And this goes back to my original question on "word evolution" in another thread. who determines what is acceptable in today's language?
of course we should speak according to socio-cultural, linguistic and pragmatic factors: what occasion, who the speakers are, what they are talking about, speakers' roles, etc. taglish, therefore could not be always acceptable as there are just a few specific occasions where it is appropriate. even speaking perfect formal english would be out of place in conversations dealing with intimate feelings or jokes.
but when are taglish coinings included in our dictionary? i think, it is up to those educated individuals who have the direct control of the rules set by "asosasyon linguistika ng pilipinas" and their international counterparts to set the standard. they have the control of what gets published in the media, broadcast on TV, etc. and what could be called formal, casual, or colloquial. i remember asking this same question 20 years ago in graduate sch.-ust: who determines the soundness of a given word? who approves the new list of words for our dictionary? Answer: the educated elite.
not in the same line, but there's somewhat a similar issue here in japan last here ( in one american university) when during the convocation of english educators, the lecturer raised this challenging question: what would you do if in the next 50 years, you would find the rise of a new english variety-
india english, that would be widely used by majority of english speakers in the world? (not exactly same wording, but you get the idea.) the lecturer even made use of examples from india's leading newspaper on some odd english, and of all other situations, an excerpt from a philippine newspaper on the use of "furnitures". well, i think, the lecturer's speech was amiss of lots of new grammar rules and modifications or ignorance of the waves on english growth...but using philippine media as one example for "the deviations from traditional grammar rules" was annoying. we continued the arguments in the convocation to our classroom discussions, and i was finally satisfied when our professor was dumbfounded when i answered that question with: just what variety exactly are we speaking now, compared to the english spoken by marlowe and shakespeare? if they were still alive, what could they be saying now?
just thoughts to ponder...
getting sane madgirl