1

Introduction

There is an increasing interest on the use of corpus linguistics in

investigating language phenomenon on intensifiers in English language. There

are collection of authentic use of language being stored electronically in

corpus. Some linguists find it operative in analyzing how it done and use by the

speakers of the language. Intensifiers are adverbs, used to either “boost” or

“maximize” a word and its meaning, and frequently employed in the English

language (Quirk et al. 1985:590-1). Intensifiers have been focus of intensive

study over the past years due to their capacity to change rather rapidly, as

well as offer information on linguistic development and change (see e.g.

Barnfield and Buchstaller (2010), Mendez-Naya (2008), Tagliamonte and

Roberts (2005).

The definition of an intensifier varies from scholar to scholar, as no unified

terminology has widely been accepted. Intensifiers, degree words or degree

modifiers, as they are also known as, serve to “convey the degree or the exact

value of the quality expressed by the item they modify” (Mendez-Naya,

2008:213). Degree adverbs are often divided into two classes-intensives and

downtoners.

Bäcklund uses the term adverbs of degree to refer to intensifiers in his

Doctoral Thesis (1973, 5). In the thesis, Bäcklund has divided adverbs of degree

into subgroups based on their semantic value on a scale of rising degree (1973,

14). Paradis (2000, 148) applies the term reinforcers to refer to the words of

degree that denote the upper point in the scale of degree, e.g. very. In
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Paradis' classification, reinforcers are followed by moderators (e.g. quite) in the

middle of an imaginary scale and the lowest point on that scale are diminishers

(e.g. a bit) (Paradis 2000, 148).

Bolinger uses the terms degree words (1972, 18) and intensifiers (1972, 17)

and comments that he uses the term intensifier for all words that scale a quality

in some direction. All intensifiers are further divided into four sub-groups based

on the direction of scaling; up, down or somewhere in between (ibid.). For

Bolinger, the highest point in the scale are boosters e.g. ”He is terribly selfish”

(ibid.). Boosters are followed by compromizers in the middle of the scale,

denoting a slightly lower degree e.g. ”He is fairly happy” (ibid.). The next

category in Bolinger's scale are diminishers that are the lower part of the middle

of the scale, denoting a lower degree e.g. ”They were little disposed” (ibid.).

Minimizers represent the lowest end of the scale of degree e.g. ”He's a bit of

an idiot” (ibid.).

Quirk et al. (1973, 438) use the term intensifier for words that either have

a heightening or lowering effect on a unit in a sentence. Quirk et al. further

divide intensifiers into three sub-categories: emphasizers, amplifiers and

downtoners (1973, 439). Two of these three categories of intensifiers have their

sub-groupings (ibid.). Amplifiers are further divided into maximizers (e.g.

completely) and boosters (e.g. very much) (ibid.). Quirk et al. (1985, 590) state

that amplifiers form an open class of adverbs as new words are constantly

added to replace older forms which ”follow the trend of hyperbole in rapidly

growing ineffectual”. Downtoners are divided into four subgroups:

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compromizers (e.g. kind of), diminishers (e.g. partly), minimizers (e.g. hardly)

and approximators (e.g. almost) (ibid.).

The study aims to provide answers to the following questions:

1. What are the most common intensifiers in the Philippine component

of the International Corpus of English (ICE-PHI)?

2. What are the most common intensifiers in the Philippine component

of the International Corpus of English (ICE-PHI) based on written and

spoken text?

Framework of the Study

The study is anchored on the concept of Philippine English as defined by

Bautista (2000) and of the Philippine English corpus in the form of the Philippine

component of the International Corpus of English (ICE-PHI) which was

compiled by the team supervised by Bautista from 1994 to 2004. Quirk et al.

(1985, 445, 589), intensifier is the wider term for the two subgroups of amplifiers

and downtoners. Intensifiers are defined as scaling devices, and it is noted that

this involves both scaling the meaning upwards and downwards (ibid., 591).

They further divide amplifiers into two categories of maximizers (absolutely,

completely, extremely, entirely, perfectly) and boosters (really, very, awful,

dead, so, right, well, quite, pretty) (ibid., 590-1).

The Philippine component of the International Corpus of English

(henceforth, ICE for the international project and ICE-PHI for the local
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component) comprises nearly one million words of spoken and written English

collected between 1990 and 2004. ICE-PHI is one part of a multi-country

project involving some 20 countries/regions in which English is spoken as a first

language or as an official language: Australia, Cameroon, Canada, the

Caribbean (Jamaica), East Africa (Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania), Fiji, Ghana,

Great Britain, Ireland (Eire, Northern Ireland), Hong Kong, India, New Zealand,

Nigeria, the Philippines, Sierra Leone, Singapore, South Africa, and the United

States of America.

In order to make comparative analyses of the corpora possible, ICE has

employed a common design as follows (Greenbaum 1996:5-6): (1) Each

corpus contains about one million words; (2) Each corpus consists of 500 texts,

each text having about 2,000 words; (3) The texts are drawn from specified text

categories and the number of texts in a category is also specified; (4) The major

text category division is between spoken and written. Spoken texts are further

divided into dialogues and monologues, and some monologues are scripted

(read aloud from scripts). Written texts are manuscript or printed; (5) Texts

generally date from the period 1990-1995 inclusive. A few corpora are likely to

include material (particularly spoken material) from a later date; (6) ICE is

investigating “educated” English, that is, the English spoken by adults, 18 or

over, who have received formal education through the medium of English to

the completion of at least secondary school.

