Each year, we celebrate Buwan ng Wika or (National) Language Month in the Philippines. Formerly focused only on the Filipino national language, the month-long celebration has evolved into a multilingual celebration seeking to raise awareness also of other Philippine languages, including Filipino Sign Language and indigenous tongues and writing systems. But, of course, we are free to celebrate languages any other time of the year.

At the University of Santo Tomas (UST), the oldest university in Asia, Buwan ng Wika was auspiciously extended with three events spotlighting language this year.

First, during the first week of October, new street signs were installed around the Manila campus of UST. Quite distinctive, the new signages had the familiar campus street names transliterated in Baybayin, an old Tagalog writing system largely used in the northern part of the country before the Spanish rule from 1565 to 1898. Along with other initiatives by Filipino scholars to revive this pre-colonial script, the project enriched the university’s linguistic landscape. Notwithstanding criticisms about the weak translation of an earlier version of these signs, the move reflects an appreciation for languages that are less visible.

Second, not long after this multilingual campus update, precisely on October 10, 2024, language scholars across the Philippines were rattled by the ratification of Republic Act No. 12027. This new law discontinues the mother tongue-based multilingual education (MTBMLE) policy enacted in 2013. While the MTBMLE implementation had important challenges such as limited instructional materials, among others, there was palpable panic and disappointment from groups of language teachers and scholars over the legislative imperative to repeal the language-in-education policy that advocated the use of mother tongues as medium of instruction in basic education classrooms.

The Multilingualism and Multilingual Education class under the English Language Studies Program of the UST Graduate School was not going to stand silent. Our small cohort of six (five PhD candidates and course facilitator, Dr. Pia Tenedero) responded to this issue by raising three important questions that problematize the seemingly reactive, government decision to withdraw its support of mother tongue-based instruction. We believe that, given a better fighting chance, the MTBMLE could work wonders as it did in East Timor. Our formal response and appeal (posted in the UST Department of English Facebook page) is pictured here.

Whether this and other official statements released by various universities and professional groups will or can make a difference remains to be seen. But putting forward a position statement allowed us to engage with the real-life implication of the theories we have been discussing in class since the term began in August.

Third, our class had another special opportunity to extend our appreciation of multilingualism in education contexts. On 26 October 2024, Dr. Loy Lising of Macquarie University and Language on the Move, spoke to our group in an exclusive online learning session. Anchored on the theme “The Future of Language Learning: Moving Toward a Multilingual Mindset in Education System,” the two-hour conversation was attended by about 50 language undergraduate and graduate students and teachers from UST, Mariano Marcos State University Baguio, and De La Salle College of Saint Benilde, Antipolo. Dr. Lising shared reflectively on the theme, grounded on two important, recent publications—the “Multilingual Mindset” (Lising, 2024) and the book Life in a New Language (Piller et al., 2024).

Dr. Loy Lising and the Multilingualism and Multilingual Education class of UST

Two key concepts framed the interactive discussion: linguistic hierarchies and multilingual mindset. Reflecting on linguistic hierarchies, we acknowledge the differential social value of languages (based on Ingrid Piller’s (2016) award-winning book Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice). To drive this point, Dr. Lising asked us how many languages we have and whether we and the places where we use them value these languages equally.

Multilingual mindset, which Dr. Lising defined in her article, recognizes disparities in language proficiencies, repertoires, and practices. It is “a way of thinking about language that is mindful and expectant of these variations,” which, in fact, characterize every human interaction, but are particularly salient in migration contexts. This disposition or way of seeing presents an important alternative (even, antidote) to the pervasive “monolingual mindset,” which sees the world only in terms of one language – English (Clyne, 2008).

Capping the month with a conversation that explored challenges and hopes of multilinguals based in the Philippines, we came out of it feeling more certain about the importance of language mindfulness and energized to do our part as language teachers and researchers to grow the multilingual mindset in our homes, classrooms, research sites, places of worship, holiday destinations, and everyday interactions.

This time of the year certainly taught us several ways to grow in our mindfulness of multilingualism beyond the traditional Buwan ng Wika. Afterall, languages ought to be celebrated every day of the year!

References

Clyne, M. (2008). The monolingual mindset as an impediment to the development of plurilingual potential in Australia. Sociolinguistic Studies, 2(3). 347–366.
Lising, L. (2024). Multilingual mindset: A necessary concept for fostering inclusive multilingualism in migrant societies. AILA Review, 37 (1), 35–53.
Piller, I. (2016). Linguistic diversity and social justice. Oxford University Press.
Piller, I., Butorac, D., Farrell, E., Lising, L., Motaghi-Tabari, S., & Williams-Tetteh, V. (2024). Life in a new language. Oxford University Press.

International migration is at an all-time high as ever more people move across national borders for work or study, in search of refuge or adventure. Regardless of their motivations and whether they intend their moves to be temporary or permanent, all transnational migrants face the challenge of re-building their lives in a different cultural and linguistic context, far away from family and friends, and the everyday routines of their previous lives. Established populations in destination countries may treat migrants with benign neglect at best and outright hostility at worst.

How then do migrants make a new life?

To answer that question, Life in a New Language examines the language learning and settlement experiences of 130 migrants to Australia from 34 different countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America over a period of 20 years. Reusing data shared from six separate sociolinguistic ethnographies, the book illuminates participants’ lived experience of learning and communicating in a new language, finding work, and doing family. Additionally, participants’ experiences with racism and identity making in a new context are explored. The research uncovers significant hardship but also migrants’ courage and resilience. The book has implications for language service provision, migration policy, open science, and social justice movements.

Today, Brynn chats with Loy Lising, one of the book’s six co-authors, with a focus on low-skilled migrants and how their experiences are shaped by monolingual ideologies.

Use promo code AAFLYG6 for a discount when you purchase from Oxford University Press.

Advance praise

“This volume breaks new ground by focusing on Doings: a group of diverse researchers collaboratively doing close listening and looking over 20 years, as adult immigrants to Australia engage in doing life, things, words, family, and work in a new language. The result is not only new understandings of the participants’ self-making, but also the making of a new research trajectory that focuses not simply on the learning of a language, but on humanity doing life in language.” (Ofelia García, The Graduate Center, City University of New York)

“This is a moving book that represents the voices of migrants on their challenges and successes across different kinds of boundaries. It embodies impersonal structural and geopolitical pressures as negotiated in the dreams and aspirations of migrants. The authors share findings from decades-long separate research projects to develop richer insights, as a model for data sharing and ethical research.” (Suresh Canagarajah, Pennsylvania State University)

Related reference

Lising, L. (2024). Multilingual mindset: A necessary concept for fostering inclusive multilingualism in migrant societies. AILA Review

Transcript (by Brynn Quick, added 05/08/2024)

Brynn: Welcome to the Language on the Move Podcast, a channel on the New Books Network. My name is Brynn Quick and I’m a PhD candidate at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. Today’s episode is part of a series devoted to Life in a New Language.

Life in a New Language is a new book just out from Oxford University Press. It’s co-authored by Ingrid Piller, Donna Butorac, Emily Farrell, Loy Lising, Shiva Motaghi Tabari and Vera Williams Tetteh. In this series, I’ll chat to each of the co-authors about their perspectives.

Life in a New Language examines the language learning and settlement experiences of 130 migrants to Australia from 34 different countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America over a period of 20 years. Reusing data shared from six separate sociolinguistic ethnographies, the book illuminates participants’ lived experience of learning and communicating in a new language, finding work and doing family. Additionally, participants’ experiences with racism and identity-making in a new context are explored.

The research uncovers significant hardship, but also migrants’ courage and resilience. The book has implications for language service provision, migration policy, open science, and social justice movements. My guest today is Dr. Loy Lising.

