Bachelor of Technical -Vocational Teacher Education (BTVTEd)

MODULE MATERIALS

List of Modules

No. MODULE
MODULE TITLE
CODE

1 Nature of Communication 113.1

2 Communication Processes, Principles, and Ethics 113.2

3 Communication and Globalization 113.3

Local and Global Communication in Multicultural

4 113.4
Settings

Varieties and Registers of Spoken and Written

5 113.5
Language

Evaluating Messages and/or Images (e.g. Pictures,

6 Illustrations) of Different Types of Texts Reflecting 113.6
Different Cultures (Regional, Asian, Western, etc.)

Communication Aids and Strategies Using Tools of

7 113.7
Technology

8 Communication for Various Purposes 113.8

9 Communication for Academic Purposes 113.9

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VARIETIES AND
REGISTERS OF
SPOKEN AND
WRITTEN
LANGUAGE

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 MODULE CONTENT

COURSE TITLE: PURPOSIVE COMMUNICATION

MODULE TITLE Varieties and registers of spoken and written language.

NOMINAL DURATION: 3 Hours

SPECIFIC LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

At the end of this module you MUST be able to:
1. Determine culturally appropriate terms, expressions and images
(sensitivity to gender, race, class, etc.)
2. Adopt cultural and intercultural awareness and sensitivity in
communication of ideas

TOPIC: Varieties and Registers of Spoken and Written Language

ASSESSMENT METHOD/S:
MODULAR, ACTIVITIES WITH LECTURE

REFERENCE/S:
Purposive Communication Using English in Multilingual Context
By Marilu Ranosa Madrubio and Isabel Pefianco Martin

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 Information Sheet PCOM 113-5
Varieties and Registers of Spoken and Written Language

Learning Objectives:
After reading this INFORMATION SHEET, YOU MUST be able to:
1. Determine culture
2. ally appropriate terms, expressions and images (sensitivity to gender,
race, class, etc.)
3. Adopt cultural and intercultural awareness and sensitivity in
communication of ideas

Varieties and Registers of Spoken and Written Language

VARIETIES OF ENGLISH

During your senior high school, you must have encountered the term
Word Englishes (WE) or varieties of English in class. WE actually stands for the
localized varieties of English as they are used or spoken in certain areas. In the
Asian context, the concept was introduced by Braj Kachru. The famous “Three
Concentric Circles of Asian Englishes” attributed to Kachru presents the three
circles: Inner Circle with ENL (English as Native Language) member countries;
the Outer Circle with ESL (English as Second Language) member countries; and
the Expanding Circle with EFL (English as Foreign Language) member countries.
Examples of countries belonging to the Inner Circle are the USA, UK, Australia,
Canada and New Zealand. Kachru’s Outer Circle is comprised of Singapore,
Malaysia, the Philippines, and Pakistan, among others while the Expanding
Circle is composed of countries such as China, Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand.
Aside from the fact that the Outer and Expanding Circles are ESL – and EFL-
speaking, respectively, they have been colonized by some member countries in
the Inner Circle making the varieties they speak as post-colonial. It is then to be
understood that people have different linguistic and cultural backgrounds
making intercultural communication a significant variable in communication.

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 The Expanding
Circle e.g.,
China Caibbean Countries Egypt
Indonesia Israel Japan
Korea Nepal Saudi Arabia
South Africa South America Taiwan
CIS Zimbabwe

The Outer Circle

e.g.,
Bangladesh Ghana India
Kenya Malaysia Nigeria
Pakistan Philippines Singapore
Sri Lanka Tanzania Zambia

The Inner Circle

USA UK Canada
Australia New Zealand

According to Bautista and Gonzalez (2006), the structural characteristics

of these new varieties differ. This is brought about by the mother tongue or home
languages of those who learn or acquire English. And even in terms of social
features, differences can also be highlighted in that there is a continuum of
basilectal, mesolectal, and acrolectal varieties of English within the same speech
community. The acrolect then comes closest to the standard while basilect
digresses thoroughly from it and comes closest to the pidgin. Mesolect or the
middle variety is midway between the acrolect and basilect. Bautista and
Gonzalez use the term edulects for these varieties resulting from certain types of
education ascertained by social class but are conveyed or transferred by the kind
of instruction of the school system especially for those coming from higher-
income families and/or better educated classes.

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 As regards structural variation, Kachru and Nelson (2006) claim that these
varieties of English are influenced by the local language(s) in various areas of
their grammar and exhibit specific phonological, lexical, syntactic, and
discoursal characteristics (p. 35) For instance, in terms of stress and rhythm,
Outer and Expanding Circle varieties observe syllable-timed rhythm rather than
stress-timed rhythm. Nigerians say ‘success for suc’cess and Indian and
Nigerians say recog’nize for ‘recognize. Moreover, speakers from the Outer and
Expanding Circles do not make any changes in their pronunciation to make a
distinction between nouns and verbs in pairs which Inner Circle countries
observe as in the case of ‘import and im’port and do not utilize contrastive stress
for focusing (Bamgbose, 1992 & Gumperz, 1982a, 1982b, as cited in kachru &
Nelson, 2006). As regards sound, Outer and Expanding Circles do not observe
initial aspiration of voiceless plosives such as p, t, k and these are often perceived
by the Inner Circle countries as b, d, g. Some speakers of Expanding Circle
varieties, as in the case of Japanese speakers, do not properly distinguish
between r and l.

