Filipino Writers Research Articles

An Exploratory Analysis of Linking Adverbials Used by Filipino, Pakistani, and Thai Writers of English

The current study provides a Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis (CIA) of linking adverbials (e.g., furthermore, in conclusion, on the other hand) in the second language (L2) English academic writing of post-secondary students from three countries: the Philippines, Pakistan, and Thailand. This analysis makes use of 80 essays from each of these three first language (L1) groups by way of data sourced from the International Corpus Network of Asian Learner English (ICNALE); we eschew the use of a native speaker control group in response to recent critiques of the native speaker fallacy. Quantitative and qualitative analyses revealed several noteworthy production tendencies which distinguish each English variety. These include a generally low frequency of linking adverbial tokens by Filipino writers of English, as well as a comparatively narrow range of linking adverbial types by Pakistani writers of English. In terms of functional category differences, Thai writers displayed a relatively high frequency of listing devices while Pakistani writers showed a low frequency of appositional linking adverbials, and a high frequency of resultative linking adverbials. Methodological and pedagogical implications of these findings are discussed.

How do published Filipino scholars use stance markers over the years? A diachronic corpus-based study

ABSTRACT Authorial stance in academic writing is one of the vital aspects that recognises the evolution of writing to a more context-rich discourse, accounting for writer-reader relationships. Despite the growing interest in diachronic studies on stance markers, only a few studies have considered how stance changed in the recent years in the context of English as a Second Language (henceforth ESL) writing specifically that of Filipino writers. Consequently, this quantitative research diachronically examined stance markers in published research articles of Filipino scholars in the applied linguistics discipline. Chi-square test revealed that the overall use of stance markers varies over the years. Specifically, there is a decline in boosters and attitude markers and an increase in hedges and self-mentions. The overall quantitative findings revealed that Filipinos are becoming less subjective in writing while showcasing idea ownership in writing. This study ends with implications of the findings for academic writing instructions among Filipino writers. Future research directions are likewise provided.

Postcolonial Re-vision in N. V. M. Gonzalez’ A Season of Grace

The Philippines’ double-colonization at the hands of Spain (1565– 1898) and then the United States (1898–1946) has produced a distinctive type of postcolonial writing in English. Despite this unique postcolonial situation, there is a lack of substantial and sustained critical work assessing Philippine fiction in postcolonial studies. In order to address this neglect, this article shows how a culturally specific formalist approach provides new opportunities to interrogate the particular postcolonial themes and issues raised in Filipino novels. This article argues that the thematic concerns of Filipino novels need to be related more productively to their formal innovations. It suggests that a contextual examination of the various narrative strategies and techniques deployed in the novels can help shed light on the authors’ project of engaging with the consequences of both the US-endorsed narrative of Philippine modernity and development and the nationalists’ quest for the authentic Filipino. Specifically, this article examines the novel, A Season of Grace, by N. V. M. Gonzalez, one of the early Filipino writers who consistently wrote using the colonial language, English. This article argues that Gonzalez’s temporal experimentations form part of his project of historical re-vision. This article suggests that in the formal portrayal of kaingin or swidden farming, the narrative’s temporal indeterminacy demonstrates the non-specificity of events, and the repetitive nature of these events also show how the kaingineros have been subjected to institutionalized exploitation.

An Ecocritical Reading of Selected Sidays in Baldesco’s Poetic Anthology “Kawit”

This paper unpacked and unearthed the ecocritical semantics in the Sidays of Filipino writer, Nemesio “Totoy” Baldesco who is widely recognized for his works in Siday, a form of Philippine poetry known for its distinct use of the Waray language spoken in the provinces of Samar and Leyte. Anchored on the principles of Ecocritical Theory, this paper sought to explore the ecocritical semantics (i.e. the symbolic lines, images, and symbolisms), and environmental meaning present in the six ecological Siday pieces from Baldesco’s poetic anthology. Results show that Baldesco’s Siday pieces contain ecocritical semantics that didactically moralizes people to protect the environment. Furthermore, the Siday pieces also moralize how humans should protect, preserve and conserve the environment. This paper concludes with a discussion on the need to promote and expand literary studies involving local literature in the Philippines.

