ICLSL 2016

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The Process of Translating and Editing of Pāli Texts in Sri Lanka from 19th Century to the Present
(Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Rajapaksha, D.M.
It is to be emphasised here that the pivotal objective of compilation, translation and edition of Pāli texts was not only to enhance Theravāda tradition in its pristine purity in Sri Lanka but also to ensure its perpetual establishment making it immensely accessible to people in the world. The scrutiny of the history of Theravāda tradition in Sri Lanka exposes that the commentaries, sub-commentaries, annotations, glossaries and other related literature compiled on the Tripitaka - Sutta, Vinaya and Abhidhamma were immensely conducive to produce eminent lay and ordained scholars. After the documentation of the Tripitakain the 1st century in Sri Lanka, the recital of the Dhamma for its preservation continued and its oral tradition (Bhānakas) as Theravāda contributed to the establishment of the monastic education system spreading it throughout Sri Lanka. Thus, it is evident from the above factors that Theravāda tradition executed the process of translation and edition of Pāli texts from the inception. In the past century, there exited a prominent development in the above process due to the contribution of printing press during the colonial period. Hence, research paper will discuss the process of translating and editing of Pāli texts that contributed to enhancement of Theravāda tradition from 19th century to the present.
An Examination on the Semantic Adversation of the Sinhalese Language
(Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Sameera, M.A.G.J.
As a living language, the Sinhalese language has come to its present status after going through a numerous number of changes to all its components. Any given word of a language has a meaning of its own, which cannot be easily changed. However, it is not entirely impossible to change the given meanings of the words of a living language since it is infinitely modifiable and extendable according to the changing needs of its speakers. Any change that happens to the meaning of a word is known as semantic change. Semantic adversation which can be defined as acquiring a meaning entirely opposite to the existing one is one of the processes that can be seen under this. This study is an attempt to examine the semantic adversation in the Sinhalese language. Data has been collected through a comparison between classical Sinhalese and contemporary Sinhalese. The older meanings given to words were identified from their usage in selected classical Sinhalese literary work and it was evident that though many words used then are still being used, many of them are affected by semantic change in a number of ways. Since the range of this study is limited to semantic adversation, other processes of semantic change such as semantic expansion were not examined. Accordingly, a considerable amount of words in relation to which semantic adversation has happened is identified. However, exact reasons that can be pointed out as responsible for the semantic adversation or distinguishable processes of semantic adversation are not identified, which leads to the judgment that semantic adversation in the Sinhalese language is purely an accident of history.
Language Policies and Social Cohesion in Multilingual States: Some Personal Observations
(Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Lewis, R.L.
This paper is meant simply to be an opening point for a continuation of an ongoing discussion of multilingualism within states and regions vis-à-vis: Civil and criminal law, law enforcement, domestic educational policy, civil and human rights, political franchise, cultural and national identity, commerce and economic development, etcetera. Although I have lived in the Sri Lanka for over 11 years, Sri Lanka is not the subject of this paper but rather serves as a lens through which I can see more clearly the potential ramifications and importance of these issues internationally. I would like to look briefly at the extremes – at one end, state language policies that have led to civil war and at the other end states that have dealt creatively, fairly and productively (albeit not perfectly) with the management of the issues and challenges which are an intrinsic part of dealing with multilingual populations. Virtually every country in the world, to one extent or another, deals with the challenges brought on by multilingualism. I would not presume to attempt to offer prescriptions for the problems which are an intrinsic part of multilingual issues; rather, I hope that the questions I pose will help to stimulate a continuation of a vigorous exchange of ideas between informed and open people who care.
A Linguistic Study on Abbreviations in the Japanese Language
(Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Jayathilake, H.M.D.T.K.
This paper is a linguistic analysis and a study of abbreviations in the Japanese language and the manner in which such abbreviations are effected. Abbreviations of Japanese terms that are used frequently, are a recent development for the convenience of daily use of the language. However, new abbreviations being included frequently pose a problem for the students learning Japanese as a foreign language since they are unaware of the reasons and the basis behind them. This paper is the outcome of a detailed analysis carried out to ascertain the types of terms that are abbreviated in order to identify the basis for abbreviation. This research was carried out by gathering details of abbreviations used in books and periodicals, comparing the original unabbreviated terms with the abbreviations and identifying the basis and manner in which the abbreviations have been done. The study basically revealed that original Japanese words as well as loan words had been condensed and appropriately abbreviated. In examining the data, it was observed that several methods had been applied in effecting abbreviations, as described in the paper. The analysis and the comparison also focused on identifying the methodology used in abbreviations and would undoubtedly be of immense value to students as well as teachers in gaining an insight of the basic concept of abbreviation of Japanese terms and the underlying principles.
