Philippine E-Journals

Disentangling the Rubrico and Dolalas Hypotheses on the Davao Filipino Language

Feorillo Petronilo Demeterio Iii | Jeconiah Louis Dreisbach

 

Abstract:

There are two seemingly conflicting hypotheses on the status and impact of the Davao Filipino language. On one hand, Rubrico is optimistic that it could be a model variety of a more democratic and inclusive Filipino language that should be open to contributions and alterations from the other Philippine languages. On the other hand, Dolalas is giving a warning that the continued hegemony of the Tagalog/Filipino language on the Cebuano language will eventually destroy the latter. When conceptualized using the communication accommodation theory of Giles, the seemingly conflicting hypotheses would actually fit into a single construct that lines up the Cebuano language, the process of divergence, the Davao Filipino language, the process of convergence, and the Tagalog/Filipino language. Using the same communication accommodation theory, this paper assessed the validities of the two hypotheses, and attempted to formulate more acceptable hypotheses on the status and impact of the Davao Filipino language.