemporary issues. While objectively describing sad realities and insufficiencies about PhE and English in the Philippines, PhE scholars valorize the achievements of PhE. What is most interesting and encouraging are the descriptions of Schneider (2023, p. 24) regarding PhE, that “it stands out in some respects and shows some distinctive qualities and a combination of properties and settings which make it unique in the overall framework”. He characterized PhE as a historically late yet unique, remarkably fast, and widely transported variety, on its way to endonormativity due to its oscillating function as an equalizer and stratifier within a multilingual context amid the presence of an endolinguistic national language policy.

Despite the linguistic battles won to establish the pluralistic orientation to Asian Englishes (Bolton 2023) and a plethora of research that boosts PhE, a disturbing question still remains: Is PhE acceptable to Filipinos who, in the past, have put the Inner Circle varieties of English on a pedestal as the most preferred variety in academic discourse (Bautista 2001a, 2001b)? Hence, the acceptability of PhE and new meanings and formations of Filipinisms are the focus of this current investigation.

1.1. Attitude and Acceptability Studies on PhE

Acceptability studies in PhE are associated with attitude studies which aimed to shed light on people’s evaluations of PhE’s status, development, prestige, lexicon, intelligibility, and pedagogical models. According to Bautista (2000), acceptability is related to the positive attitude of respondents towards a specific lexicon. The literature on PhE attitude research reveals that Filipinos exhibit linguistic schizophrenia—a term used by (Kachru 1993 in Ting and Wong 2019) to refer to users who show recognition of their localized variety but still regard “native” varieties as the standard and consider nativized features as products of declining language standards. In PhE context, it refers to an attitude showing a generally positive evaluation of PhE yet holding negative views about its localized expressions. The classic example of such schizophrenia is exemplified by the respondents in Bautista’s (2001b) study who were faculty members and students of four universities in the Philippines. They were asked to identify the Filipinisms they found acceptable and evaluate the Philippine variety as a whole. Both faculty and students showed ambivalent attitudes which celebrate the recognition of PhE English as a legitimized English variety but viewed it as relatively inferior to AmE or BrE. In fact, more than one third of student respondents regarded PhE localized expressions as mistakes committed by users who speak poor English. Bautista (2001a) found similar findings in her study involving faculty members from three leading universities in the Philippines. The faculty members showed positive valuations toward PhE as an English variety, but again harbored reservations towards some ungrammatical or unidiomatic Filipinisms. Three years after, Bolton and Butler (2004) also found that while there were positive attitudes toward nativized vocabulary, there was a low acceptance of PhE dictionaries among Filipino academics and high school teachers.

Given these attitudes to PhE, it follows that the pedagogical model of teaching/learning grammar and other language elements preferred by Filipinos is the American or British variety. This is demonstrated in Bautista’s (2001b) study in which more than half of her respondents voted that Filipinos should learn English following an exonormative standard. Other Filipino researchers, namely Tupas (2010) and Martin (2014) corroborated this finding when they respectively found that their respondents believed that PhE was not a preferred model for the classroom. However, it seems that with the passing of time, Filipino teachers have taken a changing stance on the issue. Thirteen years after Bautista’s (2001a) studies, faculty members from leading Philippine universities seemed to abandon the native speaker ideology in teaching English. They no longer placed AmE on a pedestal as the only model for teaching. They believed that PhE and AmE could co-exist in the classroom and spoken PhiE has even been judged more preferably than AmE and Tagalog (Dimaculangan and Pasion 2017). These changing attitudes justify the arguments of Bernardo (2014) and Hernandez (2020) that a pluricentric approach should be recommended in English language teaching in the Philippines. In fact, Hernandez (ibid.) found that graduate student respondents were generous in their acceptability ratings of the Filipinisms presented to them (i.e., 80% acceptability or 38 out of 48). However, there is a big disparity between the high acceptability results in Hernandez (2020) and the low acceptability results (40%) in Gustilo and Dimaculangan (2018). Hence, despite the improving attitudes, it appears that this linguistic schizophrenia regarding PhE among Filipinos remains.

1.2. The Present Study

Based on existing acceptability or attitude studies on PhE lexicon, there is much more to explore, not only in understanding how Filipinos view PhE’s localized expressions but also in determining PhE’s development as a legitimate variety. One aspect in need of inquiry is its position within Schneider’s Dynamic Model of the Evolution of Postcolonial Englishes¹ and whether it is already on the move (or has moved) from Phase 3, or Nativization, to Phase 4, or Endonormative Stabilization, as recently claimed (Collins and Borlongan 2017; Schneider 2023). The endonormative stabilization stage can be partly gauged by an acceptance of indigenously established standards and conditions for local development (Schneider 2003, 2007). This claimed shift to Phase 4, however, is questioned mainly due to the linguistic ecology of the Philippines, which is suffering from widespread disparity in terms of access to and ownership of English (Tupas 2006; Tupas and Salonga 2016). PhE being mostly limited among the educated class, they say, contributes to the enduring dominance of AmE as a register of prestige and the misgivings toward PhE as a truly endonormatively stabilized variety. This indeed affects the standardization and propagation trajectory of PhE across all areas of Philippine life. Acceptability studies help establish the position of developing varieties because as (Kachru 1986 in Borlongan 2023a) claims, “the development of these institutionalized varieties has both a linguistic and attitudinal dimension and goes through three phases: (1) Initial non-recognition of the local variety followed by (2) extensive diffusion of bilingualism and, finally, (3) acceptance as a norm”.

We, therefore, attempt to answer the following questions:

1. What is the overall degree of acceptability of PhE lexical items among select Filipino students?

2. What is the overall degree of acceptability of PhE lexical items per domain?

3. Is there a significant difference in acceptability of presented PhE lexical items across respondent geographic groups?

2. Methodology

2.1. Research Design

To actualize this study, we employed a direct quantitative approach using the PhE acceptability questionnaire (PEAQ). Respondent selection was conducted through a convenience stratified sampling method, whereby respondents at the time of the data gathering belonged to our research informants’ classes. These informants are personally known by us and are faculty of their respective tertiary institutions representing an identified geographic locality.

2.2. Participant and Setting

Our study involved a total of 160 respondents from four regional areas operationalized for this study roughly based on the traditional major island groups of the Philippines, namely Luzon (LUZ), Visayas (VIS), and Mindanao (MIN) with the National Capital Region (NCR) represented by Metro Manila. Each regional group contains a mix of respondents from both urbanized and less urbanized areas. This decision to involve different regions in the Philippines was taken to address criticisms against previous studies, which were labeled as Manila-centric as they mostly involved Metro Manila respondents. We also wanted to investigate if there are variations in acceptability ratings across regions.

Table 1, below, elaborates on the distribution of respondents per region and specific locality of their educational institution at the time of the data gathering. Gender was disregarded in this study since we decided to focus on geographic location.

