LINGUISTIC AND RHETORICAL FEATURES OF DIRECT CONVERSATION IN PRIVATE DIALOGUES IN PHILIPPINE ENGLISH

The study provides a corpus based description of linguistic and rhetorical features of direct conversation in private dialogues in Philippine English ( The inve stigation started in exploring the linguistic features of private dialogues at the lexical and syn tactic levels. The corpus based analysis reveals eight significant lexica l features where intensifier has the highest occurrence . Intensifiers dominate the corpus of private dialogues as investigated in the first one thousand words. Intensifiers like really and totally are the most comm on lexical items which function as either an adjective or an adverb showing degree in private dialogues in PE . Similarly, the linguistic feature at the syntactic level reveals six significant features of private direct dialogues in Philippine English. Th e most revealing syntac tic feature is the frequent use of if conditional . This feature provides a myriad of meaning including predictions and assumptions about something. The use of if conditional is relevant in developing argument, expressing cognitive re asoning, and semantic nuances based on hypothetical facts. Interestingly, in the study it was revealed that the syntax or structure of if conditional does not follow the three generic structures according to Foley and Hall (2003). The structure of if cond itional in spoken text is described to be as zero conditional since the construction of if conditional is far different from the three generic structures as taught in books in prescriptive grammar Correspondingly, t he investigation of the rhetorical featu res of private direct dialogues reveals that idioms is the most frequent language form used by Filipino speakers in persua ding listener in a conversation . Th e use of idioms in conversation reveals the proficiency of the speaker in using the language. The investigation in the sequence expansion reveals that Filipino speakers organize their talk for the goal of convincing participants to believe in the fine detail of talk offered to them. The corpus based analysis of the direct conversation in private dialo gues reveal that despite the informality of words used in the spoken text both interlocutors are able to link ideas and address problematic turns immediately. The informality of any conversation is mirrored at the lexical and syntactic features through the use of colloquial words and framing of ideas yet the corpus displays an organized and structured framing of utterances as shown in the sequence expansion credited in the corpus of private dialogues in Philippine English. For future researchers who are i nterested in investigating the features of Philippine English, the findings of this study may be used as bench mark in doing similar studies in the spoken text of Philippine English. They can also extrapolate the grammar rules of these twenty features and relate it on how Filipino speakers use these features grammatically in everyday conversations at the present time. A further grammatical investigation can be made in the study, since the study focuses only in the form, use, and functions of each feature ba sed on how they appear and are used in the corpus.