Stylistic shifts in the English of the Philippine print media

Expanding the scope for research on global English‐language advertising

“…To account for the postcolonial performativity of English in global advertising of sociolinguistic communities that is hard to be classified according to the WE model or other dominant models like English as a Global Language (Crystal, ; Graddol, ) and English as a Lingua Franca (Jenkins, ; Seidlhofer, ), it seems most suggestive, as I did elsewhere (Li, ), to conceive of the use of English in advertising as one of stylistic devices (Gonzalez, , ). As defined in modern sociolinguistic theory, style is a concept, which mediates between linguistic variability and practices of social categorization of self or other; linguistic variability is seen as a resource for constructing socially interpretable and interpreted styles (Eckert, , p. 43).…”

“…To account for the postcolonial performativity of English in global advertising of sociolinguistic communities that is hard to be classified according to the WE model or other dominant models like English as a Global Language (Crystal, 1997;Graddol, 1999) and English as a Lingua Franca (Jenkins, 2007;Seidlhofer, 2001), it seems most suggestive, as I did elsewhere (Li, 2016), to conceive of the use of English in advertising as one of stylistic devices (Gonzalez, 1982(Gonzalez, , 1991.…”

The social dimensions of Philippine English

“…Filipino users of Philippine English use a monostylistic variety of English that they use in schools and in writing, in their composition classes (Gonzalez, , 1991b. Speeches are mostly formal in style and in tone, and consciousness of different levels of language (according to social status) and different tones (informal, colloquial, intimate, formal, frozen) not too evident.…”

“…It is important to note that from the day the first Filipino learned English sufficiently for basic communicative competence, the first speaker of the new variety of English appeared, speaking a variety of English transplanted and grown on local soil from its source, the American Midwest. It was accented English; with a smaller phonological inventory of contrasts of vowels and consonants, with a local intonation, with different accentual patterns of polysyllabic words, with syllable timed rhythm (all this has been described since Llamzon, 1969;Alberca, 1978;Gonzalez, 1982, in its spoken phase, and in its written phase as well as its radio presentations, by Bautista, 2000 andGonzalez, 1991b). The other important observation to make is that the Philippine variety of English, now called Philippine English, has been taught (except for the first few years of direct American tutelage) to Filipino learners by Filipinos (for some notes on the features of English of the first generation of Philippine English speakers, see Gonzalez et al, in press).…”

Brunei Culture, English Language: Textual Reflections of an Asian Culture Located in the English-Language Output of Bruneians

“…As noted by Xu (1987) with reference to Chinese, certain words and expressions can take on particular meanings not readily accessible to L1 English users. Style-shifts, such as those analysed by Gonzalez (1991) in Filipino English, may occur because Bruneian writers and speakers do not make the same judgments on levels of formality as L1 users.…”