What I Learned About Code-Switching
Kamusta mga beshies? Maayong Adlaw!
It was an eye-opening experience, reading award-winning Filipino American novels, seeing that code-switching was freely done in novels like Gina Apostol’s La Tercera (with 14 untranslated languages), Elaine Castillo’s America Is Not the Heart, and Randy Ribay’s Patron Saints of Nothing. The languages were English, Spanish, Ilocano, Tagalog, Pangasinense, and others, and although American reviewers had a hard time reading one of the novels (Apostol’s, of course), that was the point.
To see the world from different languages is to see it from different cultures. From the colonizer to the colonized, from the hegemonic to the marginalized, from the Anglo to the Filipino. To see history from all angles and perspectives. And all of these novels were given awards in the USA, which is why their code-switching is so interesting and singular.
There is a wave of English Language Teaching practices and theories regarding translanguaging, multilingualism in the classroom, and the use of code-switching, however, these have not gained traction in the Philippines. As of today, most Filipino teachers who teach English frown on the use of the mother tongue and other languages in the English language and literature classroom, which, according to the United Nations, goes against students’ linguistic rights.
This is light ages away from the practices and experiences of Mexican-Americans when it comes to English Language Teaching, which has been utilizing theories about multilingualism in the ELT classroom since the 1980s. Indicative of this difference is Gloria Anzaldua’s groundbreaking academic book about intersectional feminism, lesbianism, language, and race in Borderlanders/La Frontera, an academic book that defies genre, code switches from English to Spanish, and is considered as one of the most important texts for Chicano/a or Latinx activists in the USA.
My favorite code-switching sentence from the novels probably comes from America Is Not the Heart, when Lola Adela is trying to tell the protagonist Hero that her medical knowledge is not the end-all and be-all of all knowledge, and that indigenous knowledge, including those regarding faith healing, is important and valuable as well. She tells Hero, “Healing? Ay isang mundo yan,” which tells us that the indigenous world, through language, is a complete world in itself and is something that should be valued. Even in the USA. Even in the English-speaking world.
Ever since I learned about translanguaging from a conference I attended and participated in, with the Linguistic Society of the Philippines (LSP) and the Ateneo Center for English Language Teaching (ACELT), my teaching practice has improved. Allowing students to code-switch orally in class creates more student participation and engagement.
This is interesting, especially in the literature classroom, where the in-depth analysis spoken in Tagalog can be breathtakingly deep when discussing an English-language literary text. Tumataas ang balahibo ko minsan habang nakikinig ako, especially since in the past, I would have censored them and told them to speak in straight English, which would have made them sit down and shut up. Sayang tuloy ang analysis nila.
Maybe we can, in English-language classrooms, consider using what we have learned in education about the use of the mother tongue, or the lingua franca, as the first step in many others, in mastering English. It is a thought, that can utilize the language theories of scaffolding. Heretical for some, reasonable for others. I know I would have never mastered Spanish if my Spanish language teachers insisted in a monolingual classroom. The same is true for my knowledge of Ilocano.
Although I love Filipino (now) and can be considered fluent enough (pagbigyan niyo na), I understand why the regional languages are resentful of it, because Tagalog is in no way superior to Ilocano or Bisaya. And so, I may have offended everybody with this entry.
I have reasons for feeling this way. I have friends who were so apologetic when I tried to learn a regional language from them, because they know Hiligaynon better than Filipino, and English better than Filipino, and I had to reassure them that this did not make them unpatriotic. They were so surprised, especially since, they said, I came from UP, and did not look down on Hiligaynon.
I told them their knowledge of a regional language showed that they were good Filipino citizens, patriotic, just as much as Tagalog speakers. And I felt it was so strange, for me to say something that was so obvious to me, that every regional language in the Philippines is valuable and should be valued by everybody, that every regional language in the Philippines represents the Philippines. That one should not be apologetic for being fluent in their mother tongue, that one should not be ashamed of it.
In all honesty, I was shamed from my fluency in English when I was a freshman in UP, where my history teacher, the venerable Zeus Salazar, accused me of being part of the cacique class, licking the boots of the colonizer, because of my mastery of English. Even as a teacher in the DECL, when I told a senior faculty that my mother tongue was English, she accused the conversation of being too conotic (the enye on top of the n, to mean elitist in Philippine English, and a vulgarity in Spanish).
And yet, because of our history, many Filipinos have English as their mother tongue. Philippine English is being practiced without teachers being conscious of it, with the use of Philippine English words, rubber shoes, ballpen, and motels, thinking that they are speaking “good” American English. One of my enduring lessons for English 30 is about World Englishes, and why Filipinos should never feel inferior because of their use of Philippine English, as opposed to other Englishes.
It’s funny, because I have posts in FB in Tagalog and Taglish, and my sister cannot imagine me speaking it. My mother does not understand when I do so, it is too deep for her. If I only had the courage, I would use Ilocano as well, which is interesting, given how popular it is in Filipino American novels. But as I have been shamed because of language, even for my Tagalog, I am still very tentative in trying to write and speak in the regional languages. Baka buang lang ako, when it comes to my language phobias, other than in English.
And in this meandering, code-switching entry, I am breaking so many rules. Which are all colonial, anyway. Dapat straight to the point, dapat iisang wika lang, baka isipin ng iba na tanga ka pagnagtataglish ka, jack of all trades, master of none. Or we might have mastered all of these languages, and just use the right one for greater effect. Food for thought.
Wonderful post. The first time I read “Kawawa” without italics or apology, I was shocked. It was in Albert Samaha’s Concepcion. I love his brazenness.
I was not offended by your statement about Tagalog. My parents native language is Ilocano, and I’m just recently discovering how poetic it is.
Thank you for an interesting post. For my ongoing PhD in English and Creative Writing, I am writing a novel set in the UK (and will set some later chapters in Manila). I just wrote a chapter where some supporting characters, a Filipino-British family, do codeswitching and slip Tagalog words (ay naku, anak, ate, kapatid), without translation into English dialogue at their home, and just let them be picked up by the reader in context. I was worried that it wouldn't work, but my supervisor advised it did.