- Cavite City
- +639228117797
Leah Gustilo
De La Salle University, English and Applied Linguistics, Faculty Member
- Bio-profile: Leah Gustilo, Ph.D., Full Professor and Research Fellow in the Department of English and Applied Lingui... moreBio-profile:
Leah Gustilo, Ph.D., Full Professor and Research Fellow in the Department of English and Applied Linguistics at De La Salle University, is the Founding Chief Editor of the Journal of English and Applied Linguistics and the Chief Editor of the Modern Journal of Studies in English Language Teaching and Literature. Formerly, she was the Director of De La Salle University’s Center for English and Lifelong Learning and Chief Editor of the Philippine ESL Journal. She was involved in several research projects funded by the British Council, Fund to Assistance for Private Education, Philippines; Japan International Cooperation Agency, Philippines; Knowledge Channel Foundation, Inc.; and University Research Coordination Office of De La Salle University. She has published articles on Philippine English, online self-presentation, internet talk, the use of technology in the classroom, and ESL writing and assessment. She has presented her research in linguistics conferences across Asia, the USA, and Europe.edit
Research Interests:
A plethora of studies that account for the differential use of language by men and women have explained why such differences exist from the standpoint of Deficit, Dominance and Difference models, emphasising male and female dichotomy or... more
A plethora of studies that account for the differential use of language by men and women have explained why such differences exist from the standpoint of Deficit, Dominance and Difference models, emphasising male and female dichotomy or male domination over women. The present study aims at filling a gap in language and gender research by underpinning its analysis with a social constructionist paradigm which views language and its interaction with the community of practice (CofP) as the conduits in shaping identity and by locating the context of the study inside a religious CofP. Our analyses indicated that the members of a Charismatic religious community share common selfpresentation strategies when constructing their identities, rejecting the dualism that distinguishes male and female language. Both males and females in our study have the same tendencies in using Supplication, Intimidation, Admitting Mistakes, Apology and Excuse in the narration of their Old life and Exemplification and Burnishing in the characterisation of their New life. However, the same respondents also exhibited differential use of tactics that also bolster previous findings on gender order. The interlocking relations of language, identity
Research Interests:
Public apologies are so prevalent in our social lives that they have become a subject of scholarly investigation all over the globe. The present study, which involves coding, frequency counting, and qualitative analysis, examines the... more
Public apologies are so prevalent in our social lives that they have become a subject of scholarly investigation all over the globe. The present study, which involves coding, frequency counting, and qualitative analysis, examines the strategic aspects of 16 public apologies issued to Filipino apologizees. The results of our analysis indicate that apologizers often choose varied knowledge types and draw upon presuppositions to strategically omit details that can negatively influence their credibility and the reception of their apology. More specifically, apologizers use the audience's presuppositions to avoid presenting common knowledge of the offense that may incriminate them further; they also omit the mention of future action that may hold them more accountable for their transgressions. Our present analysis bolsters the view that although the sincerity of public apologies cannot be exactly measured, they are still performed as part of image repair and management of interpersonal relationships.
Research Interests:
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the distribution and the functions of the semantic classes of adverbial clauses in the different organizational sections of L2 research articles in the field of applied linguistics and language... more
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the distribution and the functions of the semantic classes of adverbial clauses in the different organizational sections of L2 research articles in the field of applied linguistics and language teaching. Compared with nouns and verbs, the study of adverbs and adverbials is less popular because of the notion that they are not the main elements of sentence meaning. However, adverbs and adverbials are significant because of the roles they play in discourse. This study used 20 research articles selected from four journals and a book, which contained research papers written by Filipino authors. The clauses were manually marked and classified according to their semantic classes, and were counted separately according to the four conventional organizational units identified: Introduction, Methodology, Results and Discussion, and Conclusion/Recommendations (I-M-R-C). Then their functions in the different parts of the articles were analyzed. One of the ...
Research Interests:
Considering the dearth of information about how self is presented on the web, especially by Filipino home page authors, this study investigated online self-presentation on personal home pages focusing on ways in which authors present... more
Considering the dearth of information about how self is presented on the web, especially by Filipino home page authors, this study investigated online self-presentation on personal home pages focusing on ways in which authors present themselves online using hybrid literacies that rely on the combined visual, linguistic, and audio resources available on the web. The study used a multi-method approach: online survey of the PHP authors, content analysis of the websites, and linguistic analysis of the self-description language data found on the websites. The online survey was conducted in order to describe the host characteristics and production processes involved in home page authoring. The content analysis focused on the content and formulaic categories of the different elements found on the home pages. The content categories consisted of demographics, self-expression/description, social memberships, and interests while the formulaic features include feedback mechanism, audio/visual features, and organizational features. The linguistic analysis delved into the self-presentation strategies and linguistic features of PHPs. Overall, the study highlights some features associated with computer-mediated communication. There is a trend among Filipino personal home page authors to display similar online strategies used by PHP authors in previous studies. Filipino authors present themselves online using the palette of multi-modal elements like favourite links, guest books, background music, linguistic descriptions, graphics, e-mails, and many more. The analysis of the language data of PHPs yielded findings pointing to the preference of self-promotion over ingratiation by PHP authors, reflecting an important traditional belief in the Philippine culture: education and qualifications are important factors in a person good life. Self-promotion is greatly exhibited by high-profile non-computer related individuals, computerrelated workers, and students. Ingratiation, on the other hand, is greatly preferred by homemakers, low-profile non-computer related workers, and a student it is less likely to be used in computer-related jobs. The test for significance between self-presentation strategies and linguistic features reveals that self-presentation strategies may influence the use of following features: modals, pronouns, and process types. When using the self-promotion strategy, first and second pronouns, high commitment modality markers, and material and relational processes dominate. When, on the other hand, authors utilize ingratiation strategy, third person pronouns, emphasizers, and mental process features seem to abound. The link between self-presentation and linguistic features and other expressive resources is established by relating the particular pattern found in the data to Goffman explanation of sign activity. The study posits that when individuals prefer particular linguistic patterns or design tools, the choices have to be understood as signalling something about the persons identity, because these linguistic choices are paralinguistic cues (corresponding to non-verbal cue in face-to-face interaction) that reveal something about an individual
Research Interests:
Public apologies are so prevalent in our social lives that they have become a subject of scholarly investigation all over the globe. The present study, which involves coding, frequency counting, and qualitative analysis, examines the... more
Public apologies are so prevalent in our social lives that they have become a subject of scholarly investigation all over the globe. The present study, which involves coding, frequency counting, and qualitative analysis, examines the strategic aspects of 16 public apologies issued to Filipino apologizees. The results of our analysis indicate that apologizers often choose varied knowledge types and draw upon presuppositions to strategically omit details that can negatively influence their credibility and the reception of their apology. More specifically, apologizers use the audience's presuppositions to avoid presenting common knowledge of the offense that may incriminate them further; they also omit the mention of future action that may hold them more accountable for their transgressions. Our present analysis bolsters the view that although the sincerity of public apologies cannot be exactly measured, they are still performed as part of image repair and management of interpersonal relationships.