Dr. Lising is a senior lecturer in linguistics at Macquarie University, as well as a senior fellow with the Higher Education Academy. She’s a member of the International Advisory Panel for Migration Linguistics Unit at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. She served as program director for the Department of Linguistics Master of Cross-Cultural Communication Program at the University of Sydney from 2012 to 2014.

In 2015, she was awarded the Andrew Gonzales Distinguished Professorial Chair in Linguistics and Language Education by the Linguistic Society of the Philippines. Loy is a sociolinguist whose research interests lie at the intersection of multilingualism and migration. Employing both ethnographic and corpus approaches, she investigates the enduring consequences of this convergence on key issues such as heritage language maintenance, the evolving variation in languages in society, induced by language context situations between diasporic communities and mainstream society, and the de facto multilingual practices present on the ground in a society that continues to hold the monolingual ideal.

Welcome to the show, Loy. We’re really excited to have you here today.

Dr. Lising: Thank you, Brynn. I’m really excited to be here and thanks for having me.

Brynn: To get us started, can you tell us a bit about yourself and how you and your co-authors got the idea for Life in a New Language?

Dr. Lising: So to begin, I am an Australian linguist of Filipino, particularly Cebuano heritage. And so, the kind of work I do pay homage to those dual identities. My family and I migrated to Australia in 2004.

And in 2005, I started research work in a unit that was then called the National Centre for English Language Teaching and Research. And in 2007, that unit ceased to exist and was replaced by a smaller unit called Adult Migrant English Program Research Centre for which Ingrid became the centre director. And so, in 2008 and 2009, Ingrid hired me as a postdoc to coordinate this national longitudinal multi-sided research project that was funded by the Australian government department called at that time Department of Immigration and Citizenship, which we now know as Department of Home Affairs.

And the focus of this project was on language training and settlement success of migrants to Australia. So, in that study, we shadowed around 150 migrants to Australia across different states and territories. And in that role is where I also met the other authors.

Emily joined from Sydney Uni as Ingrid’s PhD student, and then Donna, Vera and Shiva then started their PhD journey with Ingrid as well. So, I would say that that particular research project was for me transformative and really laid the groundwork for my future research work in trying to understand how living a life in a new country is impacted by how migrants also need to learn a new language or at least a new way of doing and performing a different kind of English to the one they have already and also to their language learning. So, I think our work in the center gave the five of us who were supervised by Ingrid an opportunity to catch her vision and passion for this kind of research focus.

So really Ingrid is the driving force behind this book and her work on this started in 2001 when she was at Sydney Uni and investigated the success and failure in second language learning. And so having supervised the four other authors and also supervised my own research in 2009, really I would say was the starting point of the idea for this book.

Brynn: It sounds like it was a really natural progression for all of you to come together and work on this together. And what’s interesting about Life in a New Language is that this book is all about this reuse of ethnographic data. And as you said, you and the other co-authors each had your own projects that you were working on, but then in order to create this book, you brought it all together.

Can you tell us about the original research project that your contribution is based on?

Dr. Lising: So my original research project, which my contribution to this book was drawn from was a research study funded by Macquarie University new staff grant in 2009. And so, this was at the end of the AMAPRC first phase research project that I was the research manager for. And so, this MQNS project shadowed Filipino-skilled migrants to Australia on a temporary long-stay business visa, or as it was popularly known then, 457 visa.

And 457 visa had eight streams, and the one that my participants were under was the labour agreement stream. This visa was introduced in 1996, and it was intended to attract workers to Australia in areas where there are shortages. And so, the temporary visa is limited to four years with the possibility of extension if the work contract is renewed, and then also they can have the possibility of applying for permanent residency.

So Ingrid supervised that project, and it was modelled in design and reproach, I guess, on the AMAP national project that we worked on together. It was qualitative investigation through rapid multi-sided ethnography, shadowing three cohorts of Filipino skilled workers, abattoir workers, prefabricated home workers that included both IT professionals and carpenters, making prefab harms for the mining companies and also nurses. And they were situated across three states, so Queensland, South Australia and New South Wales.

So that’s the work on which my contribution to this book has been derived from.

Brynn: And you just mentioned that the participants that you were shadowing were doing quite different types of work, the abattoir workers, the nurses and the skilled labourers.

Dr. Lising: Yeah, prefabricated home workers that included the carpenters who actually built the homes and then the IIT professionals that I guess made the homes technology ready.

Brynn: So, it’s quite different work. However, what you really looked at in your part of your work and that the other authors looked at as well was this idea of finding work in Australia once you’ve come to settle. Can you tell us about what you found about your participants’ employment trajectories in these very different fields?

Dr. Lising: The Filipino skilled workers that I interviewed and shadowed were quite different to some of the participants that we have reanalysed for this book in that they came to Australia already having a job because the temporary long-stay business visa required for them to be identified for a specific work shortage. And so, in that sense, there wasn’t a lot of grief in terms of actually finding work. What there was grief about, however, was in their experiences once they came and did their part.

And that was largely to do with one of the main findings that we have in this book, and that is to do with this notion of linguistic proficiency. And so, for example, the abattoir workers, it’s a no-brainer to note that most people who go into abattoir work, other than those who really love that kind of work, would be coming from an educational trajectory where, you know, they have low education, okay? And that’s why they end up doing abattoir work.

And so, the Filipino workers that were hired for this work were hired by an Australian manager who actually went to the Philippines and observed their knife skills. And so “at the time of, for this particular cohort of abattoir workers, at the time of their employment, English language requirement wasn’t actually on the table. And so, so long as they had an offer of work, that was fine.

And so, the grief for them was when they came and the policy changed, and there was then an English language requirement attached to the renewal of their contract and of course permanent residency. And the requirement for those were pegged on an IELTS, so an International English Language Testing System band score of about five. Now, speaking, listening are perhaps things that you can grow to learn in doing work and life in a predominantly English-speaking country, but literacy skills of writing and reading are totally a different skill set that you need to have a sufficient education to be able to improve on those and be able to meet the band score that you need.

So it was that. And then there was also the issue of doing work in a workplace context that were quite intolerant of multilingual practices. And so, I’ve actually, based on that original research study in 2009, I’ve published in the International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, this paper that I entitled, Speak English, Social Acceleration and Language Learning in the Workplace.

And so, the analytical lens I use there is the notion of speed at work. And so, we have this expectation that when people do come and they don’t have a lot of English, they’ll learn it at work anyway. But you know, abattoir workers work in a conveyor belt-like system.

And so, if they keep talking, they’re going to be behind with their work. But then again, this intolerance of multilingual practices also kind of, or just talk in general while working, really limited their ability to practice their English anyway. But equally challenging for them was this limitation they felt in having this comfort conversations with co-nationals in their own language, because colleagues who only spoke English would actually be suspicious of them.

And often they are told off for speaking other languages.

Brynn: It feels like a real damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation, where they don’t have the literal time during their workday to quote unquote improve their English. But then when they do try to communicate using the resources that they have, maybe the language that they came to Australia with, they’re told not to.

And to me, I remember when I read that part of the book, the first thing that I thought of was nail salon technicians, because I feel like that is the same thing that I hear, especially monolingual English speakers say when they go to a nail salon, and they’ll hear, usually the women that work there will be speaking Vietnamese or sometimes Thai, and so these monolingual English speakers will be saying, I bet they’re talking about me. I bet they’re talking about how bad my feet are, things like that. And it made me wonder if that’s what was potentially happening in the abattoir as well, was that these English speakers were thinking, well, if they’re speaking in a language that I don’t understand, they must be talking about me.