Any of Metro Manila’s 16 municipalities were considered as a representative locality for NCR. Meanwhile, respondents were located in two (2) municipalities within each region. LUZ respondents were identified to be studying in an institution within either Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya, or Tuguegarao, Cagayan with VIS respondents from Sibalom, Antique, or Iloilo City and MIN respondents from Marawi, Lanao del Sur, or Cotabato City. The age range of all 160 respondents is 17.86 to 28.8 years, and the overall mean is 20.35 years (SD = 1.88). The surveys were administered by the informants who were, at the time of the data gathering, faculty and/or administrative staff of the respective tertiary institutions where the respondents were identified to be currently enrolled students. The respondents answered their printed questionnaires on their respective campuses before or after classes.

2.3. Instruments

2.3.1. Wordlist

Prior to the development of the acceptability questionnaire, we compiled a list of PhE-localized expressions or Filipinisms (see Appendix A) to be used for the survey from the Philippine component of Global Web-based English (GloWbE) created by Mark Davies (2012–2013), a corpus of English webpages authored by users from the Inner, Outer, and expanding Circles, containing an overall total of 1.8 billion texts. GloWbE was used as a benchmark in identifying some of the most frequently used words by Filipinos on the internet. The initial word selection process involving the identification of the top 100 PhE words was based on Dimaculangan and Gustilo’s (2018) wordlist.

After the selection process, we identified that out of a hundred, 49 items are of English (ENG) origins (e.g., aircon, trapo), 27 are directly from or via Spanish (ESP; e.g., barrio, tiangge, lolo), 18 are from a wide array of non-English/Spanish origins (NES; e.g., lumpia, sago), 3 can be considered as hybrid (HYB; e.g., crispy pata, fantaserye), and 3 as Unverifiable or with disputed origins (UNV; i.e., bolo, jueteng, sando). All the selected words depict Philippine concepts that are the result of a melting pot culture. Table 2, below, presents the origin categories of all 100 items used in our questionnaire.

2.3.2. The Questionnaire

Upon the completion of the internet-based wordlist, we developed the survey instrument (see Appendix B), the Philippine English Acceptability Questionnaire (PEAQ), which contains 100 items. The first part of the PEAQ elicits respondents’ locality, gender, birthdate, and internet usage per day and per week. The questionnaire also contains a checklist where respondents were asked to put a check mark on the box corresponding to their acceptability of each PhE localized expressions based on a domain. We classified these domains as formal written (AFW), such as academic papers, informal written (AIW), such as social media posts and text messages, formal spoken (AFS), such as public speeches and academic reports, and informal spoken (AIS), such as everyday casual conversations. Respondents may check as much “accepted box” as they want; otherwise, they would have to check the item as not acceptable in all domains (NA). They were reminded that they could no longer check any other box expressing acceptance if they ticked NA². Each item was presented in sentences or phrases derived from authentic content from the same GloWbE corpus to provide context.

2.4. Data Analysis

Prior to the analysis, data were coded as either “1” or “0”, corresponding to one check per “accepted” box in the PEAQ. Data were analyzed through IMB SPSS v. 26. To answer the first two research questions, we identified the total frequency of ratings per domain (i.e., NA, AFW, AIW, AFS, AIS) among all respondents. Since both our independent and dependent variables involve categorical dichotomous data, we employed a chi-square test of independence for each PhE expression to answer the third research question. Our analysis involved 100 chi-square tests for 100 items both across all and between geographic groups.

2.5. Ethical Considerations

To comply with the research ethics protocol for human subjects, the researchers secured informed consent prior to gathering the data to confirm their participation. The researchers provided participants with an Informed Consent to Participate in a Research Study Form. The said document contained the following information: the nature and the purpose of the study, description of the study procedures, their role as participants, the confidentiality of the data gathered, their right to refuse or withdraw, their right to ask questions and report concerns regarding their participation in the study, and the affiliation and contact details of the lead researcher. The participant’s voluntary involvement in the project was indicated by their signature on the form.

3. Results and Discussion

The first part discusses the overall degree of acceptability amongst all respondents from all four regions, while the second discusses the top thirty (30) most accepted lexical items per domain. The third part discusses chi-square tests to identify whether there is a relationship between acceptability rating and geographic location per lexical item.

3.1. Overall Acceptability Ratings

Table 3 illustrates the overall degree of acceptability of PhE expressions. These data points were drawn from respondents from NCR, Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.

The entire dataset from all 160 respondents yielded a total of 27,486 responses. Eight percent of which are NA ratings, while the remaining majority ratings are associated with acceptability at least in one domain. Out of all 25,388 recorded acceptability ratings, items on informal contexts had a 65% acceptability rating (16,464 ratings), while items on formal contexts gained a 35% acceptability rating. It is apparent from the groups’ acceptability rating percentages³ (Acc%) that an overwhelming majority of respondents—nowhere below 80%—are accepting of the internet-based PhE items provided to them in the instrument. Comparing the four regions, however, LUZ, VIS, and MIN regions gave higher ratings to the PhE items in question.

The Table A1 in Appendix A lists all 100 PhE items ranked by the percentage of mean acceptability ratings (Acc%) against NA ratings. Included in this table are Google Trends interest values (GTIV) from worldwide Web Search data from 2004 to present. These are added data to show that these Filipinisms are widespread, which may have an impact in the acceptability ratings of our respondents. A GTIV of 100 indicates a high interest value for an item within a certain region, in this case the Philippines region: see also the footnotes for more details.

It can be noted that all 100 items were ranked as acceptable across all respondents notwithstanding region based on the mean acceptability rating percentage over non-acceptability ratings. The least accepted word received a 65% mean acceptability, which is still well above the 50% threshold as per Bautista (2001c).

Of the top 30, 25 were of English origin. Only two were NES and three were from Spanish. They are associated with a diverse range of contexts from academic-professional (e.g., topnotcher, finals, international school, bond paper, professor, canteen, masteral, ballpen, seminar workshop, doctoral) to politico-legal (e.g., partylist, reclusion perpetua, cedula, house bill, barangay) and everyday concepts (e.g., rubber shoes, commute, slippers, street food, aircon, wet market, text, unli). Meanwhile, the lowest thirty were predominantly NES terms (i.e., habagat, ampalaya, Bora, malunggay, patis, amihan, sago, ukay-ukay), HYB (i.e., sari-sari store, fantaserye), or ESP (e.g., siesta, lola, yaya, modus, parol, plantilla, ninong, tiangge, estero, manang, manong, artista, sala), many of which are associated with gastronomy, the domicile, and kinship. The prevalence of English-derived terms within the top thirty words implies that English terms likely increase the acceptance of these terms because of the prestige of the English language which dominates professional and academic communication. On the other hand, the prevalence of words tied to local culture, such as those related to gastronomy and kinship in the least accepted lexical items, may be explained by the respondents’ gatekeeping measures due to the notion that these words carry specific cultural references that might not be universally understood by English language users. For example, food-related terms and kinship terminologies often reflect deep cultural meanings and practices that can be challenging to translate or convey accurately in a broader context.

Among these 100 items, we identified the most notable and relevant Filipinisms based on four criteria: (a) they emerged as high frequency words in the GloWbE corpus, hence are part of this study’s wordlist, (b) are ubiquitous in many areas of online and offline Philippine life, (c) are used in very distinct Filipino contexts and meaning, and (d) received a high or one of the highest GITV from the Philippines region. These Filipinisms are topnotcher, finals, rubber shoes, commute, bond paper, calamansi, ballpen, text, barangay, unli, availment, restobar, colorum, wherein, ube, viand, crispy pata, bagoong, tablea, pandesal, chicharon, pasalubong, condotel, ampalaya, sari-sari store, pedicab, malunggay, patis, studentry, sando, sago, fantaserye, tiangge, trapo, and jueteng. More context on the items used in this study, particularly their meanings and origins, is provided in Appendix B.