Research Interests:
A plethora of studies that account for the differential use of language by men and women have explained why such differences exist from the standpoint of Deficit, Dominance and Difference models, emphasising male and female dichotomy or... more
A plethora of studies that account for the differential use of language by men and women have explained why such differences exist from the standpoint of Deficit, Dominance and Difference models, emphasising male and female dichotomy or male domination over women. The present study aims at filling a gap in language and gender research by underpinning its analysis with a social constructionist paradigm which views language and its interaction with the community of practice (CofP) as the conduits in shaping identity and by locating the context of the study inside a religious CofP. Our analyses indicated that the members of a Charismatic religious community share common selfpresentation strategies when constructing their identities, rejecting the dualism that distinguishes male and female language. Both males and females in our study have the same tendencies in using Supplication, Intimidation, Admitting Mistakes, Apology and Excuse in the narration of their Old life and Exemplification and Burnishing in the characterisation of their New life. However, the same respondents also exhibited differential use of tactics that also bolster previous findings on gender order. The interlocking relations of language, identity
Research Interests:
Public apologies are so prevalent in our social lives that they have become a subject of scholarly investigation all over the globe. The present study, which involves coding, frequency counting, and qualitative analysis, examines the... more
Public apologies are so prevalent in our social lives that they have become a subject of scholarly investigation all over the globe. The present study, which involves coding, frequency counting, and qualitative analysis, examines the strategic aspects of 16 public apologies issued to Filipino apologizees. The results of our analysis indicate that apologizers often choose varied knowledge types and draw upon presuppositions to strategically omit details that can negatively influence their credibility and the reception of their apology. More specifically, apologizers use the audience's presuppositions to avoid presenting common knowledge of the offense that may incriminate them further; they also omit the mention of future action that may hold them more accountable for their transgressions. Our present analysis bolsters the view that although the sincerity of public apologies cannot be exactly measured, they are still performed as part of image repair and management of interpersonal relationships.
Research Interests:
Public apologies are so prevalent in our social lives that they have become a subject of scholarly investigation all over the globe. The present study, which involves coding, frequency counting, and qualitative analysis, examines the... more
Public apologies are so prevalent in our social lives that they have become a subject of scholarly investigation all over the globe. The present study, which involves coding, frequency counting, and qualitative analysis, examines the strategic aspects of 16 public apologies issued to Filipino apologizees. The results of our analysis indicate that apologizers often choose varied knowledge types and draw upon presuppositions to strategically omit details that can negatively influence their credibility and the reception of their apology. More specifically, apologizers use the audience’s presuppositions to avoid presenting common knowledge of the offense that may incriminate them further; they also omit the mention of future action that may hold them more accountable for their transgressions. Our present analysis bolsters the view that although the sincerity of public apologies cannot be exactly measured, they are still performed as part of image repair and management of interpersonal r...
Research Interests:
Modern Journal of Studies in English Language Teaching and Literature (MJSELT) is an international, academic, and refereed publication that aims to report the latest studies in English language, language teaching, and literature. We... more
Modern Journal of Studies in English Language Teaching and Literature (MJSELT) is an international, academic, and refereed publication that aims to report the latest studies in English language, language teaching, and literature. We welcome original and high-quality articles that critically assess and expand theories, advance classroom teaching and learning, improve research methods, inform policymaking, and promote new ideas and discoveries. The following important criteria should be met by the articles:new methodological approaches or new perspectives in conducting traditional research, scholarly rigor in the analysis and discussion of findings that result in new theorizing, and novel contributions that address real-world problems. MJSELT is an important resource for students, teachers, researchers, and administrators in the area of language teaching and related areas of language studies.
Research Interests:
A cornucopia of research has been recorded on metadiscourse across disciplines and languages. Still, this current study is the first to analyze how metadiscourse markers (MDMs) help realize the functions of moves and steps in the Methods... more
A cornucopia of research has been recorded on metadiscourse across disciplines and languages. Still, this current study is the first to analyze how metadiscourse markers (MDMs) help realize the functions of moves and steps in the Methods sections of research articles (RAs) involving different disciplines and Englishes. The current research is concerned with the identification of MDMs in the moves and steps of the Methods section of social science, business, and linguistics RAs written by American English (inner circle), Philippine English (outer circle), and Chinese English (expanding circle) RA writers. Utilizing a qualitative-quantitative mixed methodology, it shows that engagement MDMs are the highly preferred interactional MDMs, that culture and discipline are two variables that account for the variations in MDMs use, that soft disciplines like social sciences and humanities seem to demand more writer accountability to assertions made, and that both the expanding and outer circles of Englishes sometimes behave like the inner circle English with apparent similarities and differences in the utilization of MDMs. Instructional implications were suggested based on the results of our present work.
