Sarah Cruta

Joviner Samon
Melissa Barriga
Rosemarie Jean Sico
Jane Desiree Pimentel
BSED English 2B

SubTEXT
By: Nathaniel Joseph De Mesa

SubTEXT is a play written by the playwright Nathaniel Joseph De Mesa also

know as Njel De Mesa. SubTEXT tells about the world of communication and the world

of text messaging. Its main purpose is to show how does it affect people's relationship

with each other. A stylistic analysis was made to identify the phono-graphological,

lexico-semantics and syntactic level of the play. A deep analysis elaborating each level

is made to show the purpose and style of the playwright in showcasing his work. To fully

understand, appreciate and interpret the piece.

Subtext by Nathaniel Joseph De Mesa in phono-graphologically analysis the text

consist variety of punctuations marks such as quotation marks, apostrophe,periods,

question marks,comma,dash and exclamation points this variations of punctuations can

be found in the whole/entire text. the subtext also consist figurative speech such as the

alliteration,onomatopoeia and hyperbole,wherein in alliteration we have the sentence "

Nakaupo at wari'y nagsisimulang kakain Ang isang lalaki at babe ng kani-kanilang

pagkaing nakahain sa kanilang lamesa" and in the hyperbole we have "ILABU? Ang

LABO!". All of this does gives life and sounds in the text since phono-graphology

focuses on the sound structure of the text. In analyzing lexico-semantics, meaning of

the words are very crucial. In English, there are words which are the same in meaning,

but different in spelling or different in meaning but same in spelling. A piece written in

Filipino might be confusing depending on the reader's understanding. Filipino an English

are both different languages and has different meanings, thus confusion is inevitable.

On the last part of the subTEXT, noticed the word "LAB" that has been used. Looking

for its definition, it is a short term or informal form of the word "Laboratory". However, if

we based it on the context of the piece, the word "Lab" was meant to mean "Love" in

which in the dictionary is a feeling of deep affection or great interest and pleasure on
something. In Filipino, we have encountered a lot of slang words which are originally

English words turned into another form of language by combining or changing some of

its letters.

In analyzing the syntactic level in the subTEXT by Nathaniel Joseph De Mesa we

found out that the Script uses two different language which are Filipino and English and

there are some words that have different spellings with the same meaning example in

the word "LAB", "LUV" which is simply means LOVE. It doesn't use formal language and

there are slang words that are evident in the text. Words choices express creativity in

the sentence. Syntactically speaking Filipino and English language have different

structure in grammar. But, Overall, the message it wants to convey is understandable

and easy to comprehend. Various word elements in the text were considerably and

consciously in fused with cohesive and coherent artistic effect during the cohesion and

coherence phases of analysis. Whereas, in the introduction section, lexical cohesion

can be found in the words "Hapunan or supper" and "Fine Dining Restaurant," resulting

in those word pieces achieving unity as they go together and collocate. Repetition was

used in the text, as wel las lexical cohesiveness, to achieve emphasis and to indicate a

character's tone and attitude. In the story of “SUBTEXT” we could notice the excessive

use of foregrounding in the text. In the whole story we notice that there’s a lot of code-

switching. Just like in the first paragraph we can see the phrase “fine dining” and it

refers to a restaurant experience that is of a higher quality and greater formality

compared to the experience at a casual dining restaurant. The atmosphere of a fine

dining establishment is usually more elegant, and the food is served in a more formal

way. Another phrase "Sadly Falling" it refers to a situation that is upsetting and “piped-in

music” is a prerecorded background music played through loudspeakers in a public

place. Next phrase is “smiling face” this emoji is used to express positive feelings, from

happiness to gratitude to affection. Next phrase is “character” in fiction, a character is a

person or other being in a narrative. The character may be entirely fictional or based on

a real-life person, in which case the distinction of a "fictional" versus "real" character

may be made. Next phrase “open parenthesis” which looks like (, is used to begin

parenthetical text. The close parenthesis,), denotes the end of parenthetical text. The

plural of parenthesis is parentheses. We also notice the multilingual because we can

see that there’s a lot of language that they use. For example, the word “kitam” it is an

unfamiliar word for us. The word “Jolog” came from “Jolens,” which is how fans called

'90s teen icon Jolina Magdangal. Her followers were supposedly called “jologs” which

eventually became associated with the term “baduy” or “bakya,” meaning cheap.

There’s also a repetition of word and phrase just like the phrase “I-L-A-B-U” etc.

In conclusion, as you read the context you can easily detect the devices used to

give sounds in the text those punctuations and figurative speech are the ones who gives

life of it the annotations, the used of functions of speech like for example the

interrogative speech makes the text more vivid and creates sounds. In today's

generation, using emoticons or symbols are a trend to address feelings or expressions.

Some rather use these instead of showing directly what they want to say. Using such

can cause misunderstanding if the other party is not aware of it. Moreover, we are also

engaging on these slang words for it made us easier to say what we want especially on

social media. Young ones mostly used it even if they didn't know the circumstances that

might cause to the receiving party. Additionally, the article makes effective use of

devices associated with cohesion and, as is the case with coherent, the thoughts are

well-organized. Overall, the use of language deviation emphasizes the message that it

wants to convey, and shows the creativity of the author. Additionally, we also noticed

that there's a lot of barrowed words and has a repetition of words and idioms.
ANNOTATION