Legalities of Language Use in Linguistic Landscaping in the Philippines

What is it about?

Our study investigates Philippine national sign laws and their linguistic and ideological underpinnings by situating these not only within the context of their legal precedents, mandates, and history but also through an examination of 600 public signs collected from six diverse region centers in the Philippines. It examines how national laws prefer English in public signs at the expense of local and Indigenous languages, thereby perpetuating what Phillipson (1992) calls “English linguistic imperialism”.

Featured Image

Photo by Klaryss Puno on Unsplash

Photo by Klaryss Puno on Unsplash

Why is it important?

We see public signages on a daily basis. However, we rarely stop to question how these are, in fact, products of the nexus between legal discourses, national laws, and the language situation of the country. Our study aims to bridge this gap by investigating how national sign laws reinforce and perpetuate the dominance of English over Filipino and other local languages in the creation of public signage and how this particular language preference has materialized in the linguistic landscapes of six diverse regions in the country. Our study therefore argues that the imperialistic dominance of English in both national sign laws and local linguistic landscapes proves to be a recurring systemic colonial problem in the Philippines, not just in the sphere of Philippine language politics but also in the history and realm of Philippine legal discourse. The question worth asking now is: How do we decolonize our national sign laws?

Perspectives