Research Interests:
A cornucopia of research has been conducted on the use of metadiscourse across disciplines and languages. Still, this present study is the first to identify and analyse how metadiscourse markers (MDMs) help realize the functions of moves... more
A cornucopia of research has been conducted on the use of metadiscourse across disciplines and languages. Still, this present study is the first to identify and analyse how metadiscourse markers (MDMs) help realize the functions of moves and steps in the Methods sections of research articles (RAs) across disciplines and Englishes. The present study is an investigation of the distribution of MDMs in the formulation of moves and steps in the Methods section of social science, business, and linguistics RAs written by American English (the inner circle), Philippine English (outer circle), and Chinese English (expanding circle) RA writers. Utilizing a qualitative-quantitative mixed methodology, it shows that engagement markers are the most frequently used interactional markers, that culture and discipline are two variables that account for the variations in MDMs use, that soft disciplines like humanities and social sciences seem to demand more writer accountability to assertions made, an...
Research Interests:
The rapidly-spreading infectious disease known as Covid-19 has created a global debacle which triggered the creation of a specialised language to reflect the new situations that have suddenly become part of people's lives. The goal of the... more
The rapidly-spreading infectious disease known as Covid-19 has created a global debacle which triggered the creation of a specialised language to reflect the new situations that have suddenly become part of people's lives. The goal of the present investigation is to describe the linguistic innovations that entered the lexicon of Englishes across the globe. This corpus-based study aimed at describing the meanings and word-formation processes of the trending pandemic-related revitalised and newly-formed compounds and blends in L1 and L2 English varieties. The findings of the current study have clearly displayed that the lasting effects of the pandemic are left indelibly in the lexical innovations introduced in language. Not all pandemic-related words will become permanent in the word stock of any given variety. However, given the long-lasting implications of COVID-19, documenting the nature of language upheaval during the pandemic and its contribution to the vocabulary of first and second language English varieties is of utmost importance.
Research Interests:
Wars and conquests have always opened the floodgates of new words and meanings into the lexicon of the English language. Another kind of war that opens the floodgates for the passage of neologisms into the English language is the war on... more
Wars and conquests have always opened the floodgates of new words and meanings into the lexicon of the English language. Another kind of war that opens the floodgates for the passage of neologisms into the English language is the war on health during epidemics or pandemics. The present study utilized the News On the Web (NOW) corpus of English-corpora.org to (1) produce a word-list of COVID-19 pandemic language classified as medical, economic, political, and psychosocial lexemes; (2) identify the word-formation processes operating on the COVID-19 related vocabulary, and (3) determine which words are prevalent and unique in L1, L2 Asian, and L2 African varieties of the English language based on their occurrences in the corpus. The study identified 590 pandemic-related words drawn from the News on the Web (NOW) corpus dating from January 2020 to October 2021. The psychosocial category of the pandemic lexicon constitutes the biggest category of words identified from the corpus. The word-formation processes that operated in the production of the pandemic lexemes are compounds, blends, affixation, acronyms, and back-formation. L1 countries have the highest number of pandemic neologisms, prevalent or high-frequent pandemic lexemes, and unique word combinations. People produce neologisms as a coping mechanism to overcome various stressors and reflect their pandemic-related experiences.
Research Interests:
A plethora of research on academic discourse analysis has supplied empirical findings that readers' impressions of texts can be managed through the utilization of metadiscoursal resources linked to the social intentions and practices of... more
A plethora of research on academic discourse analysis has supplied empirical findings that readers' impressions of texts can be managed through the utilization of metadiscoursal resources linked to the social intentions and practices of academic communities. However, the writers' efforts in meeting the readers' expectations through metadiscourse in the specific rhetorical moves of abstracts across disciplines have not been much researched. The study examines the rhetorical moves of research article abstracts (RAAs) and the distribution of metadiscourse markers (MDMs) across the identified moves using a corpus of 300 abstracts in four disciplines. The analysis shows that product, purpose, and method moves were given more prominence by most of the writers across disciplines. Transition markers were the most utilized interactive markers, while hedges and engagement markers were the most prominently used interactional markers. This study provides implications for research article abstract writers to manage readers' impressions of texts and comply with the expectations of the discourse community in their respective fields.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The present study sought to determine the current skills, competencies, and needs of the Senior High School (SHS) students in a public school in Metro Manila, Philippines, regarding academic reading and writing through needs analysis... more
The present study sought to determine the current skills, competencies, and needs of the Senior High School (SHS) students in a public school in Metro Manila, Philippines, regarding academic reading and writing through needs analysis (NA). The NA uses two approaches: (1) present situation analysis (PSA), with a purpose of pointing out the English proficiency of students and their level in reading and writing in the second language at the onset of the course (Dudley-Evans & St Johns, 1998; Robinson, 1991 as cited in Ibrahim, 2016), and (2) learning needs analysis (LNA), which is referred to as, “what the learner needs to do to learn” (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987 as cited in Ibrahim, 2016, p.2). The researchers conducted a survey among 100 SHS students and triangulated the results through an item analysis of Reading and Writing diagnostic test administered to the participants and interview sessions with three English teachers, seven diagnostic test high scorers, and seven students with ...