One of the serendipitous findings we gleaned from our data is that the majority of the top-rated Filipinisms we identified also have top interest values among users based on GTIV. This observation suggests a relationship between user interest in the word and its acceptability. Our current findings, therefore, add empirical evidence to previous theorizations that a neologism or a lexicalized term must gain popularity and be used broadly to be accepted within a language community (Biermeier 2017). However, these words, although part of the lexicon of PhE, have subjective acceptability in different domains. Some are accepted in formal contexts, while others are accepted in informal contexts.

From the rating differences across all respondents, rubber shoes, availment, coffees, crispy pata, solon, ninong, and artista yielded a significant chi-square distribution between groups based on provenance, indicating that there are groups whose acceptability ratings on said items were significantly different from each other. We elaborate in Section 3.3. which geographic groups contribute to these overall significant differences.

3.2. Domain Comparisons

Table 4, below, highlights the top 30 lexical items which received the most acceptability ratings across domains (items if used in formal/informal written or spoken form).

As shown in Table 4, twenty-seven (27) out of the top thirty words accepted in formal written and spoken domains are the same. They only differ in ranking. For example, seminar workshop is top three in formal written but top two in formal spoken. Academic and work-related concepts were ranked the highest in formal contexts. Among these items are seminar workshop, doctoral, masteral, finals, topnotcher, bond paper, Filipiniana, ballpen, midterms, and studentry. Grammatical constructs include prepositions namely, based from and despite of, which are forms considered atypical in non-PhE standard English. The classic Filipinism wherein also emerges in the top ranking. Bautista (2008) saw interest in the distinct semantic use and overwhelming frequency of this relativizer in PhE across different text types, notwithstanding if spoken or written, in contrast to its disuse in the Inner Circle. Results to, which takes an improper preposition based on exonormative standards, also appeared as one of the top-rated Filipinisims. Bautista (1999) listed it as a phrase of standard usage in PhE. Meanwhile, common gastronomic terms such as canteen, viand, and coffees are among those that entered the formal spoken.

At first glance, both written and spoken informal domains are dominated by concepts encountered in everyday settings. Specific to informal spoken domains, there is a greater tendency to rate an originally non-English word as acceptable for informal purposes such as gastronomic concepts where terminologies tend to be retained due to their cultural specificity. Among these are crispy pata, lumpia, bagoong, ube, pandesal, patis, malunggay, ampalaya, and chicharon. Kinship and personal references also enter the list. Other ubiquitously Filipino concepts that entered the spoken category are CR, commute, fiesta, and pedicab. One other interesting development in colloquial speech among Filipino youth is the tendency to attach “trip” to form a compound, as in side trip, which is the top-rated word in the informal written. In addition, unli, the second top-rated word in the informal written, is another Filipinism that gained relevance among respondents to represent their fondness for anything that is unlimited.

3.3. Geographic Comparisons

This section discusses the items which received a notable percentage of acceptability rating (Acc%) between geographic groups notwithstanding domain. Acc% were determined based on the frequency of Not Acceptable (NA) ratings over the total number of respondents per group.

Table 5 first lists lexical entries which received a 100% mean acceptability rating per region. Table 6, Table 7, Table 8, Table 9, Table 10 and Table 11, meanwhile, include significant differences in Acc% between geographic group pairings, which were determined using chi-square tests of independence. Table 6, Table 7 and Table 8 show data for NCR vs. LUZ, NCR vs. VIS, and NCR vs. MIN and Table 9, Table 10 and Table 11 show data for LUZ vs. VIS, LUZ vs. MIN, and VIS vs. MIN.

Among groups, topnotcher—taking the top spot in overall acceptability ratings—is the most consistent among all items, receiving a 100% acceptability rating from respondents of NCR, LUZ, and VIS groups. There is also finals, another item associated with the academe, which is accepted by all NCR, LUZ, and MIN respondents. We can see this to be a sign that some of the items we included in the study, notwithstanding if respondents are aware of such localized use, have been accepted as part of their linguistic repertoire. Other unanimously accepted items are international school and slippers both for NCR and VIS, rubber shoes for NCR and MIN, and food trip between VIS and MIN.

On the one hand, NCR respondents provided significantly lower ratings for more lexical items than others. NCR respondents gave significantly lower ratings for 10 items than their LUZ counterparts (Table 6), for 1 item than their VIS counterparts (Table 7), and for 5 items than their MIN counterparts (Table 8). This is reflected in their overall group mean acceptability rating of 81.82% (recall Table 3), which is descriptively the lowest among all four groups. Artista in particular was ranked much lower by NCR respondents than by their LUZ and VIS cohorts. Although it places 97th out of 100 in overall acceptability rating (see Appendix A), only the NCR group has less than half of the respondents (47.37%) rating it as acceptable. It can be seen that our NCR respondents are generally less welcoming to the Filipinisms included in our study, which may reflect how the cultural and educational center (i.e., Metro Manila) holds linguistic gatekeeping behaviors.

Table 6

Significant differences in NCR and LUZ acceptability ratings.

Item	NCR Acc%	LUZ Acc%	χ2	p	Remark
barrio	78.95	94.34	4.93	0.03	NCR < LUZ
bagoong	76.32	92.45	4.71	0.03	NCR < LUZ
manong	55.26	81.13	7.10	0.01	NCR < LUZ
chicharon	73.68	94.34	7.71	0.01	NCR < LUZ
artista	47.37	83.02	12.96	0.00	NCR < LUZ
sago	65.79	86.79	5.69	0.02	NCR < LUZ
ukay-ukay	60.53	84.91	6.97	0.01	NCR < LUZ
tiangge	63.16	84.91	5.71	0.02	NCR < LUZ
pumpboat	84.21	96.23	3.99	0.05	NCR < LUZ
ninong	57.89	84.91	8.32	0.00	NCR < LUZ

Table 7

Significant differences in NCR and VIS acceptability ratings.

Item	NCR Acc%	VIS Acc%	χ2	p	Remark
sugars	97.37	77.23	6.25	0.01	NCR > VIS
artista	47.37	77.23	5.13	0.02	NCR < VIS

Table 8

Significant differences in NCR and MIN acceptability ratings.

Item	NCR Acc%	MIN Acc%	χ2	p	Remark
result to	92.11	97.87	3.85	0.05	NCR < MIN
estafa	78.95	93.62	4.01	0.05	NCR < MIN
solon	73.68	93.62	6.44	0.01	NCR < MIN
crispy pata	76.32	95.74	7.04	0.01	NCR < MIN
coffees	100.00	85.11	6.17	0.01	NCR > MIN
sugars	97.37	80.85	5.52	0.02	NCR > MIN
availment	97.37	80.85	5.52	0.02	NCR > MIN

Another drastically different mean rating was given for manang between LUZ (81.13%) and VIS (59.09%), as shown in Table 9. Interestingly, the LUZ respondents expressed higher acceptability compared to their VIS counterparts. There could be cultural nuances at play here. It can be noted that the word has a similar denotative meaning (i.e., ‘elder sister/woman of close affinity’) in the L1s of respondents from LUZ (Ilokano) and VIS (Kinaray-a, Hiligaynon). However, in many parts of the Visayas, manang is used humorously to refer to a woman who lacks fashion sense. It may be this derisive connotation that prevented it from getting higher ratings among VIS respondents.

