Speaker
Description
This study examines the grammatical cohesion of fifteen fishermen-turned-tour guides from Camarines Norte, Philippines, through the lens of Systemic Functional Linguistics. Grounded in Halliday and Hasan’s cohesion taxonomy and focused on the textual metafunction, it analyzes how cohesive devices are manifested in spoken tourism discourse, what errors are most commonly produced, and how those errors affect clarity, coherence, and communicative effectiveness. Data were generated through a researcher-developed, expert-validated set of spoken elicitation tasks and analyzed using SFL-informed coding and cohesive chain identification. While all five device categories were attested, deployment was uneven. Reference and lexical cohesion dominated, conjunction was largely limited to temporal and additive forms, and substitution was nearly absent. Three error types were most pervasive: incomplete clauses, overuse of conjunctions in serial temporal chaining, and unrecoverable ellipsis, all of which clustered in safety-critical and procedural contexts where precision matters. The effects on communication were direct. Clarity broke down when propositional content was lost in abandoned clauses, leaving tourists with warnings that carried no actionable information. Coherence weakened when logical relations between steps were reduced to a single temporal connector, requiring listeners to infer meaning without support. Communicative effectiveness was most affected when aesthetic description replaced procedural explanation, a genre-level issue that generic language training may not fully address. These findings suggest that the core communicative gap lies not in vocabulary but in discourse organization, pointing to the need for genre-based instruction targeting conjunctive range, referential tracking, and clause completion in professional tourism contexts.
Biography
Dr. Ronald O. de Lemios is a full-time English instructor at Camarines Norte State College (CNSC). He is a dedicated educator who genuinely takes pride in helping students grow into confident and competent users of the English language.
Before joining CNSC in 2020, he spent seven years teaching as an English Teacher III at Paracale National High School. Those years were formative for him. Working closely with senior high school students helped him understand their struggles more deeply and shaped him into a more reflective and responsive teacher. It also strengthened his role as a mentor, one who listens, adjusts, and grows with his learners.
In 2017, he earned his Master of Arts in Education from Ateneo de Naga University, majoring in English Language Teaching. This strengthened his foundation in language instruction and deepened his understanding of how English is learned and taught in real classroom settings. He later pursued his Doctor of Philosophy in Language and Literacy Development at the same university and completed the degree in June 2024.
Aside from teaching, he has always been drawn to research, especially in English language learning and acquisition. He sees English not just as a subject, but as a tool that opens opportunities in a globalized world.
In April 2026, he was recognized by his alma mater as an Outstanding Alumnus for his community research and extension work. The award affirmed a shift in his direction as a researcher. These days, his work is no longer limited to the classroom. He is increasingly focused on using research to support underprivileged and marginalized sectors, particularly farmers and fishermen, hoping to help give voice to their experiences and contribute in ways that go beyond academic spaces.
At the core of his work is a steady commitment to teaching, research, and service, all grounded in the belief that education should reach people where they are and help them move forward in life.
| Affiliate type | University |
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