King Arman Calingasan is a full-time faculty member in Notre Dame University. Through a scholarship granted by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) of the Philippines, he is currently finishing the program, Master of Arts in English... more
King Arman Calingasan is a full-time faculty member in Notre Dame University. Through a scholarship granted by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) of the Philippines, he is currently finishing the program, Master of Arts in English Language Education, in De
Research Interests:
The purpose of the pilot study, which is a part of a larger project on ESL writing involving freshmen college students in the Philippines, is to explore the relationship between writer's performance, writer's resources, and writer's idea... more
The purpose of the pilot study, which is a part of a larger project on ESL writing involving freshmen college students in the Philippines, is to explore the relationship between writer's performance, writer's resources, and writer's idea generation process. To measure the writer's performance, diagnostic essays of 85 Filipino freshmen engineering students were evaluated based on Gustilo's (2011) modified holistic scoring guide. To measure writer's resources, tests on linguistic knowledge and topic familiarity and a survey questionnaire on writing background were administered to the same students. To measure writer's idea generation process while composing, a Likert Scale questionnaire based on Chenoweth and Hayes 2001 and 2003 models was designed and administered to the students after their diagnostic essay task. Pearson product moment correlation was used to test for significant relationships. Discourse completion task (DCT) was administered to confirm the results gathered through quantitative method. Findings partly confirm the findings of previous studies. Writer's performance is correlated with all the variables under study except for spelling test.
Research Interests:
A plethora of studies that account for the differential use of language by men and women have explained why such differences exist from the standpoint of Deficit, Dominance and Difference models, emphasising male and female dichotomy or... more
A plethora of studies that account for the differential use of language by men and women have explained why such differences exist from the standpoint of Deficit, Dominance and Difference models, emphasising male and female dichotomy or male domination over women. The present study aims at filling a gap in language and gender research by underpinning its analysis with a social constructionist paradigm which views language and its interaction with the community of practice (CofP) as the conduits in shaping identity and by locating the context of the study inside a religious CofP. Our analyses indicated that the members of a Charismatic religious community share common selfpresentation strategies when constructing their identities, rejecting the dualism that distinguishes male and female language. Both males and females in our study have the same tendencies in using Supplication, Intimidation, Admitting Mistakes, Apology and Excuse in the narration of their Old life and Exemplification and Burnishing in the characterisation of their New life. However, the same respondents also exhibited differential use of tactics that also bolster previous findings on gender order. The interlocking relations of language, identity
Research Interests:
The rapidly-spreading infectious disease known as Covid-19 has created a global debacle which triggered the creation of a specialised language to reflect the new situations that have suddenly become part of people's lives. The goal of... more
The rapidly-spreading infectious disease known as Covid-19 has created a global debacle which triggered the creation of a specialised language to reflect the new situations that have suddenly become part of people's lives. The goal of the present investigation is to describe the linguistic innovations that entered the lexicon of Englishes across the globe. This corpus-based study aimed at describing the meanings and word-formation processes of the trending pandemic-related revitalised and newly-formed compounds and blends in L1 and L2 English varieties. The findings of the current study have clearly displayed that the lasting effects of the pandemic are left indelibly in the lexical innovations introduced in language. Not all pandemic-related words will become permanent in the word stock of any given variety. However, given the long-lasting implications of COVID-19, documenting the nature of language upheaval during the pandemic and its contribution to the vocabulary of first an...
Research Interests:
Wars and conquests have always opened the floodgates of new words and meanings into the lexicon of the English language. Another kind of war that opens the floodgates for the passage of neologisms into the English language is the war on... more
Wars and conquests have always opened the floodgates of new words and meanings into the lexicon of the English language. Another kind of war that opens the floodgates for the passage of neologisms into the English language is the war on health during epidemics or pandemics. The present study utilized the News On the Web (NOW) corpus of English-corpora.org to (1) produce a word-list of COVID-19 pandemic language classified as medical, economic, political, and psychosocial lexemes; (2) identify the word-formation processes operating on the COVID-19 related vocabulary, and (3) determine which words are prevalent and unique in L1, L2 Asian, and L2 African varieties of the English language based on their occurrences in the corpus. The study identified 590 pandemic-related words drawn from the News on the Web (NOW) corpus dating from January 2020 to October 2021. The psychosocial category of the pandemic lexicon constitutes the biggest category of words identified from the corpus. The word-formation processes that operated in the production of the pandemic lexemes are compounds, blends, affixation, acronyms, and back-formation. L1 countries have the highest number of pandemic neologisms, prevalent or high-frequent pandemic lexemes, and unique word combinations. People produce neologisms as a coping mechanism to overcome various stressors and reflect their pandemic-related experiences.
Research Interests:
Previous studies lack findings on how an instructional setting that utilizes CMC may both aid in the development of writing proficiency and reduce anxiety that are associated with the demands of writing. This pilot study attempts to fill... more
Previous studies lack findings on how an instructional setting that utilizes CMC may both aid in the development of writing proficiency and reduce anxiety that are associated with the demands of writing. This pilot study attempts to fill this gap by investigating the effects of online portfolio through weblogs (blogging) on students' writing anxiety and writing skills. Seventeen (17) respondents enrolled in an English Communication course of a private university in the Philippines participated in the study. Data were gathered using Cheng's (2004) Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI), Discourse Completion Task (DCT), focus group discussion (FGD), and content analysis of students' blog comments. Results of the questionnaire revealed that students with low, average, and high writing anxiety reported common causes of their writing anxiety such as limited vocabulary, difficulty in organizing their thoughts when asked to write under time pressure, and fear of stud...
