ICLSL 2017
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Item An Analysis of the Contribution of Information and Communication Technology towards the Improvement of the Writing Skills of Second Language Learners.(The Third International Conference on Linguistics in Sri Lanka, ICLSL 2017. Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Alfred, R.In the last few years, the focus on information and technology has been increasing dramatically. Information and communication technology has a profound effect on almost all the spheres and its influence and effects on education are noticeably decisive. Language teaching and learning through the internet is remarkable with the opportunities provided by the online resources, network services, and educational software. Moreover, the advances and increasing use of technology have paved way for the most significant changes in the genres of written communication in language use. Most of the undergraduates at University of Jaffna are often unable to produce language in written form and to comprehend the written instructions in their exam papers. Their lack of accuracy and fluency in language usage have resulted in numerous systematic and non-systematic errors which are to be found in their writing. This affects the academic progress of the enrolled learners and results in grave consequences like fossilization in their interlanguage where they are unable to move further in the process of learning their second language. Lack of access to internet and computer, technological devices, resources, network services and educational programmes for writing is the sole reason for such problems in countries like Sri Lanka. This paper, in its mixed method approach, tries to analyse how online tools and services are now increasingly becoming essential and how the students should be encouraged and motivated to use online discourses to develop their writing skills. The students are divided into two groups – control and experimental and through an intervention the conclusion will be drawn out. The research attempts to find out the ways to encourage students to express their learning difficulties freely and improve their skills through technology.Item Reliability of Google translate in English to Sinhalese Translation.(The Third International Conference on Linguistics in Sri Lanka, ICLSL 2017. Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Gunasinghe, M.P.D.Translations, throughout the past, have been done by the human translators; but today, along with the technology, keeping a step ahead, the human translators are being replaced by machine translators. Systran‟s translation programme, and the Papago app from Naver, Google translate are some of the machine translators which the world community use frequently. Among the machine translators, Google translate has become popular throughout the world due to the convenience in its accessibility and its capability to provide translations in almost all the languages, which exist on Earth. It is unarguable that the machine translators are much faster than the human translators. However, the problem arises, as to how far a machine translator translates accurately, without harming the meaning of the original text. Most of the time, the Google Translate could translate simple sentences