Colonial mindset, appropriation, and emotion: language attitudes towards English of multilingual speakers in southern Philippines

Language attitude studies have opened many opportunities for our understanding of peoples' perception towards languages, their varieties, and their speakers. Despite these, studies focusing on the attitudes of speakers especially in the rural and outskirts from the capital of the Philippines remain less progressive and merit further investigation. The aim of this study is to investigate the language attitudes towards English of multilingual speakers from southern Philippines who are Maguindanaon, Hiligaynon, Iranun, Maranao, and Cebuano. This qualitative study employs semi-structured interviews that determined speakers' belief, language use, and emotion towards English. Following deductive thematic analysis, the participant interviews reveal the speakers' language appropriation of English in both academic setting and personal spaces. Additionally, the speakers express pride in the positive social associations of Filipinos with competence in English. In spite of this, their ideology about English underscores a colonial mindset that mirrors their strong belief that English remains a foreign language associated with the American influence. This paper concludes with implications for sociolinguistic realities and practices vis-& agrave;-vis English in the Philippines.