EFFECT OF MOTHER-TONGUE AND GENERATION Z SPEAKERS IN

UNDERSTANDING LITERATURE

A Qualitative Research

Presented to the Faculty of

Graduate School
President Ramon Magsaysay State University
Iba, Zambales

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

of Masters of Arts in Education Major in English

Ace Barrera Edejer

July 2019
 Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION

Background
The importance of a language rises and ebbs in direct proportion to the importance enjoyed
by the people who speak that language. Of late, many different languages are being spoken on a
mass basis by a large number of people. Therefore, it is becoming difficult for smaller languages
to survive. However, the possibility of the revival of the smaller languages is not entirely glommy.
There are a significant number of languages that have been successfully revitalized, and there are
ongoing initiatives to reclaim other endangered and no-longer spoekn languages. (Almurashi,
2017).
It was also revealed by Almurashi (2017) that language death is considered to be something
sad and quite unfortunate. For many speakers of widely spoken languages, such a case may be
difficult to grasp. However, this case is real, and it happens around the world. Additionally, there
are a significant number of languages that are likely to be no-longer spoken within the next century
(Nettle and Romaine, 2000). In such cases, there is someone who will be the last speaker and feel
a great sadness (Krauss, 1992). However, the loss of languages not only affect those people who
speak them, but also linguists and anthropological communities. As an illustration, linguists may
learn lots regarding human language by examining the forms that could be found in endangered
and dead languages. With every loss of a language, the data in a linguists’ pool for study and their
ability to make discoveries about the world gradually shrink. By reclaiming endangered languages
and no-longer spoken languages, linguists are likely to gain a great source of information.
Today, Zambal language faces its threat to extinction as the Generation Z speakers fail to
integrate Zambal langauge in both oral and written communication. Similarly, some studies
declare that the small number of researches regarding the Zambal language affect its current
situation. As to Stone (2011), little published data exists on the Sambalic languages and virtually
no published data exists on the Ayta languages.
Zambal is primarily spoken in the Zambal municipalities of Santa Cruz, Candelaria,
Masinloc, Palauig, and Iba. However, its extinction is an advertised issue as the native speakers,
the Generation Z speakers in particular, do not have formal education about the said language.
Basically, Generation Z speakers are widely known by a number of names. It was revealed
that Generation Z is the demographic cohort after the Millennials. Demographers and researches
use the mid-1990s to mid-2000s as starting birth years.
Long before the term “influencer” was coined, young people played that social role by
creating and interpreting trends. Now a new generation of influencers has come on the scene.
Members of Gen Z—loosely, people born from 1995 to 2010— are true digital natives: from
earliest youth, they have been exposed to the internet, to social networks, and to mobile systems.
That context has produced a hypercognitive generation very comfortable with collecting and cross-
referencing many sources of information and with integrating virtual and offline experiences.
(Francis and Hoefel, 2018)
Gen Zers are radically inclusive. They don’t distinguish between friends they meet online
and friends in the physical world. They continually flow between communities that promote their
causes by exploiting the high level of mobilization technology makes possible. Gen Zers value
online communities because they allow people of different economic circumstances to connect and
mobilize around causes and interests. (Francis and Hoefel, 2018)
Today, the way of life that the Generation Z speakers affect the ways to se Zambal language
as an eefctive tool for communication. The Zambal language extinction is a threat as it might affect
the total local development.

Significance of the Study

This study aims to This study aims to determine the relevance of Zambal language and its
extinction to the lived experiences of Generation Z speakers. As such, the following will benefit
from the study:
Community – The study will improve the quality of life and uplift the Zambal language among
people that would lead to development and progress of the community.
Parents – The study will help them encourage their children to speak using the Zambal language.
If they do so, they will strengthen their children speaking ability which leads to better
understanding.
Researchers – The study will be their guide to determine the lived experiences of Generation Z
speakers and its relevance to Zambal language extinction. The study will give them a frame of
reference for other studies of Zambal language using other repondents in the other respective
municipalities.
School – The result of the study will help the school to organize a workable and efficient program
for Zambal language development. It will also give the school a chance to identify how the zambal
language in the local communities affect the academic performances.
Students – The study will help them appreciate and better understand the Zambal language. It
will bolter ability to grasp ideas and think more incisively. It will also help them communicate
their ideas to other people in a much more effective manner.
Generation Z Speakers – The study will make the Generation Z speakers more sensitive on the
way they communicate with the Zambal language. It will also help them assocaite their lived
experiences and how they affect the possible extinction of the Zambala language.
Curricularists – The study will help the teachers to find authentic and effective ways to restore
the usage of Zambal language not only among the Generation Z speakers but also among al types
of people in the local communities.