ICE-PHI contains the 500 texts specified in the design, though there are

limitations in the “Direct Conversation” and “Legal Presentation” text types, as

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explained below. In order to meet the 2,000-word requirement for each text, it

has been necessary to make some of the texts composite, that is, they are the

product of combining several samples of the same type to make up 2,000

words (Nelson 1996a:27). Thus, for example, in the case of examination papers,

social letters, business letters, news reports, editorials, legal presentations,

several such items had to be combined to produce a 2,000-word text.

The Filipino speakers and writers represented here come from the highly

educated sector, with the least educated among them being college

freshmen. Agreat majority of them are accomplished users of English as a

second language, and speak or write what sociolinguists refer to as an

acrolectal variety of English, i.e., a kind of English that approaches the world

standard.
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Results and Discussion

Table 1. Summary of the Most Frequently Used Intensifiers in ICE-PHI

ICE-PHI Frequency
Hits Percentage
1. Definitely 100 0.90%
2. Completely 60 0.54%
3. Totally 53 0.47%
4. Absolutely 33 0.29%
5. Very 2051 18.30%
6. Really 1776 10.49%
7. Too 577 5.14%
8. So 6238 55.67%
9. Extremely 31 0.27%
10. Truly 106 0.94%
11. Highly 85 0.75%
12. Fully 80 0.71%
13. Terribly 7 0.06%
14. Bloody 7 0.06%

Total 11,204 100%

Table 1 shows the most commonly used intensifiers used in Philippine

English. It also shows the corresponding percentage that each intensifiers gets

in relation to its total number of hits among the most commonly used

intensifiers.

It can be gathered from the table that the most common used intensifier

is “so” with 6,238 number of hits and total percentage of 55.67%. It followed by

the intensifier “very” with 2,051 number of hits and total percentage of 18.30%.

It means that we always used these words in both written and spoken text. On

the other hand, it can also observed on the table that the sometimes used
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intensifier are “terribly” and “bloody” with both 7 number of hits and 0.06% total

percentage. It means that Filipino sometimes used it the context of written and

spoken text.

Table 2. Summary of the Most Frequently Used Intensifiers in written and spoken text of

ICE-PHI.

ICE-PHI Frequency
Written Text Spoken Hits Percentage
Text
1. Definitely 27 73 100 0.90%
2. Completely 38 22 60 0.54%
3. Totally 23 30 53 0.47%
4. Absolutely 10 23 33 0.29%
5. Very 434 1617 2051 18.30%
6. Really 174 1602 1776 10.49%
7. Too 221 356 577 5.14%
8. So 784 5454 6238 55.67%
9. Extremely 17 14 31 0.27%
10. Truly 78 28 106 0.94%
11. Highly 65 25 85 0.75%
12. Fully 57 23 80 0.71%
13. Terribly 4 3 7 0.06%
14. Bloody 3 4 7 0.06%

Total 11,204 100%

The table showed that the most common used intensifiers in terms of

written and spoken text is “so”. It displays 784 number of written text and 5,454

spoken text. Also the word “very” that display 434 number of written text and

1617 spoken text. In fact, Riissanen (2016) found that the three popular

intensifier variants are very, so and really are notably less frequent in American

and British English than in Singapore English.

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Conclusions

Based on the results and findings of the study, the following conclusions

were drawn:

1. The most commonly used intensifiers by Filipinos are so, very and

really. There is a wide used of these intensifiers in both written text and

spoken text in Philippine English.

2. The most commonly used intensifiers by Filipinos are so, very and really

in both written and spoken text. Therefore, these unifiers are always

used in Philippine English

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References

Backlund, Ulf (1973). The Collocation of Adverbs of Degree in English. Uppsala:

Almqvist

Barnfield, Kate and Isabelle Buchstaller. 2010. “Intensifiers on Tyneside:

Longitudinal developments and new trends”. English World-Wide 31/3:
252-287.

Bautista, M.L.S. (2000) Defining standard Philippine English: Its status and
grammatical features. De La Salle University Press

Méndez-Naya, Belén. 2008. “Introduction to ‘Special issue on English

intensifiers’”. English Language and Linguistics 12: 213-9.

Paradis, Carita. 2000. “It’s well weird: Degree Modifiers of Adjectives Revisited:
The Nineties”. In Corpora galore: Analyses and techniques in describing
English: Papers from the Nineteenth International Conference on English
Language Research on Computerised Corpora (ICAME 1998), ed. John
M.
Kirk, 147-160. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech and Jan Svartvik. 1985.
A
Comprehensive Grammar of the English language. New York: Longman.

Tagliamonte, Sali. and Chris Roberts. 2005. “So weird; So cool; So innovative:
The use of intensifiers in the television series Friends”. American Speech
80/3: 280-300.

Appendices
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Frame 1. Samples of Concordance Lines of definitely

Frame 2. Samples of Concordance Lines of completely.

Frame 3. Samples of Concordance Lines of totally.

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Frame 4. Samples of Concordance Lines of absolutely.

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Frame 5. Samples of Concordance Lines of really.

Frame 6. Samples of Concordance Lines of really.

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Frame 7. Samples of Concordance Lines too.

Frame 8. Samples of Concordance Lines of so.

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Frame 9. Samples of Concordance Lines of extremely.

Frame 10. Samples of Concordance Lines of truly.

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Frame 11. Samples of Concordance Lines of highly.

Frame 12. Samples of Concordance Lines of fully.

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Frame 13. Samples of Concordance Lines of terribly.

Frame 14. Samples of Concordance Lines of bloody.