Original Research Article Language Grafting: Code Mixing Patterns in Ilocano Conversational Language as an Input to the Philippine Mother-Tongue-Based Multilingual Education Ronald O. Ocampo Sonia A. Belarde Apayao State College, San Isidro Sur, Luna, Apayao 3813 Philippines Abstract The Ilocanos are Austronesian language spoken people in the Northern region of the Philippines. With their constant interaction with other cultural and ethnic groups in the Philippines and the influence of media such as television, internet and the like, they speak a variety of language. Oftentimes, they tend to hybridized words by combining it with Filipino or any other local languages. This study aimed to assess the code-mixing patterns used in Ilocano conversations of students of Tumog Elementary School and Tumog National Agricultural School, Philippines. Specifically, it was intended to: identify code- mixed Ilocano language used in conversations through documentation and to determine the patterns in the code mixed words used in Ilocano conversations, The descriptive analysis was employed with notetaking as data gathering tool. Conversations among pupils and students were carefully recorded using cellphone recorder. Based on the finding data and information gathered by the researchers, the following conclusions were drawn. (1) Students of Tumog Elementary School and Tumog National Agricultural School speak a Mongrel variety of Ilocano language with borrowings from the English Language.(2) Students find easier to pick the English counterpart of an Ilocano word to fill lexical gaps in one of his/her languages. (3) There are several prefixes used before certain verbs in English to indicate present, past and future actions such as maka, iy, i, ag, ma [present]; naka, nag, and na[past]; and mak, iy and i, ag and ma [future]. (4) Prefixes for present and future tenses are the same. There are only signal words used to indicate only signal words used to indicate futurity such as nakto..inton bigat (will – tomorrow). Keywords: Ilocano Language, Code Mixing, Mother Tongue- based Multilingual Education, code mixing patterns 1. INTRODUCTION The ability to communicate thoughts, emotions, and opinions to others is truly a remarkable ability. The use of language can influence self-concept and identity [1], [2], [3]. Cultural influences are also reflected in the language [4], [5] and similarly influence how people conceptualize who they are and where they come from [6]. [7] . Language has a social feature [8], [9], [10]., which means that it is used by the members of a society. The social aspect of language is studied by sociolinguistics, a subdivision of linguistics which studies social factors. Bilingual communities use certain phenomena to make communication more effective and meaningful. One of these phenomena is "code switching" which can be observed mostly in a second or foreign language classrooms [11]. [12]. [13].. It refers to the use of two languages within a sentence or discourse. It is a natural process that often occurs between multilingual speakers who share two or more languages in common. Researches have proven that code switching and code mixing are both effective in multilingual classroom setting [14]. [15]. [16]. Moodley found out that that learners resort to English-NL CS when interacting among themselves, both in and outside the classroom. Using a qualitative study, he explored the language(s) of learners during group-work in the language, literacy, and communication: English (LLCE) classroom, and showed how students use of code switching contribute to the achievement of the specific outcomes of this learning area within the outcomes-based education curriculum. The meeting of many cultures oftentimes results to mixed used of languages. When one is in Tuguegarao or in Enrile , Cagayan, one will usually hear words such as “ ma bring ka ng umbrella mo ta ma rain”( Bring your umbrella, it might rain.), “Ronald ma explain ka na blackboard e ma late na tayo”( Ronald, please explain, we are already late).. This mixing of languages made the towns of Tuguegarao and Enrille as intellectually elite and people often claim that the the two towns are the homes of professionals. The influences of media and technology through television, cellphone, internet, and the like have changed the language background of the Ilocanos. Oftentimes, Ilocano words when used in casual conversations are mixed with either English or Tagalog as these are popular languages used in the media. The implementation of Mother Tongue-Based –Multilingual Education as part of the key feature of the K-12 curriculum of the DepEd in the Philippines has made confusion especially among the minority tribes. In the implementation of the MTB-MLE, regional languages are only used as medium of instruction. Students of other ethnic tribes are left out especially those who are living in the remote areas who speak their native tongue only. The implementation of the MTB-MLE curriculum created various issues and problems that DepEd should resolve. Result of the study of Eslit [17]. revealed that teachers, parents, and pupils were supportive of the program yet skeptical due to the growing challenges brought about by the lack of MT learning materials and books which they have considered as MTB- MLE’s biggest challenge. In response, the researcher postulated his “ethno-lingo propagar theory” to address the challenges at hand. Moreover, Lartec, et al [18] pointed out that the teachers used strategies such as translation of target language to mother tongue, utilization of multilingual teaching, utilization of lingua-franca, improvization of instructional materials written in mother tongue, remediation of instruction, and utilization of literary piece written in mother tongue as motivation. Some problems encountered by the teachers in implementing mother tongue-based instruction include absence of books written in mother tongue, lack of vocabulary, and lack of teachers training. Nevertheless, the study indicated that major attention and effort are still necessary to be given to the approach. With the current situation in the implementation of the MTB-MLE in the country, DepEd has opened the dialogue to stakeholders on how they are going to improve the implementation of the MTB-MLE curriculum. In the case of modules and other instructional materials written in Ilocano, there are things that need attention especially that children are no longer familiar with some Ilocano terms. As language grow, people need to embrace the intellectualized language as they face globalization in which the most influential media is the internet. This situation prompted the researchers to document and determine the code mixing patterns of the Ilocano conversational language as basis for enhancing the Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education program of the Philippine government especially in the Northern part of Luzon Island. 2. METHODOLOGY The researchers made use of the descriptive analysis method of research. Conversations among elementary and high school students of Tumog Elementary and Tumog National Agricultural School were documented and recorded for the purpose of analysing the research. Students conversation were carefully noted using cell phone recorder. The study sites were elementary and secondary schools located in one campus. The respondents of the study were pupils of Tumog Elementary School particularly Grades 1, 2 and 3 and high school students of Tumog National Agricultural School. A total of 104 Ilocano speaking pupils and students were taken purposively as respondents of the study. The study was conducted from January 2020 to March 2020 during the field observation of practice teachers in the above mentioned schools. Letters were floated for approval as part of the protocols in the conduct of the study. In this research, data were collected from conversations used by Ilocano students in Tumog Elementary School and Tumog National Agricultural School. During the conduct of the study, pupils and students were observed in non- disruptive scenario to avoid confusion on the part of the respondents. Noted conversations were recorded in a manner that the identity of the speaker( respondents) are not exposed. The conversations were carefully noted, documented using recorder for purpose of notetaking. All code mixed conversations were listed and categorized according to patterns. These were analysed according to structure and how they were used in the sentence. The code mixed words were morphologically analysed. Word formation patterns were carefully analyzed ( prefix, infixes and suffixes). 3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The results of this study were extracted from conversations taken from Tumog Elementary School and Tumog National Agricultural School students. The conversations were coded and categorized to analyse the patterns. 1. Saanak maka study iti rabii idiay dorm , makadisturb diay sounds ti kaabay ko. Maka study Maka disturb Translation: I cannot study during the night in the dorm (shortened dormitory). My dormmate’s sounds (referring to a gadget playing musical sound) disturbs me. The prefix maka precedes the words study and disturb. Instead of saying makabasa (maka study) and makaistorbo (maka disturb), the speaker switches to the English words study and disturb. This is a case of intrasentential code switching. A bilingual often borrows to fill lexical gaps in one of his/her languages. Based on the above discourse the prefix maka before maka study and maka disturb is used to indicate present tense