Statement of the Problem

This study aims to determine the relevance of Zambal language and its extinction to the
lived experiences of Generation Z speakers.
Specifically, the researcher sought to answer the following questions:
1. How are the lived experiences of Generation Z speakers affect the use of Zambal language?
2. How are the challenges of Generation Z speakers affect the Zambal language at present?
3. How do coping mechanisms of Generation Z speakers save the Zambal language from
extinction?

Scope and Limitation of the Study

This study is focused on the relevance of Zambal language and its extinction to the lived
experiences of Generation Z speakers. The respondents in this study are 40 speakers from
Barangay Uacon, Candelaria, Zambales who were born in the late 1990s and early 2000s; they will
be asked to have an oral assessment about Zambal Language. The said assessment is intented to
understand the relevance of Zambal language and its extinction to the lived experiences of
Generation Z speakers.
The study will be limited to the number of items in oral assessment. The assessment will
cover phonology, grammar, and spelling of Zambal language and the lived experiences of the
Generation Z speakers.
The researcher will use questionnaire as the main instrument to the relevance of Zambal
language and its extinction to the lived experiences of Generation Z speakers.
 Chapter 2
FRAMEWORK OF THE STUDY

This portion of the study focused on the review of the research materials which are deemed
relevant to the present study. Theories and concepts as well as personal views and opinions of
foreign and local authors were considered in this chapter.

Review of Related Literature and Studies

Related Literature
A language dies when nobody speaks it any more. However, there are different ways
languages die. In this regard, three types of language death can be identified: population loss,
forced shift, and voluntary shift. One must, however, recognized that the divisions between them
are not always clear. Many language death involve some combination of all three. Besides, there
is always a considerable grey are between what is forced and what is voluntary is problematic, but
the terms are useful as idealized ends of a continuum. (Nettle and Romaine, 2000, as cited in Hohn,
2007).
The first way a language can die is when the people who speak it cease to exist. This is
language death by population loss, and it has been very common over the last 500 years. As whole
speech communities died, due to diseases and warfare, numberless languages died with them.
(Dixon 1997, as cited in Hohn, 2007).
In addition to population loss, language death occurs as a result of language shift. There
are two types of language shift. The first one is forced language shift. In such cases, dominant
groups compel minorities into language shift by either making their language mandatory, by
slaving the,, by forcing them into a subordinate position, or by occupying the land and resources
on which they rely. The disappearance of tropical rainforest people following logging and
clearance leading to the destruction of the very basis of their economic and cultural self-sufficiency
is an example of forced language shift.
It is important to understand that that such policies, which destroy small indigenous
languages, are directed at the economic resources available to indigenous people and not policies
directed straight at the language. This supports the conviction that language should not be seen I
isolation but as one result of a more general ecological and economic matrix. And this, in turn, has
important ramifications for language revitalization programs. Without a socioeconomic foundation
language will not thrive. (Dixon 1997; Nettle and Romaine 2000; and Aitchison, 1991 as cited in
Hohn 2007).
The second type of language shift is voluntary language shift. This occurs when a
community of people comes to believe that they would have better prospects and opportunities
when speaking a language other their mother tongue. The crucial difference from forced shift is
that endangered speech community can still truly decide where they are and who they are, if they
want to. The decay of language is with restrictions. (Dixon, 1997; Nettle and Romaine 2000 as
cited in Hohn 2007).
Language shift are often gradual, with the dominant language replacing the recessive one
over a period of decades, or several hundred years. Generally, the endangered language returns
from some situations before others. In this context, it is useful to differentiate between language
death “from the top down” and the language death “from the bottom up”. In the former, the
language disappears from official institutions and public domains like the judiciary system, the
church, the economy and the politics first, so that it is eventually confined to use in domestic
settings. Many European minority languages, like Breton and Gaelic, withdrew in this manner.
They both lacked a function in government or in religion, areas which were reserved for English
(in the case of Gaelic) and French (in the case of Breton), but survived as the home language of
the peasantry. In death form the bottom up, a language disappears from everyday use and persists
for the most part in ritual or more formal use. An example of bottom up death is Gros Ventres
Indians in Blaine Country, MT. Although this native American language has not been anybody’s
principal language for at least 40 years, it is still used for mainly ceremonial purposes. Another
example is spoken Latin in Europe. (Nettle and Romaine 2000 as cited in Hohn 2007).
Language death can on the one hand occur due to the death of all speakers, whether
voluntary or involuntary. On the other hand, it can be a result of a language shift, a process which
is less brutal, but potentially equally devastating for a language. A variety of events describable as
culture contact or clash frequently lead to language shift. Broadly speaking, a language shift can
occur if the speaking community comes into economic, cultural, or political contact with another
population speaking a different language and being economically stronger and advanced,
culturally aggressive, or politically more powerful. These influences themselves do not lead to the
extinction or even major decimation of a community’s language, but they can have substantial
effects on the attitude of the community towards its own language resulting in collective doubts
about the usefulness of loyalty in their language. (Wurm, 1991 as cited in Hohn 2007).

