Philippine E-Journals

Morphological Analysis of English Journalese in Cebu-Based Dailies

Reynaldo A. Caturza

Discipline: Languages

 

Abstract:

This study investigated the discourse in Cebu-based English dailies to determine variations in morphology, the dominant morphological variants, and the composite forms of the emergent variations. The research is significant because the students acquire implicit knowledge of English from the newspapers. Language theorists consider the environment, such as reading materials, as a major source of comprehensible input for language acquisition. English usage in the Philippines may have become localized, and these variations may be found in print media communication. Thus, linguistic investigations are important to enhance classroom instruction. The descriptive method was used, focusing on the discourse analysis of data taken from hard news and editorials through convenience sampling. The hard news and editorials are two sections of the newspapers that command high readership. Frequency count and percentages were used in categorizing the variants and determining the dominant forms. Since the analysis presupposed a model language variety, standard American English was used. The findings indicated that variant English lexicon was evolving in Cebu-based newspapers and that geography and culture had caused these emergent variations. Among other things, it was recommended that words borrowed from the local language for lack of English equivalents be accepted in journalistic communication.