According to Pope (1976, as cited in Kachru a& Nelson, 2006), in the case
of syntactic features, question-answering systems differ between Inner and
Outer-Expanding Circles. While the former observes the positive-negative system
where the answer follows the polarity of the question (i.e., If the question is in
the negative, the answer confirming the assumption of the questioner is in the
positive, and the answer disconfirming the assumption is in the negative. If,
however, the question is in the negative, the answer confirming the assumption
of the questioner is in the negative as well, while answer disconfirming the
assumption of the questioner is in the positive), the latter observes the
agreement-disagreement system which poses difficulty to speakers who follow
the positive-negative system particularly in the interpreting the yes or n of the
response unless it is followed by a clarification (i.e., Yes, I think you’re right; No,
that’s not so) (p/ 45).

With respect to lexicon, vocabulary words peculiar only to some English

varieties in Southeast Asia can be noted as seen in the following examples (pp.
189-190);

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1. Singapore English; actsy’show; missy’nurse; chop’rubber stamp;
Marina kids ‘youngsters who spend their leisure time at or around
Marina Square, a shopping centre.’ Graduate mothers’graduate (well-
educated) married women, encouraged o have more children and
accorded certain privileges in Singapore; as compared to non-graduate
mothers (Pakir, 1992, as cited in Kachru & Nelson, 2006);
2. Philippine English: deep’puristic or hard to understand’ as an attribute
of language, stick ‘cirgarette; high blood ‘tense or upset; blow out
‘treating someone with a snack or meal; motel ‘a hotel used for pre-
marital or extramarital affairs; manualized ‘ to prepare manuals; go
ahead ‘leave before others with host’s permission; studentry ‘student
body; Amboy ‘a Filipino perceived to be too pro-American; promdi ‘from
the province; behest loan ‘unguaranteed bank loan given to presidential
cronies; pulot boy ‘boy who picks up tennis balls in a game; and
balikbayan box ‘box where Filipinos returning from abroad put all their
shopping; among other (Bautista, 1997, as cited in Kachru & Nelson,
2006); and

3. Malaysian English: antilog ‘a male hated by a girl; popcorn ‘a

loquacious person; kachang ‘peanuts, easy; slambar ‘relax; red spot,
open shelf ‘girls who are popular and those who are not; day bugs ‘those
who come to attend school but do not live in residence halls’ (Said &Ng,
2020, as cited in Kachru & Nelson, 2006).

When Bautista’s monograph on Defining Standard Philippine English: Its

Status and Grammatical Features came out in 2000, the answered the
usual questions asked about Philippine English: Is there a Standard
Philippine English? And when does an error become a feature of Philippine
English? She stressed that just like any other variety of English (Indian
English, Singaporean English and Nigerian English), Philippine English is
legitimate, having its own grammatical, lexical, and syntactic features.
Gonzalez (1985, as cited in Bautista, 2000) identified the following lexical
features in Philippine English (p. 76):
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 1. Preference for specific words and collocations specifically shall, could,
such, wherein, of (to signal possession);

2. Unusual words and collocations, specific terms, and words

combination which may have been originally confused with other
collocations but which, because of frequent use, have become fixed
combinations in their own right (e.g., results to instead of results in);
and

3. Unusual prepositional usage, including omission of preposition in two-

word verbs, addition of preposition to verb phrases, local use of
different prepositions in noun phrases following certain verbs or
adjectives.

The syntactic features identified include the following (pp. 76-76);

1. Word-order features, consisting of the placement of the time adverb before

the place adverb, placement of the adverb between verb and object,
placement of the adverb between noun and prepositional phrase,
placement of the indirect object introduced by to between verb and direct
object, other unusual adverb placements;

2. Use of articles, including absence of the definite article, unusual use of the
definite articles, absence of the indefinite article;

3. Noun sub-categorization, consisting of the no-pluralization of count

nouns, the reclassification of General American English (GAE), mass
nouns as count nouns, mass noun pluralization, pluralization of adjectival
nouns in compounds;

4. Pronoun-antecedent incongruence;

5. Subject-predicate incongruence;

6. Reclassification of GAE transitive verbs as intransitive verbs; and

7. Tense-aspect usage of consisting of unusual use of verb forms and tenses,

use of the perfect tense where the simple past tense or even present perfect
tense is called for in GAE, lack of tense sequence.

