Modern Journal of Studies in English Language Teaching and Literature Volume 1 December 2019

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Modern Journal of Studies in English Language Teaching and Literature Vol. 3 Issue 1 June 2021 
31 
The Intelligibility of Philippine English to a Selected
ASEAN Country – Thailand 
Kristine D. de Leon 
Sohar University, Oman 
[e-mail] 
Jose Cristina M. Parina 
De La Salle University, Manila 
[e-mail] 
Jay Mark M. Panopio 
Thaksin University Phatthalung Campus, Thailand 
[e-mail] 
 
 
Abstract 
 
This paper is a sequence to a bigger research project that attempts to document the intelligibility 
of Philippine English (PE) to its neighbouring countries, specifically those included in the 
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) partnership. From this perspective, the study 
attempted to identify and demonstrate how intelligible PE is to Thais. The study examined 
acrolectal, mesolectal, and basilectal speakers of PE, and they underwent
two tests, the 
pronunciation task, and the stress task. The listeners were given six tests, three cloze tests, one 
intelligibility questionnaire, one perception of PE, and one English proficiency self-
assessment. These tests were to confirm that they really belong to the lectal category. The 
results revealed that PE is about 50% intelligible for Thais. The factors that have strongly 
affected this intelligibility rate are listeners’ familiarity with the variety and the speakers’ 
effort, choice of words, rate, and pronunciation. It has to be noted that English in Thailand is a 
foreign language, but then the listeners’ perceived language proficiency did not significantly 
affect the intelligibility of PE. Moreover, their perception of PE did not affect their 
understanding of the utterances of the speakers. 
Keywords: World Englishes; Philippine English; Acrolectal; Mesolectal; Basilectal