Brynn: Certainly, so one of the participants from that original work that’s featured in this book, Ellen, she’s real aspiration to improve her English. She only finished high school and she has this very accented English, but she understood that if she just kept speaking English, she will become better. But also, I think coupled with that was she one day was pulled aside by the manager and he told her that he gets really embarrassed when other people are speaking their language because he’s not sure what they’re talking about.

So, I think, yeah, I think and that is a monolingual mindset. Absolutely. So, I’ve just written and actually, incidentally, it’s come out just on Friday, this paper on the multilingual mindset.

Brynn: And I’m glad that you’re mentioning this because I did do an episode a while back talking about the monolingual mindset. And until Friday, we didn’t really have anything to compare that to. And now you’ve written about it.

Dr. Lising: I was very excited about that. And I’m very proud of the work. So, it’s entitled Multilingual Mindset, A Necessary Concept for Fostering Inclusive Multilingualism in Migrant Societies.

And it’s in IELA Review and it’s a special issue that’s actually time for 60th IELA Conference in Kuala Lumpur in August, where Ingrid is one of keynote speakers. Yeah. So, in that, I talk about how, you know, the multilingual mindset refers to a way of thinking about languages that is mindful and expectant of variation in not just language proficiency, but also variation in language repertoire and variation in language practices.

So, if we have a shift for a moment that we go to work and we don’t have an expectation that everybody should just be speaking my language so that I can understand what they’re all saying, because otherwise they can be talking about me, but rather that if we step back for a moment and actually think, well, what is a language for? And the language is you has many functions, right? Not only does it index who you are and your identity, you use it for various purposes, and one of which is to connect with “co-nationals, your banter, to exchange humour for levity and for, you know, just to kind of, you know, have fun.

There’s no point in translating those jokes just for the sake of the English speaker who might think that they’re talking about them. And so, yeah, so I think and I hope that people will read that because I think even if they don’t necessarily accept the argument I put forward, I think it’s based on multilingual reality that we live in. But yet we’re still holding on to this monolingual ideal that yes, we have over 400 languages in Australia, but let’s just speak English anyway.

Because if we entertain this notion that it’s perfectly fine for people to operate in the languages that they have, I mean, obviously it’s different when they’re talking to somebody who’s speaking English and achieving a different communicative purpose, right? I’m not talking about that. I’m just talking about the other uses of languages.

And so, this notion of multilingual mindset allows us to kind of step back and reconsider, okay, well, these are the other things that language or languages are achieving.

Brynn: Yeah. In this section that you contributed especially, you really do get that feeling as you read that it just felt really bad for these workers, especially the ones in the abattoir situation, to be told, no, you can’t speak this language in order to achieve some semblance of comfort during the day, or connection or something like that.

In your opinion, what can we do to make things easier for new migrants, especially in this context where maybe they are doing this more quote unquote unskilled labour, which is silly to me because it sounds like it’s quite skilled, but especially for these people who come and work these long hours, or who are not able to speak their own languages, what can we do to make things easier for them?

Dr. Lising: If I could just pivot back to the main three findings, particularly for that chapter on work that we have, and so the three common themes there are in the experiences of our participants relative to Australian work experience, linguistic proficiency and educational qualification. If I can just revisit each and then I’ll get to the answer to your question. So, in terms of Australian work experience, one of the common things we found is that people are asked Australian work experience before work becomes readily available for them.

And it’s like a chicken and egg scenario where no one’s going to give me work, so how can I have a work experience so that I can actually work? And I guess I can answer your question. So, to that, for the migrants themselves, I find that the way to go around that is to actually do volunteer work.

Now that can only go for so long, right? Especially if you’re the breadwinner of the family, like in our book, Story Franklin, for example, who is a qualified English teacher, and he was allowed to do volunteer work at a Catholic school, but won’t be considered for paid work because his qualification is not recognized.

And so that’s the other thing, educational qualification, so not having your overseas qualification recognized, so not just in Franklin, but the story, for instance, of Vesna, who comes from Bulgaria, who’s a midwife, and, you know, as you know, we have such a shortage of midwives in Australia and a lot of other health workers, but the Overseas Qualifications Authority deemed her qualification insufficient for her to actually be working, and so here’s this woman who is done work on midwifery through four years of bachelor’s studies in Bulgaria and did 30 years of work experience in various countries, one of which is in United Arab Emirates, where she worked at a British hospital, and yet those things are not recognised.

I’ve asked permission and I have been given permission by my husband that I can share his story. So, my husband is a vet. So, he got his veterinary medicine from the University of the Philippines, but he obtained his Doctor of Philosophy in veterinary medicine from the University of Queensland.

And for a long time, for about 20 or so years, he served in an international multinational company as the technical services manager for Southeast Asia, and also started a similar work here in Australia. And that’s what brought us to Australia, and he can create vaccination programs for large swine farms, but he cannot write prescriptions because he is not recognized as a vet unless he studies all over again. Mind you, at some point in his career, he’s a recognized swine specialist, considered to be top 50 in the world and was always guest speaking everywhere.

So, you know, qualification, educational qualification. So to that, I guess, in answer to your question, I think we need to rethink the way that we think about the qualifications and we need to reassess our policy relative to recognizing these overseas qualifications in a way that provides new migrants clear and more accessible pathway on how to have their qualification recognized, right?

“In university, we have an RPL system, recognition of prior learning. And so applying the same principle, if you have similar bachelor’s degree, a tremendous amount of work experience, I mean, sure, you need to have some mechanism to ensure that, you know, there is standard quality of work that will be given, but not this just, you know, outright rejection of qualification, you know, so I think there needs to be some reassessment of that. And the other refining we have, of course, is the linguistic proficiency in terms of our participants in this book, both in terms of assured deficit in language and, you know, and kind of automatically assigned to an English class where they find themselves, you know, sitting in a room learning something that’s not really useful because they know English.

And also, I think that’s related to the non-recognition of varieties of other English varieties. And so, this, I think Ingrid has written about that with Hannah Torsch and Laura Smith-Khan, in terms of, you know, white English complex, this notion of a kind of prejudice against other kinds of Englishes as well that is non-white. So, this understanding again, and going back to what I talk about in the Multilingual Mindset paper of an expectation or variation in terms of language proficiency, right?

So, it’s that it’s really about just pay attention and accommodating the other person. And often it’s about perception. So, it’s kind of like if you like the other person, you’ll listen to them and you’ll understand.

But if you look at them and you have kind of an assumption of who they are or prejudice against who they are, and you’re bound to kind of make a judgment that you’re not going to understand them, even if they’re speaking the same language as you.

Brynn: And that’s what really comes through in the book, not just in the portion that you contributed, but with the other authors as well, is this idea of, okay, at the moment, we seem to only have one standard when it comes to either language or employment, and recognizing the recognition of prior learning, like what you talked about. This is the standard of English that you must meet, or this is the standard of employment or education that you must meet. And it feels like there’s no room for nuance, or to really look and judge on a case-by-case basis. And that just feels unattainable.

Dr. Lising: I can share another story that is actually quite raw, because I’m tutoring somebody at the moment who’s a religious person. And he’s here with his family from a war-torn country. And for him to advance to the next visa category that will allow him to qualify for a permanent residency application, he needs to achieve an IELTS band score of five overall and 4.5 in individual bands.

Brynn: And can you remind us, what is the highest band?

Dr. Lising: Nine. So, nine is the highest band that an English speaker who’s paying attention in the test can gain. And if they’re not paying attention, they will not even get that.

But the point of it is, as you were saying, there’s no opportunity here for new ones in accommodation. So, there are two kinds, perhaps there are more, but the two kinds of standard, and for those listening, I’m doing this in air quotes, tests that our government accepts are the IELTS test and the PTE test. And the PTE is computer based and it’s also computer marked.