Between the utopian imaginaries of literature and international law: The question of the insurgent child in international legal discourse and Kris Montañez’s Youth

AbstractThis article argues that international law and the literature of civil war, specifically the narratives from the Philippine communist insurgency, present two visions of the child. On the one hand, international law constructs a child that is individual and vulnerable, a victim of violence trapped between the contending parties. Hence, the child is a person who needs to be insulated from the brutality of the civil war. On the other hand, the article reads Filipino writer Kris Montañez’s stories as revolutionary tales that present a rational child, a literary resolution of the dilemmas of a minor’s participation in the world’s longest-running communist insurgency. Indeed, the short narratives collected in Kabanbanuagan (Youth) reveal a tension between a minor’s right to resist in the context of the people’s war and the juridical right to be insulated from the violence. As their youthful bodies are thrown into the world of the state of exception, violence forces children to make the choice of active participation in the hostilities by symbolically and literally assuming the roles played by their elders in the narrative. The article concludes that while this narrative resolution appears to offer a realistic representation and closure, what it proffers is actually a utopian vision that is in tension with international law’s own utopian vision of children. Thus, international law and the stories of youth in Kabanbanuagan provide a powerful critique of each other’s utopian visions.

Move analysis and their lexical verbs of research article abstracts of Filipino and American writers

Rhetorical move analyses of research article (RA) abstracts have established variations across disciplines and cultures. However, there is still a need for more explorations on Applied Linguistics discipline. Comparing native and other group of non-native speakers of English, such as Filipino users of the language, has also been a neglect in research as far as the researcher’s knowledge is concerned. Hence, this study investigated the rhetorical moves in the RA abstracts of American and Filipino writers who are published in two journals related to Applied Linguistics field. The study also explored the lexical verbs underlying each move in all the abstracts. Each abstract was then segmented into moves. Findings revealed that the moves Situating the Research (STR), Presenting the Research (PTR), and Discussing the Research (DTR) were obligatorily used by both groups of writers, while the moves Describing the Methodology (DTM) and Summarizing the Findings (STF) were obligatory only among Filipinos and optional among Americans. Filipino writers appear to develop their own conventions deviating from Americans who are considered native speakers and norm providers. The results also amplify the existence of cultural differences even in abstract writing. Further, the study details lists of lexical verbs that may be used to realize a rhetorical intent of each move. Hence, academic writing instructions may be informed by the rhetorical and linguistic realizations unveiled in this study. Directions for future research are likewise provided.

Philippine Social Constructs Found in Bob Ong’s Stories

Literary texts are products of an ideology. Consequently, some Filipinos write about social constructs to uncover and question the existence of a particular social norm. Bob Ong, a Filipino writer, makes readers experience factual events. His novels Macarthur and Kapitan Sino uphold the cultural, economic, and political constructs which made these works vulnerable to be examined from a socio-political perspective. This study used the qualitative-descriptive methodology to show different social classes, conflicts, and resolutions found in the novels. This study also features the ills of society as a reflection of the Philippine society. The following conclusions are drawn: First, that the Philippine social construct can be interpreted based on the Class Conflict theory from the ideology of Karl Marx. Thus, social classes are classified as bourgeoise and proletariat. Second, conflicts are societal in nature and are challenging to resolve. Indeed, the novels reveal concerns that reflect the contemporary Philippine circumstance.