Problems in Translating Sinhala ‘weniya’ into English
(Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Rajapakshe, R.M.W.
One language may differ from another phonologically, morphologically, syntactically and semantically. There are, however, differences as well as similarities between two languages. The degree of those differences and similarities between two languages depends on target languages. A number of differences and similarities can be seen between Sinhala and English. The purpose of this study is to analyse the difficulties of translating the Sinhala word “weniya” into English. When it refers to a position of a student in a class the word palaweniya, dewaniya, thuweniya are used to mean first, second, and third respectively. There are no problems in translating such words. The adjective forms of those words, namely palaweni, dewani and thunweni can be translated into English without any difficulty. However, a problem arises when translating a Sinhala sentence like “J.R. Jayawardena mahattaya lankawe kii weni janadhipathiwaraya da?” Ten scholars including university lecturers, professors and highly qualified professional translators gave different answers to this question. The problem here is that there is no parallel grammatical structure for this sentence in the English language. This study attempts to find the most suitable solution to the above problem. Data was gathered from six university professors, two university lecturers and two professional translators.
A Comparative Analysis on Word Formation Processes in English and Sinhala
(Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Dhammadassana Thero, Kosgama
Word formation is a process which makes a new word by changing exiting one or adding something to exiting word. It makes a new word. Forming new words is a most influential process to develop a language and to continue it as a live language. There are number of word formation process according to morphology and those processes can be seen in both Sinhala and English languages. Affixation, compounding, conversion, borrowing, blending and clipping are some of them. This study is an effort to find the similarities and dissimilarities of word formation processes between English and Sinhala languages. Thus, the present research aims to study the word formation processes mainly in terms of the two languages in order to discuss the similarities and dissimilarities between them. The oldest available grammar book in Sinhala, “Sidath Sagara” helps to find out the grammatical concept of the forming word in Sinhala and a number of books have been written in English which reveal the word formation processes of it. As the methodology both English and Sinhala books are used and after going through those books the concepts of the forming words can be analysed. those word formation processes can be compared and the research is based on a literature study, which takes a quantitative plane.
Subjects in Colloquial Sinhala
(Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Kariyakarawana, S.
In most languages, including in literary Sinhala, subject of a sentence appear in Nominative case. In colloquial Sinhala however subjects can appear in several different cases in both intransitive (I) and transitive sentences (T) as Gair (1998), Kariyakarawana (1992) and many others have observed: 1 a. (I) miniha duwanawa man-NOM run-PRES PAST „The man runs‟ (T) siri ada apata ballek (wa) dunna Siri-NOM today us-DAT dog-INDEF-ACC give „Siri gave us a dog today‟ b. (I) minihata divenava man-DAT run-INVOL-PRES „The man runs (involuntarily)‟ (T) mata den aliyawa peenawa Me-DAT now elephant-ACC see. PRES „I see the elephant now‟ c. (I) miniha-va ganagata wetevi man-ACC river-DAT fall-OPT „The man might fall into the river‟ d. (I) ehee policiyen innawa there police-INSTR be-(animate) „There are police there‟ (T) aanduwen eekata aadara denawa Government-INSTR that-DAT support-PL give-PRES „The government give support for that‟ As seen above, notice nominative, dative and instrumental subjects occur with intransitive as well as transitive predicates. One other noticeable characteristic of Colloquial Sinhala is that equational sentences do occur without a copular (be) verb at all as in (2): (2) (a) Gunapala mahatteya honda guruwarayek Gunapala –mr-NOM good teacher-INDEF Mr Gunapala is a good teacher‟ There have been many attempts to bring these sentences under a unified analysis of syntax which explains their syntactic and semantic properties in a universal framework of phrase structure but it seem to pose serious problems to Case marking, INFL projection and Thera role assignment within a generative framework. This paper takes another look at the data under the Bio Minimalist framework that Chomsky (1995) proposes to minimise the syntactic machinery by subsuming syntactic properties under semantic and phonological cues which in essence determines the syntactic structure of the position of subjects in these clauses. In particular, we will argue that the Minimalist approach to such complex syntactico-semantic issues can reduce the burden of functional machinery and explain the learnability of non-nominative subjects in colloquial Sinhala.
