Analysis of Clipping as an Element in Philippine English and Singaporean English: A Comparative Study

Abstract

This research study entitled Analysis of Clipping as an Element in Philippine English and Singaporean English: A Comparative Study compared the similarities and differences regarding the word-formation process of clipping in the case of two Outer Circle Englishes, the Philippine English and Singaporean English. The writers were guided by the following questions: (1) What are the common clipped words in Philippine English and Singaporean English and their frequency of use; (2) What are the commonly occurring words before and after the clipped words in Philippine English and Singaporean English and their frequency of use and (3) What are the similarities and differences in Philippine English and Singaporean English. Comparative method of research was employed in this study. The International Corpus of English served as the main data source. The researchers gathered thirty (30) clipped words from the two corpora using the digital concordancer AntConc. It was found in the study that the clipped words that have the highest number of hits were “movies” from  Philippine English and “ad” from Singaporean English.  Also, it was found in the study that Philippine English used clipped words more often than Singaporean English. In terms of the words placed before the clipped words, the majority are determiners such as “the”, “a”, and “and” in the written or spoken discourse.  Generally, the two Englishes have their unique way of using clipped words in communication leading to a conclusion that there was a considerable difference of the two. It is highly recommended that future researchers conduct study on other clipped words that this study did not cover.