Telling Times

Nick Joaquin (1917–2004) is often regarded as the greatest Filipino writer in English, yet he remains largely unknown outside his country. He published widely in all genres and was awarded the National Artist Award, yet he dropped out of high school and spent much of his youth holed up in libraries and walking Manila’s streets. He wrote some of his most powerful stories between the end of US colonial rule and the beginning of the postcolonial era, at a time when the very craft of storytelling was itself endangered. And he did so in another language, American English, which required setting aside his mother tongue, Tagalog, and an inherited tongue, Spanish. This article explores some of these contradictions, looking at the relationship between language and literature exemplified in Joaquin’s writings and situating him as a storyteller in the wake of Manila’s utter destruction by colonial wars and the uneven recovery from postcolonial strife. This article also asks how Joaquin sought to rescue not just the memory of the city but also the very faculty of remembering itself as well as the remembering self.

CAPTURING THE FRAMES OF NEWS STORY LEADS IN PHILIPPINE DAILIES: A DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Using 31 news leads found in news articles published in Philippines newspapers – three broadsheets and one tabloid – the present study describes the news leads’ organizational structure and identifies the shared cultural context evoked by the news leads. The analysis of the news discourse employed Bhatia’s (1993) genre analysis focusing on communicative purpose, and Simpson’s (2000) physical structure analysis. The study revealed that the genre of journalism, specifically the 31 news leads, fulfilled its main communicative purpose - which is to convey information - through Direct, Summary, or Conventional lead. The leads are characterized by brevity and directness with adherence to the ideal length consisting of 35-word limit in both broadsheet newspaper and tabloid newspaper. The result implied that writing pattern or written discourse is influenced by the culture of specific genre. The result manifested that Filipinos are capable of adaptation to rules in a particular genre. The study served as an avenue in finding out the conclusion that digressiveness, which is a characteristic of writings of Oriental writers, is not always evident in the discourse of newspaper compositions of Filipino writers. This study maybe helpful to researchers who wish to analyze culture through discourse analysis using a specific genre.

Hope Beyond Disappointment: A Reparative Reading of Charlson Ong’s Of That Other Country We Now Speak

The practice of depicting ancestral homeland as a mythical and ideal place where the diasporic subjects will eventually return has been problematized and contested in diasporic studies. Seemingly pioneering, such an approach perpetuates a paranoid reading of homecoming and return as an experience of disappointment, confusion, and conflict, which in turn bolsters the sense of alienation of diasporic subjects. Despite the contentions, the idea of home still has its hold on diasporic subjects. Considering the complexity and significance of the notion of home in diasporic studies, I argue that the homecoming journey could also create positive impacts on healing the wound inflicted by diasporic experience. Employing Eve Sedgwick’s theory of reparative reading, which empowers generative mode of analysis that explores alternatives through textual critique, I offer a reparative reading of the title story in Of that Other Country We Now Speak and Other Stories, a recent collection of short stories by the award-winning Chinese Filipino writer Charlson Ong. I focus especially on the experience of the protagonist Jeffrey and examine how his adversity is complicated by the diasporic experience, the symbolic meaning of his homecoming trip as well as how his narration of a mythological story parallels with and symbolizes his endeavors to heal the misfortune. In doing so, this essay hopes to provide an alternative perspective on the often negatively-perceived homecoming experience.

A native clearing: the English language in Anglophone Filipino novels

ABSTRACT The preeminent Filipino writer Nick Joaquin once boldly declared, ‘English was the challenge, was the frontier, that faced us in the 1900s. Is it to our discredit that we chose to pick up the challenge and to conquer the frontier?’ following Marion Gymnich’s study of the linguistic relationship between narrators and characters in postcolonial writing in English, this article will show how Filipino writ-ers have deployed this native clearing of the colonial English language in their novels. Crucially, this article will not only examine how the novels formally present the power relations that exist in their postcolonial situation but also what it says about the authors’ intentions. In this context, this article turns to the early novels of Filipino authors such as Bienvenido Santos, N.V.M. Gonzalez, and Nick Joaquin as case studies. This article hopes to demonstrate that in the works of these authors, their choice to write using the colonial language takes the form of what Filipino poet Gemino Abad calls the ‘native clearing within the adopted language’.

