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DEC 2009, VOL 40.Pdf - PHILIPPINE JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS Aims and Scope BnsinessManager Virginia A Cello Linguistic Society of the Philippines Board of Editorial Consultants Maria Lourdes S. Bautista De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines Kingsley Bolton City University of Hong Kong Maya Khemlani David University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur Malaysia Hsiu-chuanLiao National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu Taiwan Andrew Moody University of Macau, Macao SAR, China RicardoMa.D.Nolasco University of the Philippines, Diliman Quezon City J. Stephen Quakenbush SILInternational Copy Editor Eden Regala-Flores De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines Philippine Journal of Linguistics Volume 40 December 2009 CONTENTS Editor's Note ARTICLES A Phonemic Description of the Tobilung Language Gillian P. Buck Power and Politeness: Social Interaction in Philippine Higher Education Classrooms Mabelle P. Victoria 17 Ideological Perspectives on the Dynamics of Code-Switching in the Business Domain Paolo Nino M. Valdez 33 Observations on Regional Variants and Handshape Patterns of Six Signs in Filipino Sign Language Liza B. Martinez, Yvette A. Bernardo, Mary Jane S. Puson and Rowella B. Tanjusay 47 Sociolinguistic Centrifuge: Comparing Language Attitudes from Urban Center to Urban Periphery Michael Ian Benedict P. Estipona 63 LSP ANNUAL REPORT FOR 2009 85 Philippine Journal of Linguistics Volume 40 December 2009 EDITOR'S NOTE This volume presents five articles that explore issues in both theoretical and applied linguistics. The first, authored by Gillian Buck, is a phonemic description of Tobilung, a language spoken in the northwest coast of Sabah, Malaysia. Dealing with both segmental and suprasegmentals, Buck's article begins with a description of both vowels and consonants, and then moves on to a description of Tobilung's syllable structure. The article also touches on interpretation of vowels, consonants, and syllable, and the issues of vowel harmony and neutralization. Buck's paper is highly commendable because of its focus on a language belonging to the Austronesian family, which is in line with the goal of thePJL. Anchored on Brown and Levinson's politeness theory, Mabelle Victoria's paper uses data drawn from classroom observations in three universities in the Philippines to illustrate how professors mitigate the power they wield on students. The usefulness of this study lies in its application of the theory in the analysis of institutional discourse such as that in the classroom. This is highlighted by the dearth of studies, at least in the Philippines, that examine the unequal power relations between teacher and students. It goes without saying then that more studies should be pursued along the same line. The third paper, written by Paolo Valdez, views Tagalog-English code-switching from an ideological perspective, using data from interactions in the business domain. Valdez's piece is innovative as most previous studies on Taglish have dealt with its structure and functions. Liza Martinez, et al.'s paper, which examines the variants of six lexical items - ASO (dog), BlTUIN (star), BATO (stone), BABOY (pig), DAMO (grass) and MATALlM (sharp) - in the Filipino Sign Language, is truly remarkable, at least from the perspective of the PJL. As a linguistics journal, the PJL has, through the four decades it has been in operation, focused on the spoken language. But certainly, the PJL looks at language in a broader sense, which therefore covers sign language. For the reader who is not familiar with the Filipino Sign Language, Martinez, et al.'s article is indeed instructive. As we know very little about the FSL, more research should be conducted along this line. The last paper is the one by Michael Estipona, which dwells on attitudes towards English and Filipino of students from two locales: urban center (Manila) and urban periphery (Romblon). While numerous studies on language attitudes have been conducted in the past, Estipona's study is still relevant today because of its implications for language planning and policy. I hope readers wiIllearn much from the papers included in this volume. DANILO T. DAYAG, Ph.D. Editor, Philippine Journal of Linguistics President, Linguistic Society of the Philippines (2008-2010) Philippine Journal of linguistics 40 (2009) 1-15 A Phonemic Description of the Tobilung Language Gillian P. Buck Malaysia Branch of SIL International Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia E-mail: gill buckrsrsil.org This paper describes the phonemics of Tobilung, one of the Dusun subgroup of Bomean languages. Tobilung shares many of the characteristics of Austronesian languages, having a relatively small inventory of consonants and vowels, a predominance of disyllabic