And so, this person, and I’m sure he sat the test and was highest in IELTS speaking, 6.5, which is by the way, a university entry mark. But when he sat the PTE, he could only get 28 out of 30. And so there lies your real example, precisely of how there’s no nuance in this test.

And the standard against which I would assume his production in terms of speaking would have been judged against would be British speaker and American speaker. So, but yet in his work, he would speak in Arabic. That’s what his work requires him to do.

And he speaks French, but never mind that.

Brynn: But never mind, we’re not going to recognize all of these other proficiencies.

So, let’s shift gears a little bit into the actual writing of this book. So, I’ve spoken to each of your co-authors, minus one so far, and I’ve asked them all the same questions.

Now I’ll ask you, what was it like to co-author a monograph with five other people? Because as I said to one of your co-authors, I’ve done group projects before, they’re not my favourite. Was it like that or was it something different?

What did you do especially because so much of this took place during COVID? What were the ups and downs of this writing process?

Dr. Lising: I mean, group projects can be fun. And it can be fun if it’s in this way that I’m about to describe. So, for me, the experience of writing this book over the last five years among six of us, have been actually quite an enjoyable experience.

Yes, there are moments where it was hard work and we ensured that we crossed our T’s and dotted our I’s and we made sure all the facts that we have about all the participants. Because you’re talking about putting together a book based on 130 participants drawn from six projects over the last 20 years. So, there are, as you can imagine, there are real challenges there in ensuring quality of the outcome.

But I think that for me, there are two main reasons why there has been an enjoyable experience for me. And I think, judging by my observation of others for theirs as well, are that of friendship and trust. So, the six of us, as I’ve said to you at the beginning, have known each other since 2008.

I’ve known Ingrid since 2007. So that’s about 17 years of working together and we’re still working together. So, it’s gone well.

So, all these years, Ingrid has been constant in the way that she has guided us in our scholarly growth. And the great trust in the group, you know, because of that individual relationship, but also the collective relationship, and there’s a lot of, you know, respect. So, the great trust in the group has allowed us to work seemingly so seamlessly together.

Ingrid has been a glue that has bound us together. But I think knowing that we have the same passion, we have the same understanding on how things are to be done and how we interpret things, I think has really been quite enjoyable for me. I can’t really think of the down.

Maybe the only down was that a significant part of the five years in which we were working this book was COVID years. And so that meant that we had Zoom meet a lot of meetings.

Brynn: A lot of Zoom meetings. Everyone did.

Dr. Lising: That’s right. But we managed a few, you know, face to face, except for Em, who’s quite distant. I think that that relationship that has been there all along and knowing how each other works has been a real formula for the success in this group work.

Brynn: This is a good example of group work then. And I really do love how you all came together to do this because I just think that there needs to be more of this in academia. And I think that’s what is so wonderful about the Language on the Move research group is that it brings us all together.

We have friendships, we have academic relationships, and you don’t feel alone, especially for those of us who are just starting out in this academic process. We can ask questions; we can talk to those of you who know what you’re doing. And I think that many academics don’t get that relationship.

And that’s why I would encourage as many academics as possible to do this kind of collaboration and collaborative work that you’ve all done.

Dr. Lising: And it’s been such a bonus as well to actually have done this at a time when the notion of data sharing is just new. And so, we were all so enthused and excited to be part of this innovation.

Brynn: So, before we wrap up, can you tell us what you’re working on now? What do you have any projects going on? Research, teaching, what are you up to?

Dr. Lising: So, I’m in a teaching and research academic job family. And that means that I do equal part teaching and research. So, I love teaching.

And I think that in as much as you have audience in terms of your own research, who can read the work that you do, engagement with the students and being able to translate the research that I do to advance students’ understanding of the field really just excites me and makes me come to work every day happily, joyfully. So, in my teaching, I teach across the undergraduate. So, in the Department of Linguistics at Macquarie University, we have undergraduate courses and postgraduate courses.

So, I teach in the undergraduate course and in the postgraduate. So, in the undergraduate, I convene this large, two large units. One is an introduction to social linguistics, which is one of my most loved content that I like talking about.

And talk about that in terms of the history of the discipline, but also talking about the two parallel strands in terms of social linguistics, so social linguistics in society and micro social linguistics, social linguistics in languages. So, one has the focuses on language and how language features change because of social factors, and the other one takes society as a starting point and looks at how societal structures and features impact on languages. And so, I love that and I also can be in a unit called professional and community engagement unit, which our linguistics major take and that allows them to do workplace, work-integrated learning and relate that to their own understanding of linguistics.

And I shouldn’t have to tell you because you, you tutor with me in that unit.

Brynn: And I love it!

Dr. Lising: And in the postgraduate, our master of applied linguistics and TESOL course, I teach pragmatics and intercultural communication. Those are my teaching tasks in terms of my research.

I’m currently working on a number of collaborations and those collaborations sit within my social linguistic research program, which is in multilingualism and social participation. So, this has two focuses for me in the Australian context. And those are, one is on the employment experiences of non-English speaking backer and migrants in Australia, and also a macro social linguistic focus.

And the micro social linguistic one is the influence of migrant languages on Australian English. And then there are, I also do a couple of other international collaboration on multilingualism in the Philippines. So yeah, that’s what I have in store.

Brynn: I don’t know how you have time to sleep, but I love everything that you do. And I also took your pragmatics course, which I also loved. So, I can attest to that one.

Loy, I so appreciate you talking to me today. Thank you so much.

Dr. Lising: Thank you for having me.

Brynn: And thank you for listening, everyone. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe to our channel, leave a five-star review on your podcast app of choice and recommend the Language on the Move Podcast and our partner, the New Books Network, to your students, colleagues and friends. Till next time.

Multilingual responses are common during the special liturgies of Lent

Many people celebrated Easter with chocolate bunny treats and by enjoying the long weekend. But not as many know the religious significance of this celebration, which is regarded in the Catholic faith as even bigger than Christmas!

What makes Easter extra special is the commemoration of Jesus Christ’s resurrection three days after dying in the hands of Roman soldiers and religious leaders over 2,000 years ago. His rising from death gives hope to his followers that they, too, one day will transition to eternal life.

Christians prepared for this great feast for 40 days, the season of Lent. For Catholics, this is an important time of prayer and fasting, somewhat similar to the observance of Ramadan by our Islamic sisters and brothers. An important difference is the reason for the Lenten fast.

Catholics are exhorted to take up some form of sacrifice, like abstaining from meat on Fridays, saving the money they would usually spend on their favorite fast food to give to the poor, or not using Facebook for 40 days and dedicate scrolling time to prayer. These practices of self-restraint, contemplation, and almsgiving are acts of solidarity with the passion and death of Jesus Christ, the central figure of the Christian faith. Jesus Christ’s free choice to embrace an unjust sentence and lay down his own innocent life to free the sinful is the standard of true love that is the centerpiece of the Christian Gospel. This very important season in the Christian tradition culminates in the Sacred Triduum, the three days leading to Easter Sunday, which are called Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Black Saturday.

In places that are deeply Catholic in number and devotion like the Philippines, Vietnam, and Argentina, these three days are very eventful for priests and priests-in-training (seminarians) as they perform various functions to provide more spiritual support to lay Catholics through sacraments and practices of piety. They preside at longer, elaborate liturgical celebrations and hear more confessions from the lay faithful.

Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle leads the commemoration of the Lord’s Passion at Manila Cathedral (Photo by Maria Tan/Rappler)

As an active Catholic myself, I especially appreciate how the Holy Week liturgies are not only more solemn and musical but also more beautifully multilingual. In my Parish, the celebrations are mainly in English but with a modicum of Greek, Hebrew, and Tagalog. For instance, we say “Kyrie Eleison” where outside of Lent, we would typically say “Lord, have mercy.” Our Parish Priest gives very passionate homilies where he sometimes mentions Hebrew words like “Mashiach” in place of the more familiar “Messiah.” During communion (the most solemn part of the Mass), the choir sings beautiful songs of repentance, like “Maging Akin Muli” [Be Mine Again]. In other churches in Manila, we also hear other Philippine languages, like Cebuano, incorporated in the liturgical responses or songs.

There seems to be something about Lent that loosens the multilingual tongue and opens the sacred space to accommodate linguistic diversity more than we usually do at any other time of the year. Of course, this openness to other languages is not new in the Catholic Church. After the Second Vatican Council, it became more common practice to use the mother tongue of the community for Mass, which traditionally was said in monolingual Latin (Bennett, 2018).

But the story is a bit different for priests and seminarians from non-English speaking backgrounds who celebrate Catholic liturgies in places like the US, the UK, and Australia, which are still largely Anglophone despite the growing multiculturality and multilingualism of the population. In these Global North countries, religious workers from the Global South are expected to speak in English, the assumed heart language of the community. One can only imagine how challenging it must be for this group of adult migrants to deliver profound yet relatable homilies in this second or foreign language before native speakers who look to them for spiritual inspiration and guidance.

Father Harold Camonias is a missionary priest from the Philippines working in Australia

This untold story is what I set out to uncover in my qualitative study about the English language learning experiences in Australia of Catholic missionaries from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. How do they learn English in Australia? What are their struggles as adult language learners? What ideologies do they hold about language learning and languages? (Tenedero, 2023)

These questions were answered thanks to seven Catholic missionaries from non-English speaking backgrounds. Originally from Argentina, Ghana, Madagascar, and Vietnam, these were active members of a big international Catholic missionary society, which sponsored their coming to Australia to complete some English language courses as part of their preparation for missionary work.

Overall, the findings of this new study provide evidence that English language learning Catholic missionaries from the Global South are a distinct Community of Practice. More than the average adult language learner, they are highly invested in learning English fueled by their mostly positive beliefs about English and language learning in general, as well as their imagined future selves. The research also gives a glimpse of how the view of English as language of global affordance has the potential to revise or extend novice missionaries’ vision of themselves as users of English. While learning the language for religious work, they also open themselves to alternative pathways to become global language workers.

This new study demonstrates that language in faith contexts serves evangelical and pastoral purposes, as in multilingual Lenten liturgies. At the same time, language could serve other non-religious aspirations of missionaries. This further demonstrates that while people shape language, it, too, has power to (re)shape us, our practices, the way we see ourselves, and our hopes.

References

Bennett, B. P. (2018). Sacred languages of the world: An introduction. Wiley.
Tenedero, P. P. P. (2023). Learning English for faith work: The Australian experience of non-Anglophone Catholic missionaries. Journal of Language, Identity & Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2023.2181813

This part of their professional identity is largely hidden for at least two reasons. First, most of their communication work is done virtually and, in some cases, from home, as in the experience of home-based offshore accountants. These professionals have been managing the communication challenges (including feelings of isolation) linked to working from home long before the COVID-19 pandemic forced other office workers across the globe to work remotely. Second, the prevailing occupational stereotype tags them as good with numbers but bad with words, along with the stigma of being boring, grey, and introverted to a fault, as popularly depicted in media.

The perennial shaming of accountants’ linguistic competence motivated my linguistic ethnographic study of this occupational group. Using critical discourse analysis and the sociolinguistic lens of performance, I examined how students in top accounting schools in Metro Manila are trained to communicate for the globalized workplace and how they communicate on the job as onshore and offshore accountants. This project offers some novel threads in ongoing discussions about the linguistic experience of workers in the rapidly expanding, highly multicultural and multilingual offshoring industry in Global South countries like India and the Philippines.

My research builds on current understandings of these number-centric workers theoretically and methodologically. In terms of theory, I argue that since ‘good communication’ is a social construct that is rhetorically and interactionally reproduced in academia and the profession, labelling accountants as ‘poor communicators’ should not be treated as fact. Rather, as in other stereotypes tied to different social groups, it should be interrogated. While previous studies have predominantly explored how accountants are ‘poor communicators,’ I take a step back and ask: Where and how is this idea of ‘accountants as poor communicators’ deployed, by whom, and for what reasons? In terms of method, my study demonstrates how examining together (rather than separately) the education and work domains can help provide a big-picture understanding of how language practice and ideologies are (re)produced and (re)shaped across the entire field continuity—from formal education to hiring to employment. This approach has revealed that the echoing of the deficit discourse that highlights curricular and competence gaps of accounting schools and accounting practitioners is a very limited and limiting view of Global South accountants and their globalized work.

I briefly present some of my PhD thesis findings in my 3MT. But for a more detailed and exciting discussion about this special group of language workers, you may check out my new monograph, Communication that Counts: Language Practice and Ideology in Globalized Accounting. It is the latest title in the “Language at Work” series of Multilingual Matters lined up for release in December 2022. You may want to take advantage of the generous discount offered until the end of the year by using the code: CCLPIGA75 when you place your order through the publisher’s website.

About the book

To date, communication research in accounting has largely focused on the competencies that define what constitutes ‘effective communication’. Highly perception-based, skills-focused and Global North-centric, existing research tends to echo the skills deficit discourse which overemphasizes the role of the higher education system in developing students’ work-relevant communication skills. This book investigates dominant views about communication and interrogates what shapes these views in the accounting field from a Global South perspective, exploring the idea of ‘good communication’ in the globalized accounting field. Taking the occupational stereotype of shy employees who are good with numbers but bad with words as its starting point, this book examines language and communication practices and ideologies in accounting education and work in the Philippines. As an emerging global leader in offshore accounting, the Philippines is an ideal context for an exploration of multilingual, multimodal and transnational workplace communication.

What others are saying about the book

This book is a welcome addition to the English for Specific Purposes (ESP) materials in the field of accounting. It explores the way students and professionals in accounting communicate and emphasizes the importance of well-defined relationships and effective communication in globalized accounting work. The volume is one of only a handful of resources ever produced focusing on ESP in accounting and in the context of the Philippines. (Marilu Rañosa-Madrunio, University of Santo Tomas, Manila, The Philippines)

Tenedero comprehensively and carefully traces how ideologies about languages and effective communication are mobilized in the field of globalized accounting – from the Philippine classrooms where communication skills are part of the accounting curriculum to the workplaces where offshore and onshore accounting services are offered. A must read for understanding what counts as communication and how communication counts in work where language is seemingly marginal. (Beatriz P. Lorente, University of Bern, Switzerland)

Reference

Tenedero, Pia Patricia P. (2022). Communication that Counts: Language Practice and Ideology in Globalized Accounting. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

An area under “total lockdown” (Image credit: rappler.com)

Lockdowns everywhere

The lockdown discourse has become ubiquitous, especially in current affairs and social media. In fact, ‘lockdown’ and ‘quarantine’ have been designated word of the year 2020 by Collins and Cambridge dictionaries, respectively.

Talk about restrictions on travel, curfew, and onsite capacity limits are particularly salient in countries that, unfortunately, continue to battle waves of the modern-day virus that does not even need to be named. The word ‘pandemic’ used in the present context has become synonymous to the still-evolving COVID-19 virus that started plaguing the world in early 2020.

Less straightforward, however, is the nuanced vocabulary that has been created around the notion of lockdown.

