Lexical Features of When in Manila Blogs: IPE Word-Formation Processes and their Acceptability to ESL Teachers

Abstract

The impact of internet in the 21st century has significantly influenced the variety of English language through the innovations in electronic communication. Human communication became faster, more dynamic, and convenient in the digital world. The profound effect of this change is evident in the idiosyncratic usage of words in the sharing and exchange of information online. This study focuses on the lexical creativity of Internet Philippine English (IPE) neologism or the process of creating new words and its acceptability for English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers. A corpus of 300,000+ words was collected from “When In Manila” blogs from 2017-2019 and processed using AntConc 2 software. Findings showed twenty-three IPE lexical items formed through normal expansion, shortening, coinage, and borrowing based on Dimaculangan and Gustilo’s (2018) framework of word-formation processes in Philippine English. Five of these words were frequently occurring among the different categories of the blogs. Moreover, the words were evaluated by ESL teachers to validate their acceptability vis-a-vis academic Philippine English. Thus, it was revealed that these words are only acceptable in informal and conversational English levels. Further, the pedagogical implications entail reviewing the present curriculum and assess where new changes and developments in PE can be incorporated into academic instruction.