Language Acquisition Patterns: A Case Study of a Child Acquiring Sinhalese as the First Language
(Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Weerawardhana, V.
Child language acquisition is an innate strategy which reveals the psychological base of human language. Innate hypothesis is the pre-knowledge of the language. Human beings are born with this ability of internalising the first language with the help of language Acquisition Device (LAD). Children acquire structural regularities of their mother language (L1) from their environment. This happens in the critical period of the language development which is identified as the period from first six months to three years. This research is a case study focusing on the nature and the patterns of acquiring the Sinhalese language as L1. The child was in its critical period of language acquisition and data was collected using electronic and manual transcription. Structural linguistic analysis and theoretical concepts of Transformational Grammar on language acquisition such as competence and performance, generalisation, simplification, deep structure and surface structure are employed as the methodology. Accordingly, the gradual development of L1 acquisition from 6 months to 24 months are discussed. Babbling, sound acquisition and patterns of one word utterances, two word and three word utterances are among the findings. A comparison with the previous studies reveal that the patterns of above utterances, generalisation and simplification are commonly visible in the acquisition period. Also, the child often proves that competence is greater than performance. The results of the study further highlighted some semantic, syntactic and morphological overgeneralisations. Thus, this study and its findings are of significant importance to psycholinguists, language therapists and to researchers interested in studying child language acquisition process.
A Method to Sort Official Correspondence through Natural Language Processing
(Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Weerasooriya, T.; Perera, N.
Natural language Processing (NLP) is a new branch of study in Computational Linguistics and the field has undergone rapid development over the past few decades. Keyword extraction is a popular application of NLP. The present study makes use of Stanford Core NLP, an NLP tool that enables Parts-of-Speech (POS) tagging in order to extract the keywords from official correspondence. POS tagging identifies all the parts of speech in a sentence and categorises them into the relevant grammatical categories. Capitalising on the grammatical uniformity of formal written English, the system is able to identify all the noun phrases and verb phrases of a sentence. Hence, the subject and the predicate of the sentence are isolated. Document sorting with regard to official correspondence is done through the system by analysing the „object‟ line of an official letter or the „subject‟ line of an e-mail, and listing the noun phrases and verb phrases. The document is then sorted to the relevant department. In order to prevent slips in the system, the remaining words of the „object‟ / „subject‟ lines are filtered through a keyword corpus. This increases the accuracy of the keyword extraction process. The present system proved to be more efficient that selecting keywords through a filter, as the POS tagging sorts and presents keywords in an order where the respondents are able to grasp the main idea of the sentence. The subsidiary list of words extracted through the key word corpus adds to the accuracy of the system. The present study is only limited to official correspondence in English. It could be modified to be adapted to other languages.
An Analysis of the Error Patterns in Spellings of the Students at the Faculty of Management Studies and Commerce at the University of Sri Jayawardenepura, Sri Lanka
(Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Rabel, U.
The topic of this study is to analyse the patterns of spelling errors among the second language learners of English. The aim of this study is to account for the underlying causes of spelling errors made by the first year and the second year students of the Faculty of Management Studies and Commerce at the University of Sri Jayawardenepura. It first presents a general overview of writing and goes on to discuss the different writing systems such as the Alphabetic and the Phonetic Writing systems, to which English, being the Second Language of the sample group and Sinhalese, being the First Language of the sample group, belong to, respectively. It then goes on to explain the Acquisition of the Second Language and the concept of Error Analysis. Afterwards, it gives a detailed account of how data was collected and the ways in which the errors were classified. The errors were classified under Substitution, Omission, Confusion of Consonant Doubling, Addition, Misapplication of Spelling rules, Transposition and Homophone Confusion. The results are then statistically analysed and discussed accordingly. The distinction between English and Sinhalese writing systems which tends to be attributed to the occurrence of these misspellings has been accounted for. It is surmised that the Sinhalese being a phonetic language, where words are written according to their pronunciation, habitually contradicts with the orthographic system of English being an Alphabetic language, where there is no one to one grapheme correspondence, hence the students are unable to transcribe as they do with Sinhalese. Unaware of this characteristic, they transcribe by habit, causing the misspelling of words as one grapheme represents several sounds in relation to the environment in which it appears. Therefore it is this L1 interference that causes the spelling errors by these students. It is important for both teachers and learners to be aware of underlying causes of spelling errors, in order to assist in minimising erroneous spelling. It is argued that understanding these causes could be of great help not only to second/foreign language (L2/FL) learners, but also to university lecturers in this field.