What does “lockdown” mean?

Different nation-state governments have developed their own nomenclatures for public health safety protocols.

In the Philippines, the Department of Health introduced the phrase ‘community quarantine’ (CQ) to refer to area-specific mobility restrictions intended to reduce virus transmission.

Depending on the severity of cases in different parts of the archipelagic state, the government may differentially impose four levels of CQ—enhanced CQ, modified enhanced CQ, general CQ, or modified general CQ. The lowest level is termed ‘new normal’ which is defined as the situation where, with significant reduction in the threat of virus transmission, only minimum public health standards will remain enforced. This, however, still involves practicing new routines and habits, such as mask wearing and avoiding large gatherings.

Using these terminologies and understanding what they mean were part of my adjustment since managing to fly back to Manila just when restrictions were beginning to tighten in Sydney.

You need a solid level of English and literacy to understand these lockdown rules and alert levels

The effectiveness of these protocols and their implementation, however, has been questioned in light of the still increasing number of reported new cases of COVID-19 infection (Pajaron & Vasquez, 2021).

The latest response by the Department of Health is to introduce new quarantine vocabulary: ‘granular lockdown’ which refers to micro-level quarantine for critical areas that have a surge in COVID-19 cases.  Beginning September 16, 2021, 57 areas in the National Capital Region were put under granular lockdown. This means individuals staying in houses, residential buildings, streets, blocks, villages, or barangays that have been identified as ‘critical areas’ are forced to strictly stay indoors for 14 consecutive days. As affected households absolutely cannot leave their residence, the local government units and social welfare department are in charge of sending them food, and military officials are stationed in the areas to ensure compliance.

Along with this new quarantine protocol is a new five-level alert system, which provisionally takes the place of the CQs. A description of the activities that are (dis)allowed in each level is provided by explainers circulated in social media. Information campaign tools, like the ones in the image, however, do not necessarily guarantee public comprehension or compliance.

Are Filipinos deliberately breaking the rules?

Indubitably, the construction of such public health protocols and nomenclature is necessary. But it is difficult to perceive their effectiveness in light of the continued spread of the virus.

This persistent problem has been blamed partly on people who allegedly, deliberately ignore the rules. Colloquially labelled pasaway [naughty], this group of delinquents includes those living below the poverty line, who need to fend for themselves on a daily basis in order to survive. Between August 21 and September 15, 2021 alone, the Philippine National Police reported 224,626 violators in Metro Manila and 1,153,833 in the nearby provinces of Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, and Rizal.

These monitored lockdown violations rival the reported statistics of new COVID-19 cases and is publicly chastised with threats of brute force. Such negative, even violent discourse is seen as further enlarging the power wielded by the government over the public that is imagined as uncooperative, irresponsible, and needing more discipline (Hapal, 2021).

An area under granular lockdown (Image credit: Philippine News Agency)

Whether it is true that more than a million Filipinos are deliberate delinquents is highly debatable. But an even more serious question is—What happens to violators? Reports say curfew violators have been arrested, locked up in dog cages, left to suffer the intense heat of the midday sun, and threatened or actually shot dead. The severity of punishment for non-compliance raises questions of human rights—Does violating public health rules justify violation of people’s basic human rights?

At the same time, it raises an important concern on the comprehensibility of regulations because comprehension precedes compliance. In other words, is it right to punish people for not following policies, which they cannot understand in the first place?

The gap between policy and compliance

Without intending to diminish the value of civil obedience, I argue that the problem of ambiguity in pandemic regulations represents a critical gap between policy and compliance.

As Professor Lawrence Solan of Brooklyn Law School explained in the 1^st International Conference on Forensic Linguistics (organized by the University of Santo Tomas – English Department on 18 September 2021), the seemingly simple pattern of reading the law and then obeying it is actually not that simple because it is not always easy to understand what policy requires. This issue presents an argument for the localized translation of public health information.

While multilingual health information materials have been deployed in the Philippines at the beginning of the pandemic, there is less known about the multilingual translation of lockdown policies, which are largely in English, as shown in the sample explainers.

Harsh punishments for non-compliance with lockdown rules (Image credit: Human Rights Watch)

Globally, the effect of linguistic ambiguity in pandemic regulations include what Professor Richard Powell of Nihon University reported as ‘pandemic confusion’ and ‘alert fatigue.’ As also experienced in France, Australia, the US, among others, shifting and ambiguous lockdown rules are successfully engendering confusion, making compliance extra challenging globally.

But with more deliberate and glaring social injustices tied to the discourse of compliance, the current situation of the Philippines demonstrates how policy ambiguity can be (ab)used as a power tool and can reinforce inequalities (Kurnosov & Varfolomeeva, 2020), especially those related to differences in the ability to comprehend constantly changing lockdown names and guidelines.

References

Hapal, K. (2021). The Philippines’ COVID-19 response: Securitising the pandemic and disciplining the pasaway. Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, 40(2), 224-244. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/1868103421994261
Kurnosov, D., & Varfolomeeva, A. (2020). Constructing the not-so-new normal: Ambiguity and familiarity in governmental regulations of intimacies during the pandemic. Anthropology in Action, 27(2), 28. doi:https://doi.org/10.3167/aia.2020.270204
Pajaron, M. C., & Vasquez, G. N. A. (2021). Re: How effective is community quarantine in the Philippines? A quasi-experimental analysis. Message posted to http://hdl.handle.net/10419/230315

(Image credit: Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino)

August is celebrated in the Philippines as Buwan ng Wika (language month).

This celebration began in 1946, shortly after the then Philippine President Manuel Quezon declared Tagalog as the basis for the creation of a national language (later termed Filipino). Initially, the annual events celebrated the unification of the archipelago of 183 languages through the national language. More recently, the focus has been on recognizing and celebrating the many languages of the Philippines.

This year’s theme declares Filipino at mga Wikang Katutubo sa Dekolonisasyon ng Pag-iisip ng mga Pilipino (Filipino and other Indigenous languages for the decolonization of the Filipino people’s way of thinking). This theme is an extension of UNESCO’s declaration of 2019 as the Year of Indigenous Languages and points to the upcoming decade of action for the world’s Indigenous Peoples and Languages.

The Special Broadcasting Services (SBS) in Australia, particularly it’s SBS Filipino segment, also celebrates Buwan ng Wika. It’s a way to pay homage to Filipino migrants in Australia.

For this year’s Buwan ng Wika, I have been interviewed by Nikki Alfonso-Gregorio about naming practices in the Philippines. You can listen to the interview here.

Before colonization, only given names were common and surnames were not formalized. These given names were based on nature, and cultural and spiritual beliefs. This is still true of given names today, although other themes have been added, including those that reflect love of God, love of family, love of literature and the entertainment industry, and love for creativity.

Family names arrived in the Philippines with the Claveria decree of 1849, which required Filipinos to adopt family names. To learn more, head over to the SBS website.

In the case of the Philippines, the government announced “enhanced community quarantine” in March 2020. As the strictest lockdown category, enhanced community quarantine prohibited intercity travel, the use of public transport, and non-essential activities for several months. In addition to curfews, local law enforcement and the military were deployed to establish checkpoints and enforce quarantine through disciplinary measures.

The lack of public transport in particular has greatly affected the ability of workers, including medical frontliners and other essential service providers to get to work.

It has widely been observed that the pandemic has exposed preexisting structural inequalities, including in many posts about the language challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic here on Language on the Move. In the Philippines, the pandemic highlighted not only linguistic inequalities but also the lack of an appropriate public transport infrastructure and equal access to safe technologies of mobility.