An uneven distribution of languages in in a bi- or multilingual speech community always

increases collective bilingualism, because the speakers are forced to learn the dominant language
in order to use it in domains where the recessive language cannot be used. This, in turn, increases
inference and simplification leading to lexical loss, but the recessive language still remains a
functionally intact language. However, once the decision to abandon the recessive language falls
and language transmission comes to be interrupted, the formerly primary language becomes
secondary and begins to show serious symptoms of imperfection. Infants no longer receive
sufficient input of the recessive language from their environment and this limited exposure to the
language is not enough to develop normal language proficiency. At this point, language decay,
with its potential result, language death, begins. (Sasse 1992 as cited in Hohn, 2007).

If culture clash occurs essentially in the economic domain, knowledge of the language of
the economically stronger population by members of the economically weaker speech community
generally leads to financial advantages, better access to goods, employment, and other economic
benefits which are not available to those who lack such a knowledge. The speakers of the
economically weaker group begin to realize that their language is becoming less and less useful
and this insight makes them have less and less esteem for it. The usual result of this situation is a
gradual increase in the use of the language of the economically stronger population, even in
situations not directly associated with any economic benefits, eventually leading to a major
decrease in the use of the indigenous language. In the end, old people become the only ones to still
speak the indigenous language on a regular basis. Their death marks the death of the language,
too. Such a development represents the extreme case. It generally arises only if economic influence
concurs with severe cultural and political influences, as it has, for instance, been the case in much
of Aboriginal Australia and as it is still happening in both Russia and China with a number of small
languages. (Wurm, 1991 as cited in Hohn, 2007).

If a language exerts mainly economic influence, and hardly any cultural or political
influence, this seldom results in the total disappearance of the recessive language, although their
speakers tend to become bilingual in the language of economic power. An example of such a
situation is Swahili in East Africa. Even though the colonial powers in East Africa used Swahili
for many aspects of their colonial rule, and Swahili became the national language of what is today
Tanzania, the local languages were not given up by their speakers. Rather, bilingualism prevailed
and remained the goal of speakers of local languages who are looking for economic amelioration.
Another example from colonial times is Tok Pisin. Its knowledge was connected with economic
advantages to speakers of local languages, but it was not the language of the culturally or politically
dominant group who only used it as a communication device. (Wurm, 1991 as cited in Hohn,
2007).

The perhaps most destructive influence on a language, which is often an unwritten

language, results from influence upon its speakers by speakers of another language who are
culturally more aggressive and mightier. For instance, they may have a written language with a
literary tradition, a powerful religion, or be members of a complex civilization with a modern,
metropolitan society Strong cultural influence usually results in the loss of much, if not all, of the
weaker people’s culture as they adopt much of the dominant people’s culture. This often has far-
reaching consequences for the indigenous language. First, the language may die and be superseded
by that of the culturally more aggressive people, either fully or in a modified, simplified or
pidginized-creolized form of it. Various languages of Australian Aboriginals and native
Americans, lacking a writing system, have died, or are dying, this way. An indigenous language
with no traditional writing system tends to yield thus to a language of a metropolitan or otherwise
aggressive culture which has a writing system. (Wurm, 1991 as cited in Hohn, 2007).

Secondly, the indigenous language may be relegated to unimportant functions or to some

special uses. Small minority languages in Russia and China are examples of this. Their younger
speakers have become nearly monolingual Russian or Chinese speakers, because of the small size
of the minority language speech communities, their location and their limited usefulness in the
world of business. These minority languages are increasingly only used by older people and are
thus heading towards extinction. (Wurm, 1991 as cited in Hohn, 2007).

