Inglisero/Inglisera: The linguistic edge of being a Filipino

By Elise Velasco

The communicative competence of Filipinos (in spoken English), belonging as they

do to a predominantly bilingual society, is influenced more by their acquired
knowledge rather than what they have learned through formal language instruction.

The Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis is the first of five hypotheses

comprising Krashen’s Monitor Model (1981, 1982). Krashen identifies two systems
that process knowledge available to the language learner: the acquired system and
the learned system. In the former knowledge goes through a subconscious process
known as “acquisition”. Acquisition occurs during the course of using language
for communication with the learner “picking up” the language from the environment.
The acquisition process can thus be described as natural and incidental with the
learner developing knowledge about the target language without being aware of it
and without conscious effort on his part. The learning process on the other hand,
involves conscious understanding of explicit information. Learnt knowledge is
gained through formal language instruction, a careful and purposeful study of
linguistic elements such as the grammatical rules and principles of a particular
target language.
Krashen’s model takes what is described as the “non-interface position”
which sees learnt knowledge as separate and which cannot be converted into
acquired knowledge. According to Krashen the two systems also perform separate
functions with utterances being initiated by the acquired system and the learned
system activated only when learners are conscious about producing correct output.
Learnt knowledge therefore serves as simply a monitor of what the learner has
acquired enabling him to correct or edit his output when time and circumstances
allow. This monitoring process is called the Monitor Theory, the second
hypothesis that falls under the Monitor Model. Krashen believes acquisition is
the more important process because acquired knowledge is readily available for use
in normal conversation whereas learnt knowledge is more useful for more deliberate
language activities such as writing. The Monitor Model is the extreme non-
conversion model in which the two sides do not overlap, it is also known as the
“dual competence” model.
The validity of this theory can be seen in the case of Japanese learners of
English. Japanese students undergo several years of English language instruction
learning explicit language information, doing grammar exercises and oral drills
during their middle school years yet are still unable to speak and understand the
language despite having completed the required years of learning it. They know
all the rules and structures but have great difficulty retrieving and utilizing
these in conversation. Perhaps one of the main reasons for this is the exclusive
use of Nihongo (and its formal equivalent) in all aspects of Japanese life. Much,
if not all of the knowledge that the average Japanese has of the English language
is learned and despite the preponderance of English loanwords, there is very
little opportunity to acquire the language in natural communication situations.
The Japanese learner is an example of what Krashen calls “P”, an advanced learner
who consciously knows the grammar rules yet cannot use them in free speech.
Krashen argues that such cases cannot be accounted for by an interface position.
The Filipino on the other hand, has the advantage of belonging to a
bilingual society where English can be easily acquired. The two systems described
by Krashen is simultaneously developed as a Filipino child learns the formal rules
in school and acquires it through conversation at home and other social
environments outside. This is illustrated in the research compiled by Dr. Lourdes
Bautista for the International Corpus of English in 2004. The participants were
required to engage in conversation for a substantial amount of time using only the
English language. This writer participated along with two friends, a woman who
was raised in the city of Bacolod where the native dialect is “Ilonggo”, and
another who, like the writer, was born and raised in Manila where “Tagalog” is
spoken. In listening to the taped conversation it was very clear that the Ilongga
had a higher degree of fluency than the two Manilans. She spoke with great ease
except for some grammatical errors which are acceptable in spoken English. In
contrast, the Manilans, produced more processed output by the structure of the
sentences, the speed at which they spoke, and the tendency to self-correct.
As one of the participants, I was keenly aware of how I was monitoring
my every utterance. I can say that I gave precedence to form over function during
the exercise as I consciously drew heavily from my learnt knowledge of English.
The same may be said about my other companion from Manila. Our Ilongga friend
however, spoke with more spontaneity giving her the edge in language performance
over us Manilans, but we proved to be more linguistically competent judging by the
lesser number of grammatical errors we committed as evidenced by the transcripts.
With the obvious absence of language anxiety, one could surmise that our Ilongga
friend grew up in a typical middle-class Visayan family that speaks both English
and Ilonggo at home. There is much in her knowledge of the language that was
apparently acquired, perhaps speaking a hybrid of her native dialect and English
even as a young child. This is in stark contrast to the participants from Manila
who became English and “Taglish” speakers only when they realized that doing so
afforded social acceptability.
As a writer I am keenly aware of the dichotomy of the two kinds of
knowledge. Writing is an activity that makes this clearly evident. When engaged
in formal writing activities, I tend to draw more upon my learnt knowledge being
conscious of the more cognitive quality of English required in written work. My
Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) is better developed than my Basic
Interpersonal Communication Skills as can be observed in my sometimes labored
attempts at English conversation. On the other hand, I have no difficulty
whatsoever in producing written work in English whether formal or informal. I can
confidently say that I have achieved a remarkable degree of linguistic competence
mainly because the medium of writing gives me the time to retrieve the kind of
language information a writing task requires. It is important to point out
however, that writers read because of the love of reading and not to consciously
learn about language. When writers expand their vocabulary and learn about
structures, they do so unconsciously. In this case, the knowledge they get from
reading can be classified as acquired albeit a kind of linguistic information that
is not the same as those that are typically “picked up” from the environment. The
language knowledge of writers thus becomes paradoxical in nature. This perhaps
explains why they can be so-so speakers of a second language such as English but
very powerful users of same in the medium of writing.