Chandas (Prosody) in Ayurveda: With Special Reference to Charaka Samhita
(Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Molligoda, S.P.; Jayawardana, K.B.
This research is about Chandas in Ayurveda. Chandas refers to one of the six Vedangas or limbs of Vedic studies. The study of Ayurveda as a Upaveda and Chandas as a Vedanga was collateral. The Chandas are developed by the Vedic schools, which were notable for including both linear and non-linear systems. It is the study of poetic metres in Ayurveda. This field of study was centered to the Charaka Samhitha. Charaka Samhitha is one of the main classics in Ayurveda. The commentators of Charaka Samhita have not mentioned the types of Chandas in context. The aim of this study is to identify the Chandas mentioned in Charaka Samhita and its syllable structure. Data which was compiled in this research has been elaborately arranged with the relevant illustration and in logical order. And data has been categorised in a precise and understandable way. Each Chandas has its own rhythm. The Ayurveda text were written mostly in simple and concise style known as „Suthra‟ and in combined form of both prose and verse. Prose is not tightening by akshara, maathra, gathi and yathi. On the other hand verse is bound by some rules. Based on the above facts it can be concluded that with the help of Chandas, the Ayurveda „Suthra‟ was preserved in its original form. This research gives a grater prospect to the researchers who are interested in undertaking a deep study of the Chandas.
The Use of Music as an Effective Tool in English as a Second Language Classrooms to Teach Verb Forms
(Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Gamage, S.U.
Today, most of the ESL learners in Sri Lanka consider English language learning as anxiety packed, insipid and an unconquerable obstacle. Moreover, Karunarathna (1993) has mentioned that the methods employed by the facilitator have not been successful at improving English proficiency of Sri Lankan school students. Especially, when teaching English verb forms, most of the facilitators have used the traditional chalk and talk method. If facilitators can integrate music into ELT (English Language Teaching), the ELT sessions can be converted into a stress free, learner friendly atmosphere. This study attempts to investigate whether music can be implemented in teaching English verb forms. The sample of this study consists of 80 students from the Faculty of Management Studies and Commerce of University of Sri Jayewardenepura. A pretest was administered to test their prior knowledge in English verb forms. After that, the selected sample was randomly divided into two groups. The control group was taught English verb forms in a traditional classroom setting whereas the experimental group was exposed to a teaching session of English verb forms using English songs. Later on, a posttest on English verb forms was administered to assess the proficiency level obtained by the students after getting them exposed to two different types of treatments. The results of the posttest showcased that, the students of the control group outperformed the experimental group in terms of the proficiency level obtained at the posttest. In conclusion, it is clearly evident that the use of English songs in ESL classrooms has not been supportive in teaching English verb forms.
Ithin e: kiyanne: An Investigation into Sinhala Discourse Markers
(Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Perera, K.
Even though discourse markers – such as „well‟ and „now‟ in English – have important functions in speech, they have not figured as an important research area in Sinhala language studies (Fraser 1999; Perera & Strauss 2015). This paper aims to provide a preliminary mapping of the forms and functions of Sinhala discourse markers. The data consist of naturally occurring speech in formal and informal settings including interviews, debates and conversations. These are transcribed and coded for their discursive functions. Using a broad definition of discourse markers as “sequentially dependent elements which bracket units of talk…which are both cataphoric and anaphoric” (Schiffrin 1988, p.31) over ten discourse markers are identified in the speech samples available. These include the markers „mehemayi‟, „ithin‟, „daen‟, „me:‟, „hondayi‟ and „e:kiyanne‟. The saliency of their use depends not only on the speech situation but personal differences as well. These findings illustrate the necessity of further research on Sinhala discourse features in order to understand how Sinhala discourse is structured.
Using Sinhalese in Teaching German as a Foreign Language for the Undergraduates of the University of Kelaniya
(Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Lansakara, L.H.M.D.S.