Genealogy as National History in Jun Cruz Reyes’s <I>Etsa-Puwera</I>

This essay analyses Filipino writer Jun Cruz Reyes’s Centennial Literary Prize-winning novel Etsa-Puwera (2000) as a historical novel that makes use of genealogy or family history as a way to contest the historiographic foundations of official, i.e. elite-centred, nationalism. It first embarks upon a discussion of the significance of the novel as both a discursive unit in the state’s official regime of the nation-formation narrative, and a creative project that overtly intends to foreground the limits of, and mystifications by, official nationalism. The essay then discusses how the discursive invocation of the family shapes ideological conceptions on nation and nationalism. Finally, it closely reads how Etsa-Puwera employs the expansive genealogical narrative of the Balinghasay clan to interrogate mainstream, elite-centred historiography and its influence in the construction of Filipino nationalist discourse, and foreground the historical agency of the unjustly excluded etsa-puwera of Philippine society.

Translating Philippine history in America's shadow: Japanese reflections on the past and present during the Vietnam War

In the 1970s, during and right after the end of the Vietnam War, more works by Filipino writers, especially historians, were translated into Japanese than works by any other Southeast Asians. In Southeast Asia, it was in the Philippines that the Japanese and the American forces had fought their fiercest battles during the Second World War. The Japanese translators who translated prominent Filipino nationalist historians such as Gregorio Zaide, Teodoro Agoncillo and Renato Constantino, had personally experienced war, defeat, and postwar life under the US-led Allied occupation of Japan. This article compares the original texts of some of these key Filipino works and their Japanese translations, and examines the ‘noises’ produced in the process of translation. This noise includes strategies such as the deletion and addition of information, opinions, and deliberate misreadings. This article suggests that these strategies reveal the translators’ views on the past as well as their contemporary experience of postwar Japan against the background of the ongoing Vietnam War.

Madonna and Me: Isang Pagmimito

“Madonna and Me: An Act of Myth-making” attempts to delineate the myth of the Western popstar Madonna as an outsider, and reinscribe the same myth into the writing (and in effect, reading) practice of a Filipino writer. This act of “myth-making” is not just a form of poetics, it can also be seen as an example of a study of postcolonial subjectivity, and a theory of writing.

Gender Sensitivity Issues in Short Stories

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Dance and Other Slippages: Critical Narratives on Women, Dance, and Art by Rina Angela P. Corpus