Since 2014, my advocacy outside of academia has been pursuing initiatives related to inclusive mobility. As a bike commuter, I found myself taking part in communities of practice related to cycling. When the pandemic hit, cycling was my main means to undertake essential activities. The lockdown thus opened opportunities for me to document different locales and objects related to the cycling boom in the country.

In this piece, I look at several insights from my work gathered as a cycling advocate. Specifically, I argue that while the pandemic has accelerated the need for initiatives in inclusive mobility, cycling as an alternative in the Philippines opens opportunities for examining contested spaces and collective action which are mediated through language. I further argue in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the need for inclusive mobility is not only a struggle in the physical sense but also a communicative struggle, particularly in the hotly contested online space.

Language, Social Media, and Collective Action

The streets of Metro Manila have long been congested due to the large volume of vehicles that traverse its thoroughfares. Upon the declaration of enhanced community quarantine in early 2020, the use of bicycles became one viable option to remain mobile due to its affordability and ease of use.

However, the lack of infrastructure has led to accidents and even 19 cycling-related fatalities in the past year. As a response, social media have been used by advocacy groups and individuals to debate concerns over inclusive mobility.

An example provided comes from Twitter where the hashtag #bikelanesNOW trended at various times.

Nakaligtaan po yata ninyong bigyan ng puwang ang mga tinuturing nating #heroes na #frontliners: #healthworkers at essential workers, na mga #bikecommuters na din po ngayon. @MMDA #cycling #bikecommuting #bikelanes #bikelanesnow #protectedbikelanesnow #bikerslivesmatter #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/0v3BrmYBkA

— Mister E (@_mis_ter_e_) June 5, 2020

Translation: You seem to have forgotten to provide space for those whom he considers #heroes, our #frontliners: #healthworkers and essential workers, who are #bikecommuters now.

While the struggle for inclusive mobility stems from the need for safe spaces for cyclists, it is not without problems. For instance, incidents of gender related harassment have been reported among female cyclists during the quarantine period. In the tweet below shared by one political group, the Gabriela Women’s party invited bikers for a solidarity bicycle ride against misogyny and sexism. In the infographic embedded in the tweet, which uses a combination of Filipino and English, wordplay is deployed by combining kababaihan (womanhood) and the word bike to form the term “kabibike-ihan” referring to female cyclists.

On March 28 (Sunday), we will conquer the road and call for #SafeSpacesForAll & #ShareTheRoadWithHer by drawing the women sign on the map!

Join us as we raise our voices against misogyny and sexism! pic.twitter.com/wuTw2Wqk6r

— Gabriela Women's Party (@GabrielaWomenPL) March 20, 2021

Late in 2020, the government declared bike shops essential services. Since then, advocacy groups and bike shops have collaborated to create a primer for bike commuters. In this primer, which is written in Tagalog, information on safety measures before, during, and after bike rides are provided. Similar to grassroots movements in other countries that have promoted measures in addressing health concerns related to COVID-19, a combination of different languages and multimodal resources enhance the communication of meaning for the public. However, as of writing, the guide is limited to Tagalog and English language versions, while Cebuano and Hiligaynon are still in production. The limited number of languages where the guide appears reflects the current material challenge brought about by multilingualism.

Moving forward

Studying language in the era of globalization is primarily a study of inequality (Blommaert, 2010). As seen during the COVID-19 pandemic, the struggle for inclusive mobility is a material consequence that the public has engaged in a physical and virtual sense. That is, cyclists and advocacy groups do not only compete for asserting safe spaces for their daily travel needs but have engaged other stakeholders to consider the notion of sustainable cities as a major concern.

As the Philippines continues to struggle with the COVID-19 pandemic, cycling as a viable and safe alternative has come to the forefront of continuous conversations among different sectors of society where the public can genuinely participate and act in the hope of achieving authentic transformation.

Image 1: Infographic in Tagalog on ways to prevent the spread of COVID-19 infection

Editor’s note: Timely and equitable access to information for linguistically diverse populations continues to be a major linguistic challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this latest contribution to our series of language aspects of the COVID-19 crisis, Loy Lising introduces three grassroots initiatives to improve multilingual service provision in the Philippines. The call for contributions to the series continues to be open.

***

The Philippines is a highly linguistically diverse country with Ethnologue listing 182 languages in use there. However, with Filipino as the constitutionally enshrined national language and English as the official second language, most of these languages are often relegated to the periphery when it comes to national activities. Their subordinate status has become salient with the COVID-19 pandemic, as it has become apparent that state public health information in Filipino and English fails to reach all the ethnolinguistic groups in the archipelago. Various NGOs and grassroots groups have stepped into the breach.

Since the initial case of COVID-19 in the Philippines in early February 2020, various grassroots-driven efforts have developed, and I, together with colleagues from the University of the Philippines, Kristina Gallego and Jesus Hernandez, are currently working to catalogue these and assess their effectiveness. As part of our ongoing investigation, we are surveying the availability of and access to COVID-19 information and prevention materials disseminated on social media since the lockdown of the capital region Metro Manila on 15 March 2020. In addition, we are interested in finding in what Philippine languages these materials are available. Our preliminary investigation has shown that insofar as COVID-19 infection prevention efforts in other Philippine languages are concerned, much of the work done are grassroots-generated rather than state-initiated, as in the following three examples.

Project #CAMPana

Through the Project #CAMPana of the College of Allied Medical Professions in the University of the Philippines, infographics on the prevention of the spread of COVID-19 were disseminated in various social media platforms immediately after the first occurrence of the virus in the country. One of these (Image 1) is an infographic for adults in Tagalog.

The infographic contains relevant information on the prevention of COVID-19 infection utilising a number of (non)linguistic modalities to make the information not only accessible but also interesting. These strategies include the use of images, colours, and mnemonics (in this image, LINIS). The Tagalog word linis means ‘clean’ or ‘being clean’ in English. In the image above, it is utilised as an easy-to-remember set of instructions to avoid contracting COVID-19: L is for linis (clean), I is for ilong (nose), N is for no, I is for iwasan (avoid), and S is for sabunin (to soap). The L instruction reminds readers to always clean frequently used objects; letter I instructs how to cover one’s nose and mouth when sneezing or coughing; letter N suggests refraining from touching one’s eyes, nose and mouth; letter I admonishes people to avoid crowded places; and S reminds readers to wash their hands or use sanitizers.

The other is an infographic for children available in eight Philippine languages: Tagalog, English, Cebuano, Ilonggo, Bikol, Iluko, Kapampangan, and Waray. Image 2 is an example in Cebuano.

Image 2: Infographic in Cebuano for children on ways to prevent the spread of COVID-19 infection

The infographic presents similar information but utilises, quite ingeniously, a strategy that makes the information not only accessible and interesting but also relevant to and attractive for children. The image juxtaposes the evil COVID-19 virus ‘crown’ image with a child superhero known as ‘Super Bata’, similar to Susana Distancia in Mexico. This clever strategy appeals to the children’s imagination and enjoins them to see themselves as superheros if they follow the eight strategies outlined in the pamphlet.

Language Warriors PH

The second grassroots effort is an initiative of the Department of Linguistics of the University of the Philippines in Diliman. They have created a working group called Language Warriors PH that aims to connect community translators and ‘language warriors’ across the Philippines to ensure COVID-19 related information is disseminated in as many indigenous languages as possible. This is a crucial step to ensure that especially those who are in the periphery, socially and geographically, have access to crucial information. This volunteer group, as of their May 08 report, has collected 927 COVID-19 related materials across 70 Philippine languages, dialects, and sociolects. The translated information spans topics on physical and mental health, socio-economic support, news and current affairs, and other miscellaneous information. The volunteer translators who have done the work of translating COVID-19 related information for various ethnolinguistic groups, which LWPH collect and help disseminate, include teachers, language enthusiasts, national government staff, local government unit staff, and private organization members.

