English competes with Tagalog and Taglish, a mixture of English and Tagalog, for the affections of Filipinos. To understand the competing ideologies that underlie this switching between languages, this book looks at the language situation from multiple perspectives. Part A reviews the social and political forces that have propelled English through its life cycle in the Philippines from the 1898 arrival of Admiral Dewey to the 1998 election of Joseph Estrada. Part B looks at the social support for English in Metro Manila and the provinces with a focus on English teachers and their personal and public use of English. Part C examines the language of television sport broadcasts, commercials, interviews, sitcoms, and movies, and the language of newspapers from various linguistic, sociolinguistic, and sociocultural perspectives. The results put into perspective the short-lived language revolution that took place at the turn of the twenty-first century.

Table of contents

Acknowledgments xi Map 1. The Philippines xiii 1. Introduction: Language switching from multiple perspectives 1–7 Part A. Taglish in the life cycle of English in the Philippines 9–11 2. English comes to the Philippines, 1898–1935 13–26 3. Nationalism and the rise of Tagalog, 1936–1973 27–36 4. Bilingual education and the rise of Taglish, 1974–1998 37–58 5. The Spanish overlay 59–66 Map 2. The regions, 1990 67 Part B. Social support for English after 100 years: Comparing usage in Metro Manila and the provinces 69–76 6. English teachers and the media in Metro Manila and the Visayas 77–93 7. English teachers and interpersonal relations in Metro Manila and the Visayas 95–105 8. English in northern Luzon and Mindanao 107–121 Part C. Modeling English to the masses: A look at the media 123–125 9. The linguistics of language switching in basketball commentary 127–154 10. Commercials as language teachers 155–176 11. Marketing messages through language switching in television commercials 177–190 12. Putting on a public face in TV interviews 191–209 13. The language of social resistance in movies and sitcoms 211–230 14. The language face off in the newspapers 231–255 15. Afterword: The future of English 257–265 References 267–277 Index 279–283 Index of commercials 285–286