A “lectal” description of the phonetic features of Philippine English

Considering that the Philippines is a multilingual country, different regions with different indigenous native languages would necessarily have their own distinct pronunciations of English words resulting from interference from the phonological structure of the native tongue. This is the reason for earlier claims made that there can be no Standard Philippine English pronunciation because of regionalisms. However, the studies on Philippine English phonology have shown sociolectal rather than geographical variables to provide a better account for differences in pronunciation among the different varieties of PhlE. While differences in the phonological structure of one’s native language and the target language usually affect a speaker’s L₂ phonology, the three sociolectal varieties of PhlE cut across the different linguistic regions of the country. Thus, the features of each variety would be true to all speakers of that variety irrespective of the region from which they come.

Llamzon’s (1997) study of the phonetic features of Philippine English describes three distinct sociolinguistic varieties of PhlE as far as pronunciation is concerned.

One is the acrolect, which closely approximates the formal style of gAmE and is acceptable to educated Filipinos. Llamzon refers to this approximation of gAmE formal style as the “Filipino English formal style” and he cites well-known figures in the media and education as speakers of that style. The second is the mesolect, which exhibits more differences from the phonological structure of gAmE but is also used by educated Filipinos – notable personages in government, higher education and in the mass media. The last variety, referred to by Llamzon as the basilect variety, is one where “the speaker’s ethnic tongue forms the substratum,” hence more substitutions are evident in it than in the other two varieties

Although the acrolect variety of PhlE closely resembles gAmE, varied studies of the former (Llamzon 1969, 1997; Gonzalez 1985; Casambre 1986) have noted that some of its phonetic features which serve to distinguish it from the latter have remained stable through the years. More differences are notable in the mesolect variety and are even more pronounced in the basilect.