Table 9

Significant differences in LUZ and VIS acceptability ratings.

Item	LUZ Acc%	VIS Acc%	χ2	p	Remark
manang	81.13	59.09	3.99	0.05	LUZ > VIS
modus	86.79	63.64	6.42	0.01	LUZ > VIS

Table 10

Significant differences in LUZ and MIN acceptability ratings.

Item	LUZ Acc%	MIN Acc%	χ2	p	Remark
barrio	94.34	80.85	4.29	0.04	LUZ > MIN
parol	86.79	70.21	4.13	0.04	LUZ > MIN
artista	83.02	65.96	3.87	0.05	LUZ > MIN
availment	94.34	80.85	4.29	0.04	LUZ > MIN
solon	75.47	93.62	6.10	0.01	LUZ < MIN

Table 11

Significant differences between VIS and MIN acceptability ratings.

Item	VIS Acc%	MIN Acc%	χ2	p	Remark
rubber shoes	90.91	100.00	4.40	0.04	VIS < MIN
malling	72.73	91.49	4.26	0.04	VIS < MIN

4. Conclusions

The present study was set to determine the degree of acceptability of select Filipinisms or PhE expressions from the Philippine component of the GloWbE corpus. This was conducted through the Philippine English Acceptability Questionnaire (PEAQ) among 160 undergraduate students from Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao, and the National Capital Region. We henceforth provide the following conclusions.

Based on the results, there is a generally high degree of acceptability of select internet-based PhE lexical items among all select Filipino undergraduate students across regions. This is reflected in the significantly high proportion of acceptability per geographic group, with NCR being relatively least accepting. The presented lexical items are part of the linguistic repertoire of the respondents across regions. However, the acceptance of Filipinisms or Philippine English (PhE) expressions varies across the Philippines due to cultural differences, educational backgrounds, and domain-specific expectations. Each region in the Philippines has its own unique connotations attached to PhE expressions. These cultural differences can influence how certain words or expressions are perceived and accepted. This observation needs to be explored further in future research. Some words are mainly popular in the National Capital Region (NCR), such as solon and artista, because these terms have wide circulation there. However, they are less accepted in the NCR compared to other regions. In addition, educational background plays a role. Regions with higher educational attainment may emphasize standard English, leading to a rejection of localized expressions, whereas areas where local dialects prevail might find them more relatable. This is substantiated by our data, which shows that the NCR, as the cultural and educational center in the Philippines, exhibits gatekeeping practices. The linguistic domain affects their acceptability as well. Formal settings often demand standard English to maintain professionalism and avoid miscommunication, whereas informal settings might embrace Filipinisms as part of the local language.

Meanwhile, certain lexical items can also be associated with certain domains. For example, reclusion perpetua, a well-known legalese term in the Philippines, was rated most accepted for both written and spoken formal discourses. Other high-ranking items that can be associated with the same level of context (e.g., academic, professional) also authenticate this notion. Interestingly, words associated with objects and daily encounters can be found in the top 30 for both written and spoken informal contexts.

Interestingly, our Google Trends substantiates our acceptability findings. Out of the 30 most accepted items per domain, at least 20 corroborate Google Trends data. The overall level of acceptance can more or less qualitatively connect to their relevance and presence on the internet.

Lastly, it could be then confirmed that all 100 items were found acceptable by more than half of all respondents across geographic groups. Relating our current findings to the findings of Torres and Alieto (2019) on pre-service teachers, there is growing evidence that PhE lexicon is becoming accepted by Filipinos, at least so far according to the sample of this study who are the younger generation. Such findings provide signs that PhE is constantly moving to endonormative stabilization, or Phase 4 as per Schneider (2003). This is opposite to Gustilo and Dimaculangan’s (2018) earlier findings among teachers whose responses lean more toward less acceptance. However, it should be noted that their questionnaire comprised of a wordlist built through a corpus developed mostly from academic texts. This should have influenced the type of words they included in their instrument and the larger context of their finalized prompts. In addition, their respondents were English teachers who may have acted as gatekeepers of the English language.

This study underscores the dynamic nature of Philippine English and its evolving acceptance among young Filipinos, potentially driven by increased digital interaction and changing educational paradigms. These findings contribute to our understanding of linguistic evolution in the context of Philippine English and its implications for language planning in the Philippines.

5. Limitations and Future Directions

The study, while comprehensive, suffers from several limitations that should be acknowledged and addressed in future research. First, on sampling method, the use of convenience stratified sampling may limit the generalizability of the findings. There might be bias in the selection process because the respondents were selected from classes known to the researchers. Second, on geographic representation, although the study includes respondents from major regions, the specific localities within these regions may not fully represent the diversity within each area. Third, the decision to exclude gender, socioeconomic status, age, and other relevant variables limits the study’s potential to describe other factors that might influence the acceptability of PhE lexical items.

To build upon the findings of this study, future research could consider including a broader and more random sample to enhance the generalizability of the results and employing interviews or focus groups to gain deeper insights into the reasons behind acceptability ratings. In addition, conducting longitudinal studies to observe changes in acceptability over time may prove beneficial. Lastly, comparing the acceptability of PhE lexical items involving different demographic groups or disciplines could contextualize these findings within a larger framework

Despite these limitations, the study offers significant contributions to the understanding of Philippine English. First, it provides valuable insights into regional differences in the acceptability of PhE, challenging the Manila-centric perspectives prevalent in previous research (Bautista 2001a). In addition, the study highlights how certain PhE lexical items are more acceptable in specific domains, which can inform the decisions of lexicographers in the process of codifying PhE lexicon. The findings support the notion of linguistic evolution and an evolving acceptance of PhE among young Filipinos, indicative of a shift towards an endonormative stabilization phase. This contributes to the broader linguistic discussions on the development of World Englishes. Lastly, our findings have practical implications for language policy and even media in the Philippines, suggesting areas where PhE might be promoted or cautiously used. Overall, the study’s findings enrich academic discourse on PhE and provide a foundation for further research in this area.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, L.G., P.R. and M.C.; methodology, L.G., P.R. and M.C.; software, P.R.; validation, L.G.; formal analysis, P.R. and M.C.; investigation, M.C. and P.R.; resources, L.G.; data curation, P.R. and M.C.; writing—original draft preparation, P.R. and M.C.; writing—review and editing, P.R., M.C. and L.G.; visualization, P.R.; supervision, L.G.; project administration, P.R., M.C. and L.G. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Data Availability Statement

All data analyzed for the study were presented in the results and discussion of the paper.