Research Interests:
Renewed calls for identifying other variables and validating previous models that account for the complex interplay of mechanisms that are activated in the writing process have been made. In response to this call, the study investigates... more
Renewed calls for identifying other variables and validating previous models that account for the complex interplay of mechanisms that are activated in the writing process have been made. In response to this call, the study investigates whether text production processes (idea generation, idea encoding, idea/text revision, and idea transcription) mediate the effect of topic knowledge, linguistic knowledge, writing approach, and writing experience on writing performance. Writer’s performance was measured by timed essays, while the psycholinguistic and linguistic variables were measured by scales and tests. Results yielded by Structural Equations Modeling indicate that topic knowledge and linguistic knowledge have direct effects on writing performance and indirect effects on writing performance through text production process. Writing approach and writing experience do not directly affect writing performance, but they indirectly affect writing performance through text production proce...
Research Interests:
The quintessential role of language has been punctiliously studied relative to intercultural communication, cultural heritage, social development, education, identity construction and many more domains. One forum wherein language is... more
The quintessential role of language has been punctiliously studied relative to intercultural communication, cultural heritage, social development, education, identity construction and many more domains. One forum wherein language is investigated is the Computer-mediated Communication (CMC) which provides a fertile ground for linguistic and sociolinguistic analyses. The present study aims at investigating the preferred codes used in code switching (CS), functions of CS, and the motives of users for employing CS in CMC. The present study was based on the investigation of 200 status updates and 100 wall posts of 50 Facebook accounts of students who are enrolled in a leading state university in Mindanao and professionals who graduated from the same university. Besides English and Filipino, these Facebook users speak various regional languages such as Chavacano, Cebuano, and Tausug. Their posts were analyzed employing eclectic approaches in analyzing inter-sentential and intra-sentential...
Research Interests:
With over two billion active users worldwide, Facebook brought the digital community to connections and opportunities. Its supremacy as focus in research articles calls for investigation on its unique language which is considered to be... more
With over two billion active users worldwide, Facebook brought the digital community to connections and opportunities. Its supremacy as focus in research articles calls for investigation on its unique language which is considered to be instrumental in the transmission of information and culture whether offline or online. This present study on Facebook language reports findings from a sub-sample of a 500,000-word corpus of communication in Social Networking Sites. The linguistic analysis has shown that the Filipino Digitalkers have created lexical hybrids-words or expressions that are products of word-formation processes-and other features that are associated with online communication. Filipino Digitalkers have exemplified functional use of lexical creativity in quasi-synchronous chat over Facebook. Among these were the established features of electronic communication such as acronymy, capped expression, affixation, repetition, compounding and coinage. There was also usage of what was labeled non-standard in written communication: non-capitalization, and contractions. Creativity in language use has driven FB Digitalkers to include in their utterances the features transcription of sigh, emotion, and physical feature; pun, and emoticon. This study has also explained the Filipino Digitalker's unique use of ellipsis and punctuation which appears to have performed some pragmatic functions in communication namely immediacy and repair. This paper also addresses a current issue in language use by transfiguring Digitalk from a threat to a pedagogical tool in language classes. Digitalkers have developed an additional technologically-conditioned competence, a hybrid competence, combining both knowledge in oral and written communication online. Hence, it might prove beneficial if language teachers could start looking at digitalk as a boon, an additional hybrid competence, and an authentic linguistic resource in teaching language.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Electronic language or Netspeak is the language of today's generation in computer-mediated communication (CMC). It is characterized by the nonstandard and non conventional use and manipulation of symbols, characters, and lexical... more
Electronic language or Netspeak is the language of today's generation in computer-mediated communication (CMC). It is characterized by the nonstandard and non conventional use and manipulation of symbols, characters, and lexical items. Hence, Netspeak is considered informal in existing literature. Using age as an important variable in the analysis, the researchers found that Netspeak was not an exclusive language among the young but a shared language among all age cohorts under study. This is so because all Internet users, regardless of their age attempted to use nonstandard language in virtual communication. After having analyzed the online utterances from the social media accounts of 63 respondents, the present study compared the Netspeak features of Filipino Netspeakers who belong to three age cohorts (15-25, 26-35, and 36-50). The data revealed similarities and differences in the prevalence of the 30 identified Netspeak features across age cohorts. The absence of punctuation and shortening of expressions were the most prevalent in the utterances of Filipino Netspeakers. This study foregrounds the notion of youngerspeak—the language of Netspeakers who belong to the older age brackets which is used to adjust to the language of the young.
Research Interests:
The present study made use of five text categories sourced from newspapers in the data bank of the Philippine component of the International Corpus of English (ICE-PHI) compiled by Bautista, Lising, and Dayag (1999). The five text... more
The present study made use of five text categories sourced from newspapers in the data bank of the Philippine component of the International Corpus of English (ICE-PHI) compiled by Bautista, Lising, and Dayag (1999). The five text categories chosen for analysis belong to the major text category of written printed data: Skills and Hobbies (Instructional), Press Editorials (Persuasive), Press News Reports (Informational-Reportage), Humanities (Informational-Popular), and Social Science (Informational-Popular). The total number of texts analyzed for the present study is 50 (approximately 100,000 words). The present study aimed at describing the semantic functions of nine modals under study and investigating as to whether there are features in the use of modals in the Philippine context that do not conform to the current usage taught in the textbooks that conform to the American and British usage. The findings lead to tentative conclusions and implications to language teaching and open ...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The present study investigated the sentence-level errors of freshmen students at three proficiency levels and the aspects of writing that raters focused on while rating the essays. It views errors as valuable information for the... more
The present study investigated the sentence-level errors of freshmen students at three proficiency levels and the aspects of writing that raters focused on while rating the essays. It views errors as valuable information for the following: For teachers, as it clues ...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Wars and conquests have always opened the floodgates of new words and meanings into the lexicon of the English language. Another kind of war that opens the floodgates for the passage of neologisms into the English language is the war on... more
Wars and conquests have always opened the floodgates of new words and meanings into the
lexicon of the English language. Another kind of war that opens the floodgates for the passage
of neologisms into the English language is the war on health during epidemics or pandemics.