Reading, Early Grades, Art and Language Education (REGALE)

A third truly outstanding effort worth featuring is the community-generated dictionaries for children produced by the Reading, Early Grades, Art and Language Education (REGALE) cluster from the College of Education of the University of the Philippines. In their efforts to ensure that children are kept up-to-date with information related to COVID-19 and its prevention, they have produced thus far four dictionaries for children: one in English, one in Tagalog, one in Cebuano, and the most recent one in Surigaonon. These dictionaries are also accessible in Filipino Sign Language, the link of which is embedded in the dictionary. In addition, and more recently, REGALE also produced video clips to further engage children in COVID-19 discussions. The first of these is now available.

Is public health information reaching the Philippine’s ethnolinguistic minorities?

Public dissemination of information in a multilingual ecology that is inclusive of all ethnolinguistic groups is always challenging, particularly one that involves so many languages. In the Philippines, the predominant use of Filipino and English across a number of national domains has always been motivated by the privileged position these languages hold in the country’s national language policy. The necessity, however, of ensuring the dissemination of potentially life-saving information at a time of a pandemic to as many ethnolinguistic groups as possible cannot be overemphasised. Thus far, in the country, we have seen various grassroots efforts, as exemplified above, rise to the challenge in bridging the information gap. My colleagues and I hope that once our research is concluded, we will be able to emphasize the role of grassroots efforts in the production of public health information across the archipelago to be able to influence state policies to improve information dissemination in all the languages Filipinos use and understand.

Language challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic

Visit here for our full coverage of language aspects of the COVID-19 crisis.

***

“The trend of the future is working from home. The big question is: Are Filipinos ready for this kind of work?” This question was asked by an employer of Filipino virtual accountants providing offshore services to clients overseas during my fieldwork in June 2018. Two years later, office workers all over the world find themselves forced to do just that—work from home—as a social distancing measure in light of the COVID-19 pandemic situation. In Australia alone, 1.6 million reported this significant change in their working conditions.

Unsurprisingly, there are many different reactions to this global shift to remote-work setup—some readily embracing it as the new normal, others taking a more critical stance. In the interim, as working from home continues to be the norm for some occupation groups, the experience of offshore accountants, who are employed to work remotely, pandemic or no pandemic, provides a picture of how this work arrangement works on a permanent basis.

A sociolinguistic analysis of the globalized accountant experience of working from home was the subject of a webinar co-organized on 3 July 2020 by the Linguistic Society of the Philippines (LSP) and the Lasallian Institute for Development and Educational Research.

In this online lecture, I explore how working remotely has shaped communication practices and ideologies in globalized accounting practice in the Philippines. Examining communication in this context is important as the demand for off-shored (including home-based) accounting services is increasing. This trend comes with the positioning of the Philippines as an emerging global provider of knowledge process outsourced services to businesses headquartered overseas. Ethnographic data collected from this work context for my PhD thesis (in progress) is analyzed using the lenses of performance and audit. Findings show that the way accountants communicate has evolved to fit the shape of virtual work environments. Digital solutions are making communication skills more salient and creating new norms and protocols of transparency that contribute to tensions between autonomy and accountability. The lessons highlighted from accountants’ experiences potentially reflect communication challenges and opportunities in other work domains especially during this period of COVID-19 pandemic, when mandatory physical distancing is redefining workplace interactions.

You can watch this virtual presentation uploaded in the LSP YouTube channel.

Language challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic

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The national language is the mother tongue of the vast majority of citizens in most European states (Source: Josu Amezaga, MQ Lecture, 22-11-2017)

Last week, Professor Josu Amezaga from the University of the Basque Country, Spain, visited Macquarie University to speak about minority languages: what they are and why they should be given space in the ongoing conversation about linguistic diversity.

Participating in this seminar was a timely opportunity as I embark on my PhD journey. I realized that it is one thing to read books and theses arguing about different forms of linguistic inequalities and yet another to engage in an academic debate. Coming from the Philippines, which is home to 187 languages, according to Ethnologue, I went into this seminar hoping to better understand the value – or lack of value – of these belittled languages.

Focusing on European languages, Professor Amezaga traced the historical roots of the monolingual paradigm to the French Revolution. The one-language-one-nation ideology that became prominent during that period saw some 28 French languages relegated to the position of patois or minority languages. The French revolutionaries were keen to ensure that all citizens shared a common language. Instead of considering bilingualism or a lingua franca—as is the case in the Philippines—they went about eliminating all competitors of French. This hostile policy towards minority languages was set out in Abbé Grégoire’s 1794 treatise entitled “Rapport sur la nécessité et les moyens d’anéantir les patois et d’universaliser la langue française” (“Report on the necessity and means of annihilating the dialects and of making the French Language universal”).

This shows that minority languages are not necessarily the languages of a numerical minority. Rather they are languages that are subject to active processes of minoritization. While the term “minority language” suggests having small numbers of speakers, the term “minoritized language” is more accurate as it draws our attention to processes of language subordination and to the unequal power relationships that often pertain between “minority” and “majority”.

By contrast, citizens of the Philippines have many different mother tongues (Source: http://www.csun.edu/~lan56728/majorlanguages.htm)

In Europe, processes of linguistic suppression were so successful that by the second half of the 20^th century most European nations were highly monolingual, with the vast majority of citizens speaking the national language as their sole mother tongue. However, globalization and migration of recent decades have thrown this high level of state-engineered monolingualism into disarray.

Many European states have reacted to this “linguistic threat” with new efforts at renationalization, as can be seen in the introduction of language testing for citizenship. Between 1998 and 2015, the number of European states requiring a language test from prospective citizens rose from 6 to 25.

Interestingly, this push to test the language proficiency of immigrants further helps to cement the minoritized position of indigenous minority languages: language testing in France, for instance, is done in French rather than in Basque, despite the fact that the latter is today recognized as an official regional minority language of France.

At the same time, globalization and migration have also pushed language ideologies in the opposite direction, contesting the monolingual one-nation-one-language ideology and giving new legitimacy to minoritized languages. Professor Amezaga showed striking evidence of this trend with TV signals: while around 1,000 TV signals from English-speaking countries reach non-English-speaking territories, 900 signals in languages other than English reach the US. The former is evidence that the media are agents of linguistic homogenization and the latter is evidence that the media are agents of linguistic diversification.

Professor Amezaga’s guest lecture focused on minoritized languages in Europe and the global North more generally. Reflecting on how these insights relate to my home country, the Philippines, it may seem that in this highly multilingual country processes of linguistic homogenization have not been an issue. However, that would be misleading. Our own version of the one-language-one-nation ideology could be called “two-languages-one-nation ideology”: English and Filipino are positioned side-by-side as an essential aspect of the bilingual identity of Filipinos. As a result, the Philippines’ other languages are similarly subject to minoritization.

Furthermore, the challenge posed by globalization and migration to the linguistic status quo of the Philippines does not come from immigration but emigration. Going overseas, primarily for work, has become a viable and even desirable option for many Filipinos, who perceive international labor opportunities as an economic panacea. Consequently, over 10 million Filipinos are estimated to be working or living overseas today. This number is nearly 300% more than the first wave of Filipino migrants in the 1970s, when the overseas employment program was launched. With Filipino migrants now gaining more ground as “workers of the world,” it is worth examining the language component of occupations where they are employed to see how their linguistic repertoire – borne out of a two-languages-one-nation ideology and differential valuing of minority languages – intersects with the language ideologies of destination societies.

Reference

The slides from Professor Amezaga’s lecture are available for download here.