The study focuses on the controversy, revolving around the teachers‟ use of the mother tongue (MT) in foreign language (FL) teaching. Specifically, this report concentrates on the examination of German teachers‟ and learners‟ attitudes and methods of employing Sinhalese in teaching German language. Theoretical studies highlight that the MT should be fused by teachers in FL classrooms in resulting a productivity in acquiring a second language or a foreign language. The current study was conducted among the German language teachers and thirty randomly selected students who follow German language as a main subject, representing the three specific course levels of BA degree program conducted by the University of Kelaniya. The research tools were two particular questionnaires designed specifically for the purpose of the study, aiming the German teachers and the students selected. Additionally, the efficiency and the productivity of using Sinhalese in teaching German in the classrooms were examined through keen observations of the students‟ level of understanding and progress in acquiring the language as required. Hence, it becomes a qualitative data analysis. The findings reveal that the teachers‟ as well as the students‟ overall attitude towards the use of Sinhalese in German language classrooms is positive, however with limits; the teachers report that they use Sinhalese for teaching as well as for the classroom management while the students convey that the explanations in Sinhalese support them in understanding the German grammar and language facts better. This understanding will be followed by a comparison between the two particular languages (MT and FL) as well. The findings of this study will be useful in enhancing the quality of the acquisition of foreign languages with a base of using mother tongue and it will open up to approach the theories of applied linguistics in second language acquisition.
Symbols Applicable to the System of Notations of Teacher's Guides in Sri Lankan Schools: A Case Study in Hindustani Music
(Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Madusanka, P.A.A.
Hindustani music or the North Indian style of classical music is widely spread in the Indian subcontinent. Indian music is traditionally taught via oral methods and, until the 20th century, the rules of Indian music and compositions themselves are taught using teacher student method according to the guidance of the particular' Gharana'. However, a unique system of notations and classifications was primarily created by Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande in his book 'Kramik Pusthak Malika' compiled in 06 volumes and considered the primary source of the system of notations in Hindustani music. Accordingly, it has introduced a precise system of notation that is followed in singing and playing the instruments in many countries of Indian subcontinent based on the 'Kramik Pusthak Malika'. The research problem was to explore the hindrances that affect the enhancement of the Hindustani musical capabilities of students in Sri Lanka although they are capable, whereas the students in North-Indian subcontinent and other countries excel in this music style. The prime objective of this study was to identify the symbols used in the Hindustani musical notation system and to introduce a methodical symbols based on a 'Kramik Pusthak Malika' to the teacher‟s guides used in Sri Lankan schools by means of enhancing the capacity of singing and playing instruments by the students of secondary schools. A comparative study of the scores included in the book' Kramik Pusthak Malika' and the classical music scores included in the Teacher's Guides from grade 6 to 11 were used in this research. Additionally data were gathered by means of questionnaires and interviews using a sample of 51 students currently studying classical music under the grades 6 to 11, to observe if the weaknesses being researched are depicted in them. The study reveals that, when the Hindustani notations are translated into Sinhala, declines the originality of the musical theories related to the symbolic representation of the notations in the teacher‟s guides used in the Sri Lankan schools. Hence it further reveals the imperfection in the singing and playing of Rag by the student is due to improper application of representative symbols in Hindustani music.
A Study on the Use of English and Sanskrit Borrowings in Contemporary Sinhalese
(Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Pawithrani, C.
English and Sanskrit occupy significant places among the languages that have influenced the Sinhalese language. English and Sanskrit words have entered the lexicon of the Sinhalese language as both borrowings and derivative words. This study is concerned on the use of English and Sanskrit borrowings in contemporary Sinhalese. Data was collected by observing the use of English and Sanskrit borrowings in both spoken and written sources representing contemporary Sinhalese. The words directly borrowed from a different language without altering its form are known as borrowings. Borrowing Sanskrit words into Sinhalese has its history stretching at least up to Polonnaru era and most of those words are still being used in written Sinhalese. English can be considered the language with the biggest impact on contemporary Sinhalese. However, as opposed to those of Sanskrit, English borrowings are mostly used in spoken Sinhalese. The usage suggests that Sanskrit borrowings are preferred in written Sinhalese whereas English borrowings are preferred in spoken Sinhalese. As far as the Sinhalese language of the early eras is concerned, Sanskrit borrowings were used as an attempt to show one‟s erudition. Though this appears valid to a certain extent in contemporary Sinhalese, the major reason behind the use of Sanskrit borrowings in contemporary written Sinhalese appears to be spontaneity. The use of English borrowings in speech is also a matter of showing one‟s erudition and social status. In addition, as the case of Sanskrit borrowings, spontaneity can also be pointed out as a major reason for the use of English borrowings in spoken Sinhalese.
Impact of Collaborative Writing on Individual Writing: A Data Analysis
(Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Jokeswaran, V.
