Developing a monolingual dictionary of obsolescent Tagalog words in Tagaytay City, Amadeo and Indang, Cavite

• Main Author: Rozul, Ruthmita Hapin
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2004
• Subjects: Tagalog language; Word (Linguistics); Language and languages > Dictionaries; South and Southeast Asian Languages and Societies
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_doctoral/26; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/context/etd_doctoral/article/1025/viewcontent/CDTG003627_F_Redacted.pdf
• Institution: De La Salle University

The study attempts to collect in a dictionary form obsolescent Tagalog words in these three areas of study. The research is pioneering in the field of lexicography on the obsolescence of Upland Cavite Tagalog. The work is called a monolingual dictionary. The word monolingual typically uses the same speech variety for the headword as it does for the explanatory text. However, this dictionary in fact cites Obsolescent Cavite Tagalog headwords, and uses Modern Cavite Tagalog to explain them. As such, this work falls in the middle ground between a truly monolingual dictionary and a fully bilingual/multilingual dictionary in which the headwords and the explanatory text are typically distinct languages. Specifically, the study aims to 1) apply a theory on language death in the development of a monolingual dictionary of obsolescent Tagalog words 2) identify the problems and apply solutions in the process of developing a monolingual dictionary and 3) validate the dictionary and make revisions based on the results of the validation. The research is a descriptive study that uses the following research methodology: A. Preparation B. Data Collection C. Analyses of the Lexical Entries D. Evaluation and E. Revision. Thirty-two Common Language Stock groups were the bases for the collection of words. Data were collected using Newells Word-List Elicitation Approach and narratives, or stories, told by the informants. Field work using participant and nonparticipant observation was employed and interviews and questionnaires, as research instruments. The researcher then analyzed the remaining entries based on Zorc and San iv Miguel: 1) the headword in Obsole galog 2) the pronunciation, which rds of the members nd sugges ite Tagalog (OCT) words. The researcher found scent Cavite Ta uses phonemic transcription 3) the parts of speech 4) the levels of words 5) the scientific name of the entry 6) the definition of the word expressed in Modern Cavite Tagalog, and where possible, a synonym of the MCT; 7) background information on the origin or derivation of the word; 8) a sentence example giving the form in an appropriate Tagalog context; 9) a picture or a drawing of the obsolescent word. After the lexical entries were analyzed, and pictures and drawings were included, the collection, in the form of a dictionary, was presented to the members of the younger generation for feedback. Words not obsolescent were dropped from the list. This is a novel aspect of the research. Local literature has not shown any study with members of the younger generation validating the obsolescence of wo of the older generation. Six critics, informants themselves, afterwards did content validation on the obsolescence of the words. After these critics comments and suggestions were included in the dictionary, it was then presented to a set of experts in the field for face and content validation. The researcher included their comments a tions and, based on these, the dictionary was revised. The dictionary includes one thousand, one hundred ten (1,110) lexical entries which are all Obsolescent Cav out that of the two ways employed in data collection, Newells Word-List Elicitation Approach and narration, or storytelling, the latter is the better one to use in terms of the number of OCT collected. The reason for this is that the informants were able to tell their stories in context with backdrops for clearer meanings. An orientation gives details of time, persons, places, and situations which the researcher needed to understand. Another v finding of the study is that pronunciation variants exist among the words used by the members of the older generation in their use of the consonant-?-vowel pattern. The recommendations of the study are: 1) to do the same research using a more naturalistic approach (i.e. natural conversations and speech samples in natural settings) without elicitations or interventions; 2) to expand the study to the other upland Cavite towns to see any parallelism in the obsolescence of words with the older d implement a program with generation; 3) to present the collection of OCT words to a different group of validators for feedback, to other speakers of the old Tagalog in the community who are not informants who would know the history and use of the language; 4) to make parallel investigations with other dialects of Tagalog (i.e. Rizal Tagalog, Laguna Tagalog, Batangas Tagalog, Quezon Tagalog, Marinduque Tagalog, etc.) and check whether these dialects are also undergoing obsolescence in the variety spoken by the older generation. If they are, to trace the roots of the problem and study the factors causing obsolescence in the area of study; and 5) to explore other ways and means by which obsolescent words may be recorded and preserved since lexicography is simply one of them and, if time and resources permit, possibly take even one step further plan an proper authorities about the renewal of an obsolescent language variety.