The present study utilized the News On the Web (NOW) corpus of English-corpora.org to (1)
produce a word-list of COVID-19 pandemic language classified as medical, economic,
political, and psychosocial lexemes; (2) identify the word-formation processes operating on the
COVID-19 related vocabulary, and (3) determine which words are prevalent and unique in L1,
L2 Asian, and L2 African varieties of the English language based on their occurrences in the
corpus. The study identified 590 pandemic-related words drawn from the News on the Web
(NOW) corpus dating from January 2020 to October 2021. The psychosocial category of the
pandemic lexicon constitutes the biggest category of words identified from the corpus. The
word-formation processes that operated in the production of the pandemic lexemes are
compounds, blends, affixation, acronyms, and back-formation. L1 countries have the highest
number of pandemic neologisms, prevalent or high-frequent pandemic lexemes, and unique
word combinations. People produce neologisms as a coping mechanism to overcome various
stressors and reflect their pandemic-related experiences.
lexicon of the English language. Another kind of war that opens the floodgates for the passage
of neologisms into the English language is the war on health during epidemics or pandemics.
The present study utilized the News On the Web (NOW) corpus of English-corpora.org to (1)
produce a word-list of COVID-19 pandemic language classified as medical, economic,
political, and psychosocial lexemes; (2) identify the word-formation processes operating on the
COVID-19 related vocabulary, and (3) determine which words are prevalent and unique in L1,
L2 Asian, and L2 African varieties of the English language based on their occurrences in the
corpus. The study identified 590 pandemic-related words drawn from the News on the Web
(NOW) corpus dating from January 2020 to October 2021. The psychosocial category of the
pandemic lexicon constitutes the biggest category of words identified from the corpus. The
word-formation processes that operated in the production of the pandemic lexemes are
compounds, blends, affixation, acronyms, and back-formation. L1 countries have the highest
number of pandemic neologisms, prevalent or high-frequent pandemic lexemes, and unique
word combinations. People produce neologisms as a coping mechanism to overcome various
stressors and reflect their pandemic-related experiences.
Research Interests:
Wars and conquests have always opened the floodgates of new words and meanings into the lexicon of the English language. Another kind of war that opens the floodgates for the passage of neologisms into the English language is the war on... more
Wars and conquests have always opened the floodgates of new words and meanings into the lexicon of the English language. Another kind of war that opens the floodgates for the passage of neologisms into the English language is the war on health during epidemics or pandemics. The present study utilized the News On the Web (NOW) corpus of English-corpora.org to (1) produce a word-list of COVID-19 pandemic language classified as medical, economic, political, and psychosocial lexemes; (2) identify the word-formation processes operating on the COVID-19 related vocabulary, and (3) determine which words are prevalent and unique in L1, L2 Asian, and L2 African varieties of the English language based on their occurrences in the corpus. The study identified 590 pandemic-related words drawn from the News on the Web (NOW) corpus dating from January 2020 to October 2021. The psychosocial category of the pandemic lexicon constitutes the biggest category of words identified from the corpus. The word-formation processes that operated in the production of the pandemic lexemes are compounds, blends, affixation, acronyms, and back-formation. L1 countries have the highest number of pandemic neologisms, prevalent or high-frequent pandemic lexemes, and unique word combinations. People produce neologisms as a coping mechanism to overcome various stressors and reflect their pandemic-related experiences.
Research Interests:
A plethora of research on academic discourse analysis has supplied empirical findings that readers' impressions of texts can be managed through the utilization of metadiscoursal resources linked to the social intentions and practices of... more
A plethora of research on academic discourse analysis has supplied empirical findings that readers' impressions of texts can be managed through the utilization of metadiscoursal resources linked to the social intentions and practices of academic communities. However, the writers' efforts in meeting the readers' expectations through metadiscourse in the specific rhetorical moves of abstracts across disciplines have not been much researched. The study examines the rhetorical moves of research article abstracts (RAAs) and the distribution of metadiscourse markers (MDMs) across the identified moves using a corpus of 300 abstracts in four disciplines. The analysis shows that product, purpose, and method moves were given more prominence by most of the writers across disciplines. Transition markers were the most utilized interactive markers, while hedges and engagement markers were the most prominently used interactional markers. This study provides implications for research article abstract writers to manage readers' impressions of texts and comply with the expectations of the discourse community in their respective fields.
Research Interests:
The rapidly-spreading infectious disease known as Covid-19 has created a global debacle which triggered the creation of a specialised language to reflect the new situations that have suddenly become part of people's lives. The goal of the... more
The rapidly-spreading infectious disease known as Covid-19 has created a global debacle which triggered the creation of a specialised language to reflect the new situations that have suddenly become part of people's lives. The goal of the present investigation is to describe the linguistic innovations that entered the lexicon of Englishes across the globe. This corpus-based study aimed at describing the meanings and word-formation processes of the trending pandemic-related revitalised and newly-formed compounds and blends in L1 and L2 English varieties. The findings of the current study have clearly displayed that the lasting effects of the pandemic are left indelibly in the lexical innovations introduced in language. Not all pandemic-related words will become permanent in the word stock of any given variety. However, given the long-lasting implications of COVID-19, documenting the nature of language upheaval during the pandemic and its contribution to the vocabulary of first and second language English varieties is of utmost importance.