Acknowledgments

We sincerely thank our respondents who participated in this study. We also would like to send our heartfelt gratitude to the following who assisted us in our data collection: Lysel I. Haloc and Chirbet C. Ayunon for Luzon, Connie M. Aranduque for Visayas, and Annie Mae C. Berowa for Mindanao.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Footnotes

Notes

1. Schneider’s Dynamic Model, among other models, has been challenged due to its inadequacy to accommodate the nuanced histories and status of non-postcolonial Englishes (cf. Deshors 2018), but it stands as one of the most widely adopted principles in describing the geographic and sociocultural spread of English.

2. Responses that do not comply with this instruction were invalidated.

3. $\left({\displaystyle \frac{N-\mathrm{T}\mathrm{o}\mathrm{t}\mathrm{a}\mathrm{l} \mathrm{N}\mathrm{A} f}{N}}\right) 100$.

Footnotes

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Tables

Table 1

Participant profile.

Region a	Respondent Provenance		n	Mean Age	SD
NCR	Across Metro Manila	Urbanized	38	20.46	2.173
LUZ	Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya	Less Urbanized	53	19.53	0.975
	Tuguegarao City	Urbanized
VIS	Sibalom, Antique	Less Urbanized	22	20.81	2.087
	Iloilo City	Urbanized
MIN	Marawi, Lanao del Sur	Less Urbanized	47	20.99	2.035
	Cotabato City	Urbanized
	Total		160	20.35	1.876

^a Refers to the traditional island regions plus NCR instead of the Philippine legal definition of Region, which comprises the 17 highest levels of administrative division not specified in this paper.

Table 2

Wordlist Origin Categories.

ENG	ESP	NES	HYB	UNV	Total
49	27	18	3	3	100

Table 3

Overall acceptability rating frequencies.

Group	NA	Acceptable Written		Acceptable Spoken		Acc%
		Formal (AFW)	Informal (AIW)	Formal (AFS)	Informal (AIS)
NCR	691	1148	1775	985	2171	81.82
LUZ	491	1525	2191	1333	2796	90.74
VIS	224	816	1281	667	1428	89.82
MIN	692	1229	2149	1221	2673	85.28
Total f	2098	4718	7396	4206	9068	92.37

Table 4

Top 30 accepted PhE lexical items in formal/informal written and spoken domains.

Rank	Formal Written		Informal Written		Formal Spoken		Informal Spoken
	Item	f	Item	f	Item	f	Item	f
1	reclusion perpetua	112	food trip	105	reclusion perpetua	95	CR	119
2	international school	111	canteen	95	seminar workshop	92	lumpia	114
3	seminar workshop	105	side trip	95	based from	91	food trip	113
4	doctoral	103	unli	95	finals	89	bagoong	112
5	masteral	103	commute	93	house bill	88	ube	111
6	based from	99	street food	93	international school	87	rubber shoes	111
7	house bill	98	pumpboat	91	masteral	87	restobar	111
8	professor	97	rubber shoes	90	partylist	85	pandesal	110
9	result to	96	topnotcher	90	result to	83	crispy pata	110
10	finals	96	restobar	90	doctoral	81	kuya	108
11	availment	92	telenovela	88	topnotcher	81	commute	108
12	supertyphoon	90	colorum	87	professor	79	ate	106
13	topnotcher	89	wet market	85	supertyphoon	74	lola	106
14	bond paper	83	carabao	84	going on	73	slippers	106
15	barangay	79	partylist	84	midterms	72	patis	106
16	Filipiniana	77	Filipino time	84	estafa	69	malunggay	106
17	carabao	73	ambush interview	84	bond paper	69	eatery	106
18	partylist	73	supertyphoon	84	Filipiniana	68	fiesta	105
19	estafa	72	Pinay	83	availment	68	street food	105
20	ballpen	72	Filipiniana	83	despite of	66	pack up	105
21	wherein	71	fiesta	82	ballpen	63	unli	105
22	ambush interview	71	calamansi	82	slippers	60	lolo	104
23	despite of	70	habagat	81	rubber shoes	60	Filipino time	104
24	midterms	68	bond paper	81	cedula	60	pedicab	104
25	viand	68	malling	81	canteen	59	ampalaya	104
26	slippers	67	barrio	80	ambush interview	59	ballpen	104
27	cedula	66	merienda	80	wherein	57	yaya	103
28	studentry	66	aircon	79	viand	55	aircon	103
29	rubber shoes	63	parol	79	coffees	54	merienda	103
30	going on	62	food trip	105	commute	52	chicharon	103

Table 5

Items with 100% acceptability ratings.

Item	NCR Acc%	LUZ Acc%	VIS Acc%	MIN Acc%
topnotcher	100.00	100.00	100.00	97.87
finals	100.00	100.00	100.00	97.87
international school	100.00	98.11	100.00	97.87
slippers	100.00	92.45	100.00	97.87
rubber shoes	100.00	98.11	95.45	100.00
food trip	94.74	98.11	100.00	100.00

Appendix A

Table A1

Overall Acceptability Ranking per Item.