Thirdly, the indigenous language may be heavily influenced in its vocabulary and to a
certain degree also in its structure by the language of the dominant culture. An example of this is
the powerful influence exerted by Arabic, as the language of the Islamic religion and culture, upon
the languages of the people who had come under Islamic influence, such as Turkish, Persian, and
Swahili. (Wurm, 1991 as cited in Hohn, 2007).

Fourthly, the indigenous language may lose a number of its attributes which are rooted in
the traditional culture of its speakers. The limited or total loss of the traditional culture and world
view of a people and its substitution by the dominant culture displays itself for instance in the
simplification of verb forms denoting concepts rooted in the traditional culture. The traditional
Kiwai culture of the Western Province of Papua New Guinea, for example, was characterized by
a preoccupation with the diligent indication of the exact number of actors and persons acted upon,
the time of an action, and the exact reference to these in the inflectional systems of the language.
The Kiwai language contains very complex verb forms in which four numbers of the actor and
persons acted upon are variously indicated in a manner progressing from singular versus non-
singular first, proceeding to a more precise indication of the non-singular number (i.e. dual, trial,
full plural) further on in that verb form. Also, a large range of tenses exists. In the language spoken
by the younger generation, however, many of these complex characteristics are hardly used
anymore. If they are, they are often incorrectly applied, because with the replacement of traditional
Kiwai culture by a new one, the preoccupations have become less important for Kiwai speaker,
because the new culture does not value these distinctions. (Wurm, 1991 as cited in Hohn, 2007).

Outside political influence may also have profound repercussions on a speech community’s
culture and language. Such influence may range from political pressure to conquest. In the latter
case, the conquerors may be actively pursuing the acquisition of their language by the speakers of
the minority language(s) rather than falling back on economic or cultural influence. An example
is the case of the Incas who conquered large parts of western South America and who put the local
populations under pressure to adopt their Quechua language. It seems that most speakers of other
languages in the area adopted Quechua only unwillingly, because a number of these languages
have reappeared after the power of the Incas had been broken by the Spaniards. (Wurm (1991),
13-15)

For most of human history, it seems likely that the world was close to a linguistic
equilibrium, with the amount of languages being lost roughly compensated by the new ones
created. The first long identifiable equilibrium was that of the Palaeolithic during which hunters
and gatherers lived. This equilibrium lasted upwards of 40,000 years and perhaps longer. The first
great linguistic punctuation was the beginning of the Neolithic, marked by the invention of
farming, after which an equilibrium was reached in some parts of the globe. The early stages of
European colonial expansion were a delayed aftershock of the Neolithic punctuation. The second
great punctuation involved the rise of expansionist industrial economies. No prediction can yet be
made what equilibrium will be reached after this punctuation. (Nettle and Romaine, 2000 as cited
in Hohn 2007).

Over the Palaeolithic, humans gradually populated the earth. It was the single longest
period of human history, at least 50,000 years in Europe, Asian, and Australia, longer in Africa,
and 10,000-20,000 years in the Americas. The farming and herding societies of the Neolithic did
not appear anywhere until around 10,000 years ago. The probable linguistic diversity of the
Palaeolithic can be inferred from ethnographic evidence suggesting that hunter-gatherer societies
usually only comprise between a few hundred to a few thousand people, an amount much smaller
than the average size of a farming community. There are mainly two reasons for this difference.
First, hunter and gatherers use a much greater range of resources than farming communities.
Secondly, they react to local resource shortage by mobility. As they grow in number, they
overexploit the local resources and recurrently split up and moved into new terrains.

Theoretical Framework

Constructivist theories believed that people bring with them their prior knowledge to assist
in new learning situations and that people construct their own knowledge based upon this prior
knowledge (Williams, 2014). When learning how to integrate experiences in daily discourse, one
must know how to effectively utilize prior experience. The Generation Z live experiences are
authentic tools that can possibly trace causes of Zambal language extinction as well as might
provide solutions on how to save Zambal langauge from its current state.

Conceptual Framework

The study will focus in the Zambal Language in the Brink of Extinction: Live Experiences
of Generaztion Z Spakers. It qualifies the relevance between Zambal language and its extinction
and the lived experiences of Generation Z speakers.

