Philippine E-Journals

Tag Questions in Philippine English

Ariane Macalinga Borlongan

 

Abstract:

The general aim of this study is to characterize the use of tag questions in Philippine English. Corpus findings reveal a relatively low frequency of tag questions in Philippine English compared with American, British, and Hong Kong Englishes. Isn’t it records the highest frequency of occurrence in ICE-PHI. On polarity types, Philippine English also seems to follow American and British Englishes in their preferences, with the positive-negative polarity the most prevalent in the three Englishes. Tag questions in Philippine English are used mainly to emphasize what the speaker says without expecting any involvement or and to confirm the speaker’s knowledge about information. Lastly, in Philippine English, positive-negative tag questions are usually attitudinal tag questions but may sometimes also be peremptory tag questions while confirmatory tag questions usually take the form of positive-positive, positive-negative, and negative-positive tag questions.