words and also of consonant-vowel sequences. Features of interest include the relatively uncommon bilabial and alveolarimplosives and the juxtaposition of voiced and voiceless bilabial and alveolarplosives in adjacent syllables. Vowel-final words arerare and are only found in minor lexical categories. There is some preliminary consideration of morphophonemics in this paper. In common with other Dusunic languages, Tobilung exhibits vowel harmony, in which morphophonemic processes trigger the change of the 'neutral' '0' vowel to the low 'a', but this process is blocked by geminate vowel clusters within roots. Conversely, there is also 'neutralisation' where at times the morphophonemic processes trigger the change of 'a' vowels to neutral '0.' Key words: implosives, vowel harmony, neutralization, geminate vowels 1. Introduction 2. Phonemes in Tobilung3 The Tobilung people number between Tobilung has 16 consonant phonemes 5,000 and 10,000.1 Traditionally, they lived and 5 vowel phonemes as shown below: along the northwest coast of Sabah, Malaysia, in the Kota Belud and Kota Table 1. Consonant Phonemes Marudu districts. However, today many live Labial Coronal Velar Glottal in Kota Kinabalu, in Tamparuli, Kudat and VI plosive t k ? parts of West Malaysia where they have moved in search of work. Tobilung is a Vdplosive d Dusunic language. The data represented here Nasal reflects Tobilung as it is spoken in the Fricative village of Toburon and neighbouring villages Affricate d3 in the Kota Belud district. It was collected Trill between November 2000 and February 2001.2 Lateral Semivowel I Estimates of population are from the Kota Belud and KotaMarudu local councils and from the Persatuan 3 An earlier phonemic analysis of Tobilung was done Tobilung Bersatu Sabah, also known as TOBISA. by John and Gail Hutchinson. They have graciously 2 There may be a dialect distinction between the Kota given me access to their analysis and all the Belud and KotaMarudu branches of the group, but associated Tobilungmaterials. I am indebted to them this needs furtberresearch. for providing me with a foundation for this analysis. G.P.Buck Table 2. Vowel Phonemes [d] Voiced alveolar plosive; occurs Front Central Back word-medially as the second member High of a consonant cluster following a homorganic nasal: Mid Itandusl ['!an.'dus] 'spear' Low [d] Voiced alveolarimplosive; occurs elsewhere: 2.1 Description of phonemes /darun/ [darun] 'rain' 2.1.1 Consonants ItodUIJI 1:!:).'auI)-] 'nose' Ipl [p"[Voiceless unreleased bilabial plosive; fkJ [J.{]Voiceless unreleased postvelar occurs word-finally: plosive; occurs word-finally after a Itaapl ['!a.ap'] 'roof' non-front vowel: [p] Voiceless bilabial plosive; occurs Imanuk/ [manuk"] 'chicken' elsewhere: [k'[Voiceless unreleased velarplosive; Ipalad/ [pa.'lad'] 'palm of hand' Inipon! [ni.lpon] 'tooth' occurs word-finally after a front vowel: Isimpon! ['sIm.'p~n] 'short trousers' Itobik/ 1:!~.'6Ik'] 'side' fbI [b'[Voiced unreleased bilabial plosive; [k] Voiceless velar plosive; occurs where occurs word-finally and at a syllable preceded and followed by a front boundary before a voiceless bilabial vowel (or ifin word-initial position, plosive: where followed by a front vowel: Ikajabl [~a.'jab'] 'shoulder' Ikiropl [ki.lrop"] Itobpinee?1 ['!~b'.pi.'nE.E?] 'sibling' Itikiwl [fi.'\9w] [b] Voiced bilabial plosive; occurs as the [\5J Voiceless postvelar plosive; occurs second member of a consonant elsewhere: cluster following a homorganic nasal: Ikajabl [ka.jab'] 'shoulder' /tamban/ ['!arn.'baI)-] 'deer' Ilukapl [lukap"] 'sole of foot' [6] Voiced bilabial implosive; occurs /kankab/ ['kaI)-.'kab'] 'chest' elsewhere: Igl [g-'] Voiced unreleased postvelar /badi?1 [6a.'di?] 'market' /kaban/ [ka.Ban-] 'mouth' plosive"; occurs word-finally and at the syllable boundary before a It! [f] Voiceless unreleased dental plosive; voiceless velar plosive after a non­ front vowel: occurs word-finally: Isolugl ['s~.'lug-'] 'trail' Igonitl [g-~.'mf] 'lightning' Ilagkawl ['Iag-'.'kaw] 'rice store' [J:] Voiceless dental plosive; occurs [q'[Voiced unreleased velar plosive; elsewhere: Itogisl I:!:).'g-IS] 'sand' occurs word-finally and at the Iwatu?1 [wa.'!u?] 'stone' syllable boundary before a voiceless Itantobl ['!an.'!~b'] 'fence' velar plosive after a front vowel: Iweegl [we.eq"] 'water' 1:!~.'lIg'] Idl [d']Voiced unreleased alveolar plosive; Itoligl 'wall' occurs word-finally and at a syllable /?oligkaI]1 ['hlIg'.'kaI)-] 'interesting' boundary before a voiceless dental plosive: Itotud/ lb.'!Ud'] 'knee' 4 The diacritic is shown after the phonetic symbol for Ipotudturl [p:).!Ud'.'!ur] 'to push' clarity. A Phonemic Description ofthe Tobilung Language [g] Voiced velar plosive; occurs where Irl [r] Voiced alveolar trill; occurs word­ preceded and followed by a front initially and word-finally: vowel: Iratu'i'l
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