extensively. The previous issues of PESL have one or two submissions representing countries from Asia other than the Philippines. In this issue, only the works of Filipino scholars and researchers were included. This may not be a... more
extensively. The previous issues of PESL have one or two submissions representing countries from Asia other than the Philippines. In this issue, only the works of Filipino scholars and researchers were included. This may not be a coincidence but a circumstantial indication to highlight some of the areas of research that are of importance to the language learning/teaching in the Philippines, the Mecca for English language learning (Robertson, 2008; Magno, 2009), as more Asian students coming from Iran, China, Korea, and other neighbouring Asian countries come to the Philippines to learn English and get their undergraduate and graduate courses in language education. The first section presents four sociolinguistic-discourse analytic researches touching different sectors in the Philippines. Applying Goffman’s (1999) framework on the concept of Face, Pamela Skouhus’s study provides an ingenious analysis of business workplace interaction and face management on employer-employee discourse ...
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the distribution and the functions of the semantic classes of adverbial clauses in the different organizational sections of L2 research articles in the field of applied linguistics and language... more
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the distribution and the functions of the semantic classes of adverbial clauses in the different organizational sections of L2 research articles in the field of applied linguistics and language teaching. Compared with nouns and verbs, the study of adverbs and adverbials is less popular because of the notion that they are not the main elements of sentence meaning.
The present study aimed at characterizing what skilled or more proficient ESL college writing is in the Philippine setting through a contrastive analysis of three groups of variables identified from previous studies: resources, processes,... more
The present study aimed at characterizing what skilled or more proficient ESL college writing is in the Philippine setting through a contrastive analysis of three groups of variables identified from previous studies: resources, processes, and performance of ESL writers. Based on Chenoweth and Hayes’ (2001; 2003) framework, the resource level variables are represented by linguistic and content knowledge, writing experience, and writing approach; the process variables are represented by proposer (idea generation), translator (idea encoding), transcriber (idea transcription), and reviser (idea revision/evaluation). Writing performance was represented by length of essay and writing fluency. Essay score, also a measure of writing performance, was used to group the writers into less proficient and more proficient writers. Means and standard deviations of the items were obtained. The internal consistencies for tests using scales were obtained using Cronbach’s Alpha; for tests with right an...
Research Interests:
This study addresses a gap in research about Personal home pages (PHPs) by examining the uses of language for the expression of identity and self-presentation through the analysis of self-expressionlself-description data found on Filipino... more
This study addresses a gap in research about Personal home pages (PHPs) by examining the uses of language for the expression of identity and self-presentation through the analysis of self-expressionlself-description data found on Filipino PHPs. Thirty personal home page texts that belong to 20 Filipino males and 10 Filipino females are analyzed to describe how Filipino home page authors present themselves on the web though their linguistic sources, which are investigated in terms of the structuring of three types of meaning involved in the clause: identificational, actional, and representational. When conveying identificational meaning through pronouns and modal markers, the authors present themselves as individuals who attempt to establish interpersonal relationship with their readers, casual communication, and high level commitment to their descriptions. When structuring actional meaning through 'sentence types' and speech functions, authors 'give off' information ...
Research Interests:
The present study aimed at characterizing what skilled or more proficient ESL college writing is in the Philippine setting through a contrastive analysis of three groups of variables identified from previous studies: resources, processes,... more
The present study aimed at characterizing what skilled or more proficient ESL college writing is in the Philippine setting through a contrastive analysis of three groups of variables identified from previous studies: resources, processes, and performance of ESL writers. Based on Chenoweth and Hayes’ (2001; 2003) framework, the resource level variables are represented by linguistic and content knowledge, writing experience, and writing approach; the process variables are represented by proposer (idea generation), translator (idea encoding), transcriber (idea transcription), and reviser (idea revision/evaluation). Writing performance was represented by length of essay and writing fluency. Essay score, also a measure of writing performance, was used to group the writers into less proficient and more proficient writers. Means and standard deviations of the items were obtained. The internal consistencies for tests using scales were obtained using Cronbach’s Alpha; for tests with right an...
Research Interests:
This paper presents an analysis of American and Philippine English news leads. This study of one week's news leads of six leading American and Philippine newspapers over internet online publications shows that there is no significant... more
This paper presents an analysis of American and Philippine English news leads. This study of one week's news leads of six leading American and Philippine newspapers over internet online publications shows that there is no significant difference in the number of words used between the two Englishes. Moreover, both samples demonstrate similar preference for summary lead with who, what, and when as the most frequently used elements and who as the heavily used starting element. The recurrent patterns of similarities may be attributed to the tendency of Philippine writers to adhere to the expectations of international journalism as propagated by European and American journalists or as a trace of American influence in the Philippine educational system
Research Interests:
This study, which is a part of a larger project on learner corpora, used a corpus linguistic approach to analyzing ESL writing produced by freshmen college students from five private schools in Metro Manila, Philippines, in their first... more
This study, which is a part of a larger project on learner corpora, used a corpus linguistic approach to analyzing ESL writing produced by freshmen college students from five private schools in Metro Manila, Philippines, in their first week of classes. The data for the study includes (1) essay scores used to classify texts by levels of proficiency, (2) computer tagging results, and (3) MANOVA, ANOVA, and regression analyses. The analyses revealed that most of the general text characteristics (e.g. fluency, unique words, word per sentence, number of sentence, number of paragraphs) and lexical (except conjuncts), clause-level, and grammatical features all have a steady increase across proficiency levels. This implies that the (1) writers of high score essays (level 2 and 3) are likely to employ more of these structures, and (2) The employment of these structures impact the raters' assignment of scores on the essays. The findings of the present study lead to tentative conclusions a...