This paper is an analysis of the data of a study done in a partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree, Masters of Arts in TESL. The purpose of the study was to ascertain the impact of collaboration on individual composing of essays and informal letters and the attitude of the students to collaborative writing. Most of the studies done on the effectiveness of collaborative writing on individual composing compared collaboratively produced texts with those of individually produced to determine the impact caused by the collaboration. The study was done at J/Jaffna Central College, Jaffna, involving 64 students of Grade-10 assigned to control and experimental groups. The research is a mixed method approach, involving pre and post tests, pre and post focus group interviews, the audio recording of the interaction of collaborative groups and journal writing. This study investigates the effect of collaborative writing (CW), based on evidence, and argues that collaboration can have a potentially significant impact in ESL writing. The findings from pre and post test marks of individual composition and letter writing by the experimental group were statistically insignificant. Nevertheless, the difference in scores between pre and post tests of individual informal letter-writing proved to be statistically significant. The responses given in the journals and interviews suggest the participants prefer to do the writing tasks collaboratively. The findings of the study confirm that CW is a useful method which can enhance individual composition and letter-writing, and is particularly effective with informal letter-writing.
Past Tense in Jaffna Tamil and Sinhala: A Contrastive Study
(Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Senthuran, S.
Sri Lankan nation consists of varied cultures, languages and religions. Tamil and Sinhala are the major languages spoken in Sri Lanka. Sinhala belongs to the Indo-Aryan language family and Tamil belongs to the Dravidian language family. Morphology is two fold, namely noun morphology and verb morphology. Tenses play a main role in verb morphology. Generally tenses are not similar in the structure of all languages. There are many different types of tense systems in the languages of the world. Morphologically there are three different tenses in Jaffna Tamil. They are present tense, past tense and future tense. In spoken Sinhala there are two main tenses, namely past tense and non-past tense. Non-past tense includes present and future tenses. The main Objective of this paper is to bring out the similarities and the dissimilarities between past tense in Jaffna Tamil and Sinhala. This research involves contrastive and descriptive methodology. Primary data was collected through self- observation and personal interview method. The important sources of this research are secondary resources such as related books, journal articles and conference proceedings. The Tamil data represents the author‟s own dialect of Jaffna Spoken Tamil and the Sinhala data represents the standard spoken Sinhala dialect. Accordingly, a number of similarities and dissimilarities between the past tense in the two languages are identified. Further, it has been discovered that these dissimilarities create difficulties for second language learners.
An Investigation on the Impact of Code-Switching and Code-Mixing in Teaching Hindi as a Foreign Language to the Native Sinhalese Speakers
(Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Chandrasekara, P.V.S.
Hindi is taught as a foreign language at University of Kelaniya for the students of B.A. General and B.A. Special degree programs. Impact of Second Language; English (L2) plays a vital role in the process of teaching and learning Hindi as a foreign language to the native Sinhalese speakers. The case of switching between two or three languages during a conversation can be seen while teaching and learning Hindi language. Thus Code-Switching and Code-Mixing have become a common phenomenon in teaching and learning process of Hindi to the bilingual students in Sri Lanka. This paper aims to study the impact of CS and CM in learning and teaching Hindi language to the students of the University of Kelaniya. This survey investigated fifty students and ten lecturers attached to the Department of Hindi Studies, University of Kelaniya. Qualitative (questionnaire) and quantitative (open ended questions) methods were conducted to collect data. This investigation shows that most of the teachers use CS and CM to introduce new words and grammar rules to the beginners and low-proficiency learners. According to the teachers although CS and CM helps the students to get through their examination easily, it affects badly the language proficiency of students. According to the students they use CS and CM in the class room when it is hard to find appropriate words in Hindi to express their thoughts. Although teachers consider that CS and CM help the students to get through their examinations easily, this research shows the negative perception of the students towards the teachers those who use too much of CS and CM while teaching. This paper indicates that the excessive use of CS and CM while teaching may badly affect the spoken ability of the students.
Satirical News Papers in Sri Lanka: Language and Effectivity
(Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Madushanka, H.A.G.
The role played by the satirical newspapers in the current society has become significant due to its unique features, especially the language of humour through which the current affairs are communicated to the general public at the same time influencing their opinion. With this study the researcher attempts to examine the styles of language, the visual language and the writing structures employed in the mentioned genre of newspapers. In conducting the research five satirical newspapers were selected under the purposive and judgmental sample and further, qualitative research approach was used. The content of the said newspapers were examined and analysed and it was figured out that the satirical language employed in the newspapers has been more effective as its creative approach has permitted a powerful communication towards the reader.