Rank	Item	Mean Acc%	χ2	p	Origin	GTIV
1	topnotcher	99.38	4.87	0.18	ENG	100
2	finals	99.38	6.31	0.10	ENG	100 ‡
3	international school	98.75	1.23	0.75	ENG	17 i
4	partylist	98.13	1.60	0.66	ENG	100
5	food trip	98.13	3.69	0.30	ENG	100
6	rubber shoes	98.13	7.85	0.05 *	ENG	100
7	commute	97.50	0.95	0.81	ENG	100
8	bond paper	97.50	1.87	0.60	ENG	45 †a
9	slippers	96.88	6.31	0.10	ENG	48 i
10	calamansi	96.88	1.51	0.68	NES	100
11	street food	96.88	1.01	0.80	ENG	33 i
12	professor	96.25	1.89	0.60	ENG	8 i
13	reclusion perpetua	96.25	1.01	0.80	ESP	100
14	result to	95.63	3.49	0.32	ENG	33 †
15	aircon	95.63	0.78	0.86	ENG	96 †
16	based from	95.63	2.92	0.40	ENG	100
17	canteen	95.63	1.58	0.67	ENG	28 i
18	masteral	95.63	3.25	0.36	ENG	100
19	cedula	95.63	1.58	0.67	ESP	2 i
20	ballpen	95.63	3.41	0.33	ENG	100
21	seminar workshop	95.63	0.12	0.99	ENG	100
22	supertyphoon	95.63	3.53	0.32	ENG	24 †
23	house bill	95.00	0.90	0.83	ENG	85 †
24	doctoral	95.00	4.69	0.20	ENG	9 i
25	wet market	94.38	0.90	0.83	ENG	19 †
26	pack up	94.38	2.69	0.44	ENG	11 id
27	text	93.75	2.45	0.49	ENG	84 †
28	barangay	93.75	4.01	0.26	NES	100
29	Filipiniana	93.75	0.59	0.90	ESP	100
30	unli	93.75	4.08	0.25	ENG	100
31	going on	93.13	1.80	0.62	ENG	42 i
32	fiesta	93.13	2.88	0.41	ESP	14 i
33	lumpia	93.13	2.45	0.49	NES	44 †
34	availment	93.13	9.27	0.03 *	ENG	100
35	despite of	92.50	2.19	0.54	ENG	72 †
36	coffees	92.50	7.83	0.05	ENG	17 i
37	ambush interview	92.50	0.73	0.87	ENG	100
38	restobar	92.50	1.92	0.59	ENG	41 †
39	side trip	91.88	4.85	0.18	ENG	100
40	eatery	91.88	4.80	0.19	ENG	12 i
41	CR	91.25	2.81	0.42	ENG	2 ib
42	colorum	90.63	1.81	0.61	NES	100
43	telenovela	90.00	1.16	0.76	ESP	2 i
44	pumpboat	90.00	4.04	0.26	ENG	100
45	wherein	89.38	1.42	0.70	ENG	100
46	Filipino time	89.38	0.86	0.83	ENG	100
47	carabao	88.75	1.81	0.61	NES	28 i
48	ube	88.75	2.68	0.44	NES	100
49	truck ban	87.50	2.39	0.50	ENG	100
50	viand	87.50	1.33	0.72	ENG	100
51	get down	86.88	1.00	0.80	ENG	37 id
52	midterms	86.88	2.03	0.57	ENG	37 †
53	crispy pata	86.88	8.04	0.05 *	HYB	100
54	bagoong	86.25	5.92	0.12	NES	100
55	Pinoy	85.63	1.39	0.71	ESP	100
56	barrio	85.63	5.53	0.14	ESP	5 i
57	estafa	85.63	3.94	0.27	ESP	25 i
58	sugars	85.63	7.10	0.07	ENG	15 i
59	tablea	85.63	1.00	0.80	ESP	100
60	pandesal	85.00	3.41	0.33	ESP	100
61	malling	85.00	4.42	0.22	ENG	1 i
62	traffic	84.38	2.31	0.51	ENG	16 id
63	merienda	84.38	1.13	0.77	ESP	50 †
64	ate	83.75	1.57	0.67	NES	18 ic
65	chicharon	83.75	7.47	0.06	ESP	100
66	kuya	82.50	3.87	0.28	NES	100
67	pasalubong	82.50	1.65	0.65	NES	100
68	condotel	82.50	5.58	0.13	ENG	100
69	lolo	81.88	7.34	0.06	ESP	7 ic
70	habagat	81.88	0.90	0.83	NES	100
71	solon	81.88	8.96	0.03 *	ENG	5 †c
72	ampalaya	81.88	3.83	0.28	NES	100
73	siesta	81.88	3.93	0.27	ESP	25 i
74	lola	81.25	2.87	0.41	ESP	14 ic
75	Bora	81.25	2.67	0.45	NES	1 ic
76	sari-sari store	81.25	2.76	0.43	HYB	100
77	pedicab	81.25	3.57	0.31	ENG	100
78	malunggay	80.63	3.55	0.31	NES	100
79	yaya	80.00	4.88	0.18	ESP	14 ic
80	patis	80.00	0.68	0.88	NES	76 †c
81	studentry	80.00	4.84	0.18	ENG	100
82	Pinay	79.38	1.06	0.79	ESP	100
83	modus	79.38	6.52	0.09	ESP	7 ic
84	sando	78.75	5.31	0.15	UNV	81 †
85	parol	78.13	4.13	0.25	ESP	10 i
86	amihan	78.13	5.31	0.15	NES	100
87	plantilla	76.88	1.52	0.68	ESP	1 i
88	sago	76.25	6.41	0.09	NES	58 †
89	ukay-ukay	76.25	7.55	0.06	NES	100
90	ninong	75.00	9.79	0.02 *	ESP	100
91	fantaserye	75.00	1.61	0.66	HYB	100
92	bolo	73.13	1.57	0.67	UNV	0
93	tiangge	71.88	6.14	0.11	ESP	100
94	estero	71.25	2.47	0.48	ESP	1 i
95	manang	68.75	5.30	0.15	ESP	17 †c
96	manong	67.50	7.28	0.06	ESP	32 †c
97	artista	67.50	14.02	0.00 **	ESP	40 i
98	sala	66.88	4.42	0.22	ESP	6 ic
99	trapo	66.25	3.15	0.37	ENG	6 ic
100	jueteng	65.00	2.63	0.45	UNV	100
* significance value < 0.05; ** significance value < 0.01
† Philippines is among the top five in terms of interest value by region. ‡ Philippines is tied with another region in number one interest value. i Insignificant GTIV ranking a bondpaper yielded 100 interest value from the Philippines and overwhelmingly higher than the region in the next ranking (India < 1, US < 1). b comfort room yielded 100 interest value from the Philippines and overwhelmingly higher than the region in the next ranking (Singapore 4, US 3). c Problematic comparison due to homography, with many common words in other languages. Brands or names in a specific region. d Problematic comparison due to lack of further context.

Appendix B

• Lexical Item Wordlist with Meanings and Origin

1. aircon—[ENG] clipping of air conditioner

2. ambush interview—[ENG] interview that was not prearranged

3. amihan—[NES] northeast monsoon/wind; from Tagalog

4. ampalaya—[NES] bitter melon (Momordica charantia); from Tagalog

5. artista—[ESP] artist, especially a television/film actor; from Spanish artista ‘artist, performer’

6. ate—[NES] elder sister; from Hokkien 阿姊 á-chí ‘eldest sister’

7. availment—[ENG] services or benefits which can be availed or taken advantage of

8. bagoong—[NES] salt-fermented fish/shrimp paste; from Tagalog

9. ballpen—[ENG] clipping of ballpoint pen

10. barangay—[NES] smallest administrative division in the Philippines (cf. hamlet, neighborhood) based on precolonial polities ruled by a datu or lakan; from Tagalog

11. barrio—[ESP] local neighborhood historically approximate to the contemporary designation of barangay; from Spanish barrio ‘ward, district’

12. based from—[ENG] alternative form of based on

13. bolo—[UNV] a type of single-edged machete common in the Philippines; exact origin is disputed

14. bond paper—[ENG] a durable white paper used for writing or printing documents

15. Bora—[NES] clipping of Boracay, an island and popular tourist destination; exact origin is disputed but speculated to be from Inati

16. calamansi—[NES] calamondin, Philippine lime/lemon (Citrus × macrocarpa); Westernized spelling of Tagalog kalamansi

17. canteen—[ENG] cafeteria; ultimately from French cantine via English

18. carabao—[NES] water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis); from Waray or Hiligaynon karabaw (possibly loaned from Malay kerbau) via Spanish or English

19. cedula—[ESP] colloquialization of the Community Tax Certificate historically based on the proof of residence tax (cédula) imposed by the Spanish colonial government

20. chicharon—[ESP] deep-fried pork rinds or offal; from Spanish chicharrón

21. coffees—[ENG] pluralized variant of coffee

22. colorum—[NES] public transport vehicle operating without government approved franchise; clipping of Latin saecula saeculōrum ‘for ever and ever, for eternity’ but exact direction of loaning uncertain

23. commute—[ENG] the act of traveling from one point to another, usually in urban settings, using public transportation

24. condotel—[ENG] blending of (residential) condominium and hotel

25. CR—[ENG] abbreviation of comfort room referring to a lavatory or bathroom

26. crispy pata—[HYB] deep-fried pork trotters; compound of English crispy and Spanish pata ‘animal leg, paw, foot’