Research Interests:
This study, which is a part of a larger project on learner corpora, used a corpus linguistic approach to analyzing ESL writing produced by freshmen college students from five private schools in Metro Manila, Philippines, in their first... more
This study, which is a part of a larger project on learner corpora, used a corpus linguistic approach to analyzing ESL writing produced by freshmen college students from five private schools in Metro Manila, Philippines, in their first week of classes. The data for the study includes (1) essay scores used to classify texts by levels of proficiency, (2) computer tagging results, and (3) MANOVA, ANOVA, and regression analyses. The analyses revealed that most of the general text characteristics (e.g. fluency, unique words, word per sentence, number of sentence, number of paragraphs) and lexical (except conjuncts), clause-level, and grammatical features all have a steady increase across proficiency levels. This implies that the (1) writers of high score essays (level 2 and 3) are likely to employ more of these structures, and (2) The employment of these structures impact the raters’ assignment of scores on the essays. The findings of the present study lead to tentative conclusions and i...
Research Interests:
The rapidly-spreading infectious disease known as Covid-19 has created a global debacle which triggered the creation of a specialised language to reflect the new situations that have suddenly become part of people's lives. The goal of the... more
The rapidly-spreading infectious disease known as Covid-19 has created a global debacle which triggered the creation of a specialised language to reflect the new situations that have suddenly become part of people's lives. The goal of the present investigation is to describe the linguistic innovations that entered the lexicon of Englishes across the globe. This corpus-based study aimed at describing the meanings and word-formation processes of the trending pandemic-related revitalised and newly-formed compounds and blends in L1 and L2 English varieties. The findings of the current study have clearly displayed that the lasting effects of the pandemic are left indelibly in the lexical innovations introduced in language. Not all pandemic-related words will become permanent in the word stock of any given variety. However, given the long-lasting implications of COVID-19, documenting the nature of language upheaval during the pandemic and its contribution to the vocabulary of first and second language English varieties is of utmost importance.
Research Interests:
A plethora of research on academic discourse analysis has supplied empirical findings that readers' impression of texts can be managed through the utilization of metadiscoursal resources linked to the social intentions and practices... more
A plethora of research on academic discourse analysis has supplied empirical findings that readers' impression of texts can be managed through the utilization of metadiscoursal resources linked to the social intentions and practices of academic communities. However, the writers’ efforts in meeting the readers’ expectations through metadiscourse in the specific rhetorical moves of abstracts across disciplines have not been much researched. The study examines the rhetorical moves of research article abstracts (RAAs) and the distribution of metadiscourse markers (MDMs) across the identified moves using a corpus of 300 abstracts in four disciplines. The analysis shows that product, purpose, and method moves were given more prominence by most of the writers across disciplines. Transition markers were the most utilized interactive markers, while hedges and engagement markers were the most prominently used interactional markers. This study provides implications for research article abs...
This paper is a meta-analysis of the word-formation processes' frameworks used by Filipino speakers of English. It presents these processes that operated in the creation of the Philippine English (henceforth PhilE) lexicon since... more
This paper is a meta-analysis of the word-formation processes' frameworks used by Filipino speakers of English. It presents these processes that operated in the creation of the Philippine English (henceforth PhilE) lexicon since the 1970's and argues that Philippine English lexical-formation creatively dances with the changing of time. The limited studies on the present thesis conducted from 1973 to 2015 show interesting lexical items created through the existing L1 English word-formation processes. Philippine English lexical items culled from the early 21 st century writings were formed through the existing word-formation processes and through creative expansions or modifications of such processes with the deliberate integration of figures of speech such as anagram, metonymy, onomatopoeia, oxymoron, and pun. This paper, therefore, proposes a tentative composite modified framework adopted from all existing L1 English and ESL variety frameworks surveyed in this study.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Public apologies are so prevalent in our social lives that they have become a subject of scholarly investigation all over the globe. The present study, which involves coding, frequency counting, and qualitative analysis, examines the... more
Public apologies are so prevalent in our social lives that they have become a subject of scholarly investigation all over the globe. The present study, which involves coding, frequency counting, and qualitative analysis, examines the strategic aspects of 16 public apologies issued to Filipino apologizees. The results of our analysis indicate that apologizers often choose varied knowledge types and draw upon presuppositions to strategically omit details that can negatively influence their credibility and the reception of their apology. More specifically, apologizers use the audience's presuppositions to avoid presenting common knowledge of the offense that may incriminate them further; they also omit the mention of future action that may hold them more accountable for their transgressions. Our present analysis bolsters the view that although the sincerity of public apologies cannot be exactly measured, they are still performed as part of image repair and management of interpersonal relationships.
Research Interests:
A plethora of studies that account for the differential use of language by men and women have explained why such differences exist from the standpoint of Deficit, Dominance and Difference models, emphasising male and female dichotomy or... more
A plethora of studies that account for the differential use of language by men and women have explained why such differences exist from the standpoint of Deficit, Dominance and Difference models, emphasising male and female dichotomy or male domination over women. The present study aims at filling a gap in language and gender research by underpinning its analysis with a social constructionist paradigm which views language and its interaction with the community of practice (CofP) as the conduits in shaping identity and by locating the context of the study inside a religious CofP. Our analyses indicated that the members of a Charismatic religious community share common selfpresentation strategies when constructing their identities, rejecting the dualism that distinguishes male and female language. Both males and females in our study have the same tendencies in using Supplication, Intimidation, Admitting Mistakes, Apology and Excuse in the narration of their Old life and Exemplification and Burnishing in the characterisation of their New life. However, the same respondents also exhibited differential use of tactics that also bolster previous findings on gender order. The interlocking relations of language, identity