Reviewed by: Dance and Other Slippages: Critical Narratives on Women, Dance, and Art by Rina Angela P. Corpus Clarissa Cecilia Mijares Ramos Rina Angela P. Corpus Dance and Other Slippages: Critical Narratives on Women, Dance, and Art University of the Philippines Press, 2013. 143 pages. The literature on Philippine dance by Filipino writers is so scanty that every published contribution is considered valuable. Rina Angela P. Corpus's Dance and Other Slippages, however, begs to move outside that category of "just-another-valuable-contribution" toward being a piece of substantial scholarship that could pave the way for a shift in perspectives in Philippine dance studies. Corpus was a volunteer and meditation teacher at the Brahma Kumaris Center for Spiritual Learning in Tagaytay City. In that tranquil city south of Manila she finalized her two books on dance, Defiant Daughters of Dancing (University of Hawai'i Press, 2017) and Dance and Other Slippages—the former, based on her master's thesis; the latter, a compilation of essays spanning over ten years of introspection (1999–2013). She was assistant professor in the Department of Art Studies of the University of the Philippines (UP) in Diliman, where she earned her undergraduate degree in Art Studies and her [End Page 107] master's in Art History. She moved to Melbourne in 2016 for her PhD in Dance at the Victorian College of the Arts in the University of Melbourne. Corpus has not only written about Filipina contemporary dancers, but for a brief moment she was a contemporary dancer herself. She studied classical ballet in her youth and was affiliated with the Quezon City Ballet. She also took classes and dance workshops with Ballet Manila, Swiss Chamber Ballet International, Perry Sevidal Ballet School, and Limon Dance Institute in New York. In 2006 she directed and performed in a dance-solo-show titled "The Four Faces of Woman: A Dance-Exhibit Celebrating Women and Spirit," which was supported by UP's Office of Initiative in Culture and the Arts, the Anthrosophia Wellness Foundation, Inc., and the National Commission on Culture and the Arts. Corpus's affinity for dance and interest in understanding and facilitating meaning making are fleshed out in her 2013 publication. Offering a feminist-postmodernist approach to dance criticism, she seeks to "challenge the previous 'paternal' authorities of the 'great art' and 'grand dance' canons" (xiii). This approach to dance allows her and her work to stand out in a sea of Philippine dance performance critics who have mostly taken to formalistic and historical-materialist approaches. None of this is to say that Corpus disregards history. In fact, in Dance and Other Slippages she chronicles the lives of Filipina dance-artists and lays out a purposely selected dance repertoire for posterity. Her interest in history and historicity is evident in her previously published works. Corpus has been consistent in anchoring her research methodology on dance biographies as evident in Defiant Daughters of Dancing. Through her inquiry into the lives and artistic expressions of dance-artists, Corpus provides insights on the sociopolitical landscape of Philippine contemporary dance. She applies this kind of probing in Dance and Other Slippages, which focuses on the reading of dance performances and the retelling of dances through conversations about their conceptualization and production of dance. The book consists mostly of reviews of dance productions from 1999 to 2012. With over eight chapters, it is a compilation of textual analyses of dance performances and gallery shows that focus on women. She begins her reviews with layouts of analytical frameworks, citing feminist theorists whose ideas she applies to the reading of dance texts. Her carefully curated repertoire list consists of materials that have women as either subjects or producers. [End Page 108] This book should be lauded for providing space for independently produced dance shows. Featured in Dance and Other Slippages are dance-artists and performances that can be considered to have thrived outside traditional theater and the formal support structures for the arts in the country. Keeping true to her postmodernist preferences, Corpus conscientiously includes independently produced dance events that have not received ample exposure and patronage, such as Agnes Locsin's Sabel, Gerard Mercado's Daragang Magayon, Angela Baguilat and...