27. despite of—[ENG] alternative form of in spite of

28. doctoral—[ENG] relating to a doctorate program; analogous to masteral

29. eatery—[ENG] cafeteria, restaurant, café

30. estafa—[ESP] financial fraud or scam; ultimately from Italian staffa via Spanish

31. estero—[ESP] river estuary or inlet canal; from Spanish estero ‘river delta, pond, lagoon’

32. fantaserye—[HYB] a local genre of TV soap opera with fantasy elements; blending of English fantasy and Spanish-based [tele]serye ‘television series’

33. fiesta—[ESP] feast day usually in honor of a Catholic saint; from Spanish fiesta ‘party, feast day, holiday’

34. Filipiniana—[ESP] collective term for any type of traditional ensemble worn by women in the Philippines; may also refer to archival collections on Filipinos or the Philippines usually found in libraries; neologism from Spanish Filipinas ‘the Philippines’

35. Filipino time—[ENG] deprecating ascription to Filipinos’ supposed lack of a rigorous sense of time or punctuality

36. finals—[ENG] relating to summative exams or any activities at the tail-end of the semester

37. food trip—[ENG] a trip to get food, usually snacks

38. get down—[ENG] to alight a vehicle (cf. get off the bus)

39. going on—[ENG] alternative form of ongoing or on-going

40. habagat—[NES] southwest monsoon/wind; from Tagalog

41. house bill—[ENG] a legislative proposal (bill) presented to the Philippine Congress or House of Representatives

42. international school—[ENG] a school following an international curriculum typically catered to children of foreign nationals

43. jueteng—[UNV] an illegal numbers game using a fishbowl or barrel-shaped container from which balls are randomly drawn as lottery; exact origin is disputed but speculated as a Hispanization of Hokkien hua teng ‘flower + stack of papers’

44. kuya—[NES] elder brother; from Hokkien 哥仔 ko-iá ‘young man, lad’

45. lola—[ESP] grandmother; clipping and reduplication of Spanish abuela

46. lolo—[ESP] grandfather; clipping and reduplication of Spanish abuelo

47. lumpia—[NES] local variant of spring rolls; from Hokkien 潤餅 lūn-piáⁿ

48. malling—[ENG] to visit or stroll around a shopping mall

49. malunggay—[NES] moringa, drumstick/horseradish tree (Moringa oleifera); from Tagalog

50. manang—[ESP] an elderly or older woman (in Tagalog), elder sister/woman of close affinity (in other Philippine languages); clipping of Spanish hermana ‘sister’ suffixed with Philippine diminutive -ng

51. manong—[ESP] an elderly or older man (in Tagalog), elder brother/man of close affinity (in other Philippine languages); clipping of Spanish hermano ‘brother’ suffixed with Philippine diminutive -ng

52. masteral—[ENG] relating to a master’s program; analogous to doctoral

53. merienda—[ESP] an afternoon snack; from Old Spanish (obsolete in modern Spanish)

54. midterms—[ENG] relating to exams or any activities halfway through the semester

55. modus—[ESP] established habits or methods of committing a crime; clipping of Latin modus operandī via Spanish

56. ninong—[ESP] godfather; colloquialization of Spanish padrino ‘godfather, sponsor’ > nino suffixed with Philippine diminutive -ng

57. pack up—[ENG] to clear away and store things in a container/bag in preparation to move

58. pandesal—[ESP] small bread rolls usually eaten at breakfast or as a snack; from Spanish pan de sal ‘salt(ed) bread’

59. parol—[ESP] Christmas lanterns; from Spanish farol ‘lantern, streetlamp, lighthouse’

60. partylist—[ENG] alternative form of party-list; referring to the system or political parties/organizations known to represent marginalized sectors (e.g., urban poor, women) subject to the party-list proportional system unique to the Philippine electoral system

61. pasalubong—[NES] a gift or souvenir brought by those returning from a trip; from Tagalog

62. patis—[NES] fish sauce; from Malay petis ‘fish paste’ (ultimately from Javanese petis ‘fish/shrimp extract’) via Tagalog

63. pedicab—[ENG] pedal tricycle

64. Pinay—[ESP] a female of Filipino citizenship or ancestry; feminine diminutive form of Pilipino (analogous to Pinoy)

65. Pinoy—[ESP] any person or specifically male of Filipino citizenship or ancestry; diminutive form of Pilipino (analogous to Pinay)

66. plantilla—[ESP] a permanent or regular position usually in the government; from Spanish plantilla ‘template, stencil’

67. professor—[ENG] any teaching personnel of a tertiary level institution, regardless of rank

68. pumpboat—[ENG] a utility outrigger canoe powered by a small gasoline or diesel engine

69. reclusion perpetua—[ESP] Philippine legalese for imprisonment of thirty years for inmates convicted of capital crimes or heinous crimes ineligible for parole; from Spanish reclusión perpetua ‘permanent imprisonment’

70. restobar—[ENG] an establishment serving fare found in both restaurants and bars (e.g., alcohol, finger foods) often with live band performances; blending of restaurant and bar

71. result to—[ENG] alternative form of result in

72. rubber shoes—[ENG] sneakers, trainers, athletic shoes

73. sago—[NES] palm-based starch usually in the form of clear pearls used in various desserts; from Tagalog

74. sala—[ESP] living room/space; from Spanish sala ‘room, hall, courtroom’

75. sando—[UNV] tank top, singlet; exact origin is disputed

76. sari-sari store—[HYB] a sundry store (cf. bodega), often family-owned, selling goods in small quantities; compound of Tagalog sari-sari ‘variety’ and English store

77. seminar workshop—[ENG] a professional development event (e.g., conference) simultaneously hosting a seminar and a workshop

78. side trip—[ENG] a brief excursion off a main route of an itinerary (e.g., visiting a person or place along the way); analogous to food trip

79. siesta—[ESP] afternoon break or nap; from Spanish

80. slippers—[ENG] footwear worn within household premises, often referring to flip-flops

81. solon—[ENG] a legislator; American lexicalization of the name of Ancient Greek statesman Σόλων (Sólōn)

82. street food—[ENG] food sold from a streetside vendor or hawker

83. studentry—[ENG] a body or community of students

84. sugars—[ENG] pluralized variant of sugar

85. supertyphoon—[ENG] an exceptionally large and powerful typhoon

86. tablea—[ESP] ground cocoa formed into discs or tablets ready for cooking chocolate-based desserts or beverages; from Spanish tablilla ‘tablet’

87. telenovela—[ESP] TV soap operas; blending of Spanish televisión and novela ‘novel’

88. text—a short message service (SMS) or the act of sending an SMS

89. tiangge—[ESP] a flea market or bazaar; possibly from Classical Nahuatl tiyānquiztli ‘it is a street market/marketplace’ via Mexican Spanish tianguis

90. topnotcher—[ENG] a person, usually a student, who finishes or accomplishes something in the highest ranks; alternative form of top-notcher

91. traffic—[ENG] adjectivized form relating to heavy, poor traffic (cf. It’s so traffic!)

