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Common Linguistic ProblemsEnglish in the Philippines is taught and used as a second language. As such, English is used in a variety of domains and as a medium of education. Apart from its use as a general means of communication, these disciplines call for more formal types of discourse. Like all varieties of a language, Philippine English is not a monolithic entity and is conditioned by the uses and users of the language. With these language functions, English in the Philippines is taught for such purposes. This is one possible reason why grammar textbooks and methods in teaching grammar in the Philippines are still generally prescriptive. These greatly affect both written and spoken English produced in the country, given that a great number of Filipinos use standard Filipino English or textbook English. From a sociolinguistic point of view, English is such a revered langauge in the Philippines for its image as the langauge of globalization that the common problem of 'linguistic insecurity' surfaces. It shows in the wide range of stylistic variation that Filipinos have when they speak to different classes of society, constantly striving to be correct or to simply fit in. You'd hear people in coffee shops say "Three coffees, please" knowing fully well that coffee is an uncountable noun hence has no plural form. And kids emphasizing a point by saying "I didn't do nothing!" when they also know that it's grammatically incorrect to use double negatives. Or even news reports saying that a house was 'completely destroyed' knowing that destroyed is an absolute term that cannot be qualified. These may have little to do with the descriptive grammar versus prescriptive grammar debate but these still serve as just some examples of how people have come to accept them as appropriate in different social circumstances. Although Filipinos might have a tendency to follow prescriptive rules of English in speaking and writing, it does not necessarily follow that this is solely due to linguistic insecurity nor is the problem as deep as first perceived. We also have to consider that the purpose for which English is widely used reflects how it is taught in the country. Apart from things concerning school academe, corporate culture, and even just basic social contact, everything else from advertising to entertainment, laws to regulations, customs to ethics, English surrounds Filipinos in many other forms. The negative side to this one is that, just like other countries that use English either as their mother tongue or as a second language, people can speak fluently but when you ask them why they said it that way, how they said it, or what rule should be followed or not followed in the construction of their sentence, they wouldn't be able to give a thorough answer. Or at least not immediately. Perhaps we can say that one of the long-held beliefs in the Philippines is that good English necessitates adherence to grammar books that's why, even outside the classroom, we can expect Filipino English speakers to conform their English a little bit but still following the grammatical rules in some way.