Indigenization of English in Five Short Stories of Manuel Arguilla

The study was conducted to analyze the linguistic innovations utilized in the lexical and syntactic levels in eacg short story, the literary devices used to express specific cultural values, practices, emotions, and other realities of the Filipinos, and determine how these linguistic innovation depict the cultural milieu of the stories. The five short stories of Manuel Arguilla, namely: How My Brother Leon Brought Home A Wife, Midsummer, A son Is Born, Morning in Nagrebcan, and Rice were used in exploring the indigenization of English. Textual analysis of the five short stories of Manuel Arguilla was done to analyze the nativization of English along two levels in linguistic innovation: lexical and syntactic; literary devices used; and the cultural frame of the stories. Findings of the study were: 1. The linguistic innovations found in the five short stories were: a. Lexical innovations such as single item, hybridized item, contextualized proper names, and calquing. b. Syntactic innovations such as Filipinisms, rhetorical patterning, and vernacular expressions. 2. Literary devices such as the use of simile, metaphor, hyperbole, personification, and nativized images were utilized by Arguilla to express specific cultural values practices, emotions, and other realities of the Filipinos. 3. The short stories of Arguilla contain cultural framework that are rich in learning Philippine family life and values, courtship and marriage, poverty and social stratification, rural place and life, and travel and transportation. The following conclusions are formulated: 1. There are linguistic innovations in the lexical and syntactic levels which depict the cultural milieu in the five short stories of Arguilla. 2. There are literary devices such as simile, hyperbole, personification, and nativized images utilized to express specific cultural values, practices, emotions, and other realities of Filipinos. 3. The five short stories of Arguilla contain cultural framework that are rich in learning Philippine rural values, practices, and emotions. Based on the findings, the following are recommended: 1. Literature teachers should have sufficient background knowledge in language theories and language teaching in order to integrate activities in identifying linguistic innovations under lexical and syntactic levels in their lessons. Having sufficient background in morphology, syntax and semantics would help the literature teacher translate and interpret the meaning of Filipinisms found in English short stories. 2. Both language and literature teachers should use English short stories written by Filipino authors as a springboard in teaching grammar and learning literary devices expressive of a distinct Filipino culture. 3. Literature, values education, history or social studies teachers should maximize the use of English short stories written by Filipino authors in learning Filipino values such as reciprocity, bayanihan system, and respect for elders; appreciation of Filipino traditional practices in child bearing and rearing, farming, and other daily life’s activities; ways of expressing emotions involved in courtship, marriage, and rural life; and barrio setting which includes architectural structures, local ambience of place, including community life. 4. Literature teachers should encourage students to read English short stories written by Filipino writers, and to include the analysis of these short stories in their class. This will enable the students to appreciate the Filipino culture through reading a non-native language which will eventually become their own culture. 5. English short story writing under Filipino theme and setting be included as a culminating activity in literature classes. This will give them the opportunity to write an English short story that would describe and identify their own native values, practices and mores. 6. Finally, further research can be conducted along this line taking into consideration the other elements of the story. The extent, frequency, and approach of teaching English short stories written by Filipinos in a literature class can be included as a part of a research work. This could lead to a broader definition of the characteristics of the new English literature written by Filipino short story writers.

Literature in the time of Tokhang

With the devastating war on drugs in the Philippines threatening to escalate into a war on words, Filipino writers need to fight terror with truthful writing that goes beyond posterised caricature to give evil a human face. This paper was originally delivered as the keynote address at the annual conference of the Writers Union of the Philippines at the Ateneo de Manila University on 29 April 2017.

The (Mis)Education of the Filipino Writer

According to Merlie Alunan, the writers Edilberto and Edith Tiempo, founders of the Silliman University National Writers Workshop, have so influenced Philippine literary production that the latter half of the twentieth century and “a few more decades hereafter” can be called “The Tiempo Age.” This essay examines the relationship of aesthetics and politics in institutionalized creative writing in the Philippines by unpacking the politics of the Silliman Workshop’s autonomous aesthetics. It situates the origins, pedagogy, and imagined community of the Silliman Workshop within the network of American colonial education in the Philippines, American cultural diplomacy, and institutionalized creative writing in the United States. It explores how New Criticism, as appropriated by the Iowa Writers’ Workshop-trained Tiempos, conflates the autonomy of the literary text with the autonomy of the literary space in which it is produced. The lack of institutional self-critique authorized by this conflation results in the propagation by the Silliman Workshop of colonialist and classist ideas about language and literary production, which are camouflaged, if not naturalized, as principles and mechanisms integral to the craft of writing. The essay calls on the successors of the Tiempos who currently run the Silliman Workshop to scrutinize the historical contingency of the aesthetic values they inherited and to revise their New Critical pedagogy, which continues to uphold the primacy of English as the language of creative writing education and literary production.

Merlinda Bobis’s Fish-Hair Woman: A Magical Rendering of History

Filipino writers of historical fiction have employed magical realism to incorporate people’s experiences into discussions of the nation’s violent history and present a possibility of revolution and hope, particularly with the fall of Ferdinand Marcos’s regime. However, Merlinda Bobis uses magical realism to represent the struggles of villagers who were caught between government forces and communist insurgents during the Total War in the late 1980s, thus focusing on preserving personal histories and memories. Bobis’s Fish-Hair Woman (2012) puts into writing efforts at reconciling with a violent past as she works to actively challenge grander narratives of violence and terror. Keywords: magical realism • Philippine literature • historical fiction • counterinsurgency