INPUT PROCESS OUTPUT

1. How are the lived Interview and (Assumed) Identified

experiences of Observation Guide lived experiences of
Generation Z speakers Generation Z speakers in
and mother tongue affect the use of Zambal
the literature language; identified
understanding? challenges encountered
by the Generation Z
2. How are the
speakers speaking the
challenges of Generation
language at present; and
Z speakers affect the
identified coping
Zambal language at
mechanisms of
present?
Generation Z speakers
have to save the Zambal
language from
3. How do coping extinction.
mechanisms of
Generation Z speakers
save the Zambal and its
usage in understanding
literature?
Null Hypothesis

There is no significant difference in the Zambal Langauge Extinction and Generation Z

Live Experiences.

Definition of Terms

Brink – threshold of danger

Experience – skill or knowledge that one get by doing something

Extinction – the state or situation that results when something has died out completely

Generation Z – people who were born at the mid-1990s to mid-2000s

Mother Tongue – the language that is being spoken in a community

Zambal – a Sambalic language spoken primarily in the Zambal or Zambales municipalities of

Santa Cruz, Candelaria, Masinloc, Palauig, and Iba.
 Chapter 3

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter presents the research methods used in the conduct of the study, the research
locale, the research instrument used in gathering and collecting data and statistical tools used in
order to answer specific problems.

Research Designs

The study will use qualitative research as an attractive option for the respondents. The
University of Utah revealed that qualitative research is a process of naturalistic inquiry that seeks
in-depth understanding of social phenomena within their natural setting. It focuses on the "why"
rather than the "what" of social phenomena and relies on the direct experiences of human beings
as meaning-making agents in their every day lives. Rather than by logical and statistical
procedures, qualitative researchers use multiple systems of inquiry for the study of human
phenomena including biography, case study, historical analysis, discourse analysis, ethnography,
grounded theory and phenomenology.

Although there are many methods of inquiry in qualitative research, the common
assumptions are that knowledge is subjective rather than objective and that the researcher learns
from the participants in order to understand the meaning of their lives. To ensure rigor and
trustworthiness, the researcher attempts to maintain a position of neutrality while engaged in the
research process.

Qualitative research seeks to study meanings in subjective experiences. The relation

between subjective experience and language is a two-way process; language is used to express
meaning, but the other way round, language influences how meaning is constructed. Giving words
to experiences is a complicated process as the meaning of experiences is often not completely
accessible for subjects and difficult to express in language. To capture the richness of experience
in language, people commonly use narratives and metaphors (Polkinghorne 2006 as cited in
Ageing 2010).

Research Locale

The study will be conducted in Uacon Integrated School which is located in Uacon,
Candelaria, Zambales.
Respondents of the Study

The respondents of this study consist of forty (40) Generzation Z speakers (Grade 10
learners of Uacon Integrated School).

Table 1
Distribution of Respondents
GRADE LEVEL MALE FEMALE TOTAL
GRADE 10 20 20 40

Research Instrument

The interview and observation guide (which will identify the speaking ability) will be the
main instrument to be used in gathering the needed data. A questionnaire (interview and
observation guide) is a predefined series of questions used to collect information from individuals.
(The Regents of the University of Michigan, 2016).

Construction and Validation of Instrument

The researcher will formulate and will develop an interview and observation guide based
on their reading and adaptation from other researchers. It will be then submitted to the adviser for
checking. The researcher will ask permission to administer the interview and observation guide
among Grade 10 students (Generation Z speakers) of Uacon Integrated School, Uacon, Candelaria,
Zambales.

Data Gathering Procedure

The researcher will ask permission from the school principal of the said respective
institution on the second week of August once the study is approved. The researchers will also
seek help from the advisers to distribute the interview and observation guide. It is then expected
that the answered instrument will make the retrieval rate of one hundred percent (100%). After the
tallying the result, the researcher will hold a lecture that will help the respondents utilize their
experiences in the usage of Zambal languages and to help the language be saved from its
extinction.
Interview and Observation Guide

Republic of the Philippines

PRESIDENT RAMON MAGSAYSAY STATE UNIVERSITY
Iba, Zambales
GRADUATE SCHOOL

ZAMBAL LANGUAGE IN THE BRINK OF EXTINCTION: LIVED EXPERIENCES OF

GENERATION Z SPEAKERS

Interview and Observation Guide

Direction: Answer the following questions briefly. You can use English, Filipino, or Zambal.

1. How often do you speak using the Zambal language in your literature
class_________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
____

2. How do you apply your experiences in speaking Zambal in your literature class
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________

3. What are the challenges that you have encountered in speaking Zambal?_
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________

4. What are the challenges that you have encountered in speaking Zambal?
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________

5. In what way can you help others in using Zambal in understanding literature?
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________

Laco a salamat!