92. trapo—[ENG] a corrupt politician; blending of traditional and politician

93. truck ban—[ENG] an ordinance to restrict movement of cargo trucks on specified roads especially in Metro Manila during designated hours to alleviate traffic flow

94. ube—[NES] purple yam (Dioscorea alata) widely cultivated in the Philippines and used as an ingredient for various desserts; from Tagalog

95. ukay-ukay—[NES] a thrift store selling secondhand items (e.g., clothes, bags, footwear); possibly from Cebuano ukay ‘[to] dig’ via Tagalog

96. unli—[ENG] relating to anything limitless (e.g., unli rice—all-you-can-eat rice; unli data—unlimited prepaid mobile data); clipping of unlimited

97. viand—[ENG] approximation to any dish accompanied with rice (cf. Tagalog ulam) which is a standard composition of Filipino diet

98. wet market—[ENG] a market selling fresh meat and fish; analogous to dry market

99. wherein—[ENG] relativizing subordinator used to signal additional information; possibly analogous to Tagalog kung saan ‘whence, in which’

100. yaya—[ESP] a nanny; ultimately from Spanish yaya ‘granny’ via Tagalog

Appendix C

• Philippine English Lexical Acceptability Questionnaire (PEAQ) Sample

• Instructions:

• Respondents are asked to put a check (✓) in the box that best applies to how much they accept the following underlined words/phrases in bold when used in various domains of English (i.e., Formal Written, Informal Written, Formal Spoken, Informal Spoken), or if it is Not Acceptable.

• Other reminders:

• If the respondent puts a check on the first column saying Not Acceptable for an item, they must not check any other box.

• Respondents can check more than one box if the word/phrase is rated Acceptable in one or more domains.

1. They sent me a text.

2. The road was really traffic.

3. I received an email from the barangay project coordinator.

4. Mariano is Pinoy, right?

5. The debate on RH Bill has been going on.

6. Not once have I encountered a professor who forcefully feeds us his/her beliefs.

7. You will find a screen wherein there is a large staircase.

8. Love you, ate!

9. There were so many people; it was like fiesta.

10. I told him he would be a kuya soon.

11. Go vintage! If your lola has flat iron which uses charcoal, that would be more helpful too!

12. Nueva Ecija farmers get gold daily from carabao dairy.

13. In fact I sold my car, and prefer to commute.

14. Our smallest size even fits the medium-size Pinay.

15. You should get down the cab as soon as possible.

16. Little children imagine dinners with the lolo they’ve never met.

17. We were in a barrio, and there were no vehicles.

18. We got those four pairs of slippers for 300 pesos only!

19. Remember that over-cleansing your face will result to drying.

20. It was served complete with calamansi, soy sauce, and chili garlic oil.

21. Say thank you to your yaya or to the yaya of your children.

22. I hope one of the senators would come up with a house bill regarding these.

23. He drove out jueteng, nightclubs, and sinful businesses.

24. He was chosen as one of the nominees of their cooperative partylist.

25. This is the classic fresh lumpia.

26. Turn down the temperature of the aircon all the time.

27. Good thing that he’s doing okay despite of those nth time accidents huh.

28. I also missed our green mangoes with bagoong.

29. Did it taste like melted ube ice cream?

30. The estafa case prior to the libel has been dismissed.

31. We thought it would be a nice place to buy pasalubong.

32. They waited two weeks while Manila was “underwater” because of the habagat rains.

33. He gave me a failing grade in the midterms.

34. “The bill aims to protect the institution of marriage”, the neophyte solon said.

35. His advocacies are all based from the counsel of the Word of God.

36. We thought the manang would use fresh oil.

37. He completed his doctoral studies in theology.

38. You really have to try the street food.

39. When I was living in Manila in 2008 I hated Filipino time.

40. They enrolled their children in an international school.

41. The reclusion perpetua is imposed, and the accused fails to appeal.

42. With a cup of coffee, it’s a good merienda or dessert after meals.

43. That’s a lot of sugars and carbs.

44. It is marinated in patis, vinegar, onion.

45. I went to the grocery store to stock up and found some malunggay.

46. And the manong enforcer got so mad, that he kept on asking for our names.

47. It just feels like eating chicharon.

48. He doesn’t have to eat sugary snacks in the school canteen.

49. It’s been a week since we came back from our Bora trip.

50. The sari-sari store sells goods triple the price.

51. I’ve seen so many unique parol creations back home.

52. There are also modus where criminals would disguise as wanting help from you.

53. They didn’t use Filipiniana during the formal dinner.

54. A side trip to Guimaras is also recommended.

55. Invite your friends for a movie marathon or food trip.

56. The three stories are enough for a telenovela.

57. Others were driven to the eatery of their choice.

58. Even our favorite hot pandesal gets smaller and smaller.

59. He’s been kind of an artista recently.

60. During the amihan season, the water off White Beach is often glassy-smooth.

61. The fare for pedicab is 5 pesos.

62. I requested for hot water so we can have our evening coffees.

63. All you have to do is buy stuff from the wet market.

64. He is about to finish his masteral studies in theology

65. You should instead tell them to pack up and go.

66. It’s sago with coconut milk served in shot glasses.

67. Bonifacio never fought with a bolo.

68. Support the estero clean-up in Manila.

69. You are turning to be a trapo even before you start your political career.

70. A total truck ban was implemented during daytime.

71. The availment of their PhilHealth benefits have not been stopped nor compromised.

72. It’s a must to have crispy pata on the table.

73. I needed to rush in the CR to pee.

74. I shop in ukay-ukay.

75. Just slice a raw ampalaya thinly, add tomatoes, and season with salt.

76. I left the sala to join the crowd in the yard.

77. The wife keeps buying dozens of place-mat sets in different colors from the tiangge.

78. Under the new plantilla, there was a drastic reduction of positions with Salary Grade I.

79. Try not to wear jeans and rubber shoes.

80. We went for a bit of shopping then came back to the hotel for some siesta.

81. This is the way they compensate their unli services by overcharging their clients.

82. I used tablea dissolved in hot water for more chocolate flavor.

83. We aimed not just to pass, but be a topnotcher!

84. World-famous Boracay Island is just a 15-min pumpboat away.

85. You got to bring your cedula to prove you are from Dauin.

86. The day after my final teaching demo was our finals in our Humanities 2 class.

87. Hotel 101 is a 15-story condotel with 526 rooms, measuring 21 sq. m each.

88. In Baguio-Benguet area alone, they have apprehended 150 colorum public utility vehicles.

89. It is thicker than a regular long bond paper.

90. There was one male character that wore a barong Tagalog with a visible sando underneath.

91. He was a ninong in my first wedding.

92. The studentry of the oldest university of our country are intelligent.

93. “We don’t know anything about that”, said Ochoa when asked in an ambush interview.

94. I left my bag in the bus, and brought a ballpen.

95. Loiz spends an average ₱50 for lunch of rice and a viand in the PAGASA canteen.

96. Angel is supposed to be paired with Vhong Navarro in the fantaserye.

97. This three-day seminar workshop aims to impart the total concept and principle of the ATR.

98. Cedie and I went malling and ate at Jollibee!

99. Two days after its birth, it rapidly intensified to a supertyphoon.

100. The restobar has live music playing from 6:30 all the way til 10:30.

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