As for the question “When does an error become a feature of Philippine

English?”, Gonzalez (1985) has this to say:

When do these errors cease to be errors and become part of the

standard? If enough educated elites in the society ‘commit’ these errors,

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 then these errors in effect have been accepted by the society as the
standard (p. 189).

The foregoing discussion only shows how dynamic English is. These
are only some of the essential features of some varieties of English which
should be given full attention by users coming from different cultures.
From the variety of English used by the native speakers such as British,
Americans, Canadians, Australians, and New Zealanders, English has
evolved into post-colonial varieties and should not be mistaken as errors
most especially if they have become the standard in the speech community
and have been codified. As the poet Gemino Abad (1997, p. 8) aptly put it:
“English is ours. We have colonized it too.”

You have to be aware of and recognize intercultural communication

as you need to be sensitive to the people around you who belong to
different cultural heritages and have their own linguistic identity. When
you encounter them, you will be able to avoid misunderstanding, avoid
communication breakdown, and overcome language barriers with less
difficulty since you are exposed to their own language features. This way,
you will be able to enhance your personal and social interaction.

LANGUAGE REGISTERS/REGISTERS OF ENGLISH

When it comes to language variation, the terms genre, register and

style are often encountered. David Crystal (2008) defines register as “a
variety of language defines according to its use in social situations e.g. a
register of scientific, religious, formal English. (p. 409),” He added: “In
Hallidayan linguistics, the term is seen as specifically opposed to varieties
of language defined according to the characteristics of the users (viz. their
regional or class dialect), and is given a sub-classification into field, mode
and manner of discourse (p. 409).
Crystal (1964) further discuses style and register:

Language being the product of interaction among the members of society,

must ultimately be studied according to the social context in which it is found.
Within a language, there are variations in style and register, which differentiate
and formally characterize distinct social situations. Style refers to the degree of
formality attached to particular inter-personal social situation which is reflected
by differences in language – for example, the kind of language used while talking
to a friend will differ noticeably from that used in addressing a superior, in
otherwise the same situations. Register refers to a kind of language whose forms
are of a definable social situation, regardless of legal language, liturgical
language, and so on (p. 149)
It is to be noted that genre and register overlap and are sometimes used
interchangeably. According to Lee (2001), whereas genre is associated more with

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the organization of culture, register is associated with the organization of
situation. To this end, register is understood as the context-specific variety of
language to which the field-mode-tenor framework is important.
To give a concrete example, with the genre of recipe, field may be analyzed in
terms of the social setting and the communicative purpose in which the text is
produced. Tenor may be described in terms of the role/s required of the writers
and readers including cultural values shared by both. Mode could be explained
in light of the knowledge of other texts required of speakers/listeners and
writers/readers as regards the genre including the formal text features.
Language register then refers to the formality of language which one speaks.
Different registers are used in different situations. It is through register that you
are able to determine the kind of lexicon or vocabulary to use as well as the kind
of structure to be used. Even in writing, you may use as well as a formal of
structure to be used. In some instances, even a neutral language register is
identified.
The formal register then is used in formal speaking and writing situations. In a
state of the nation address classified as a formal communicative situation, the
speech is usually delivered using a highly-polished language, read from a
manuscript. This is certainly allowed since the President occupying the highest
position in the country could not afford to make mistakes. On the contrary, a
priest delivering his homily, more often than not, speaks extemporaneously and
uses ordinary language. This is so since the audience is composed various
audiences coming from different walks of life. The priest should be able to convey
his spiritual message to the listeners without difficulty of comprehensions on
their part. The priest should also be able to touch the very core of the listeners’
hearts so that they live the preaching they hear.
The formal register is likewise appropriate for use in professional writing like
protect proposals, position papers, and business letters as in the case of writing
to a superior or to a head of a certain organization. It is more impersonal,
objectives, and factual. Informal register, which is more casual in tone, is
appropriate for people with whom you have established a more personal
relationship as in the case of friends and relatives. This type of writing may
sometimes be emotional as an intimate relationship exists between the speaker
and listener or writer and reader.
Earlier in the discussion, it was mentioned that register refers to the kind of
language whereby the forms used define the social situation, notwithstanding
the status of the interlocutors. Thus, legalese or legal language is highly
characterized by archaic expression expressions, technical jargon intrinsic only
to the community of legal professionals, embedded structures, nominalizations,
passive voice, as well as long, kilometric of texts. Conversely, the features of SMS
language or textese language, are exactly the opposite use of abbreviations,
acronyms, slang words, and expressions. This is s since messages used to be
limited to a certain number of characters/spaces which made texting much
easier and quicker. However, misinterpretation and/or miscommunication in
text messaging may arise if vocabulary and knowledge of context are limited.
Hence, extra care should be practiced when comprehending text messages.

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 Bachelor of Technical - Bulacan Date Developed:
Vocational Teacher June 2020
Polytechnic Date Revised
Page 11 of 11
Education College July 2020
Document No. Developed by:
Purposive Communication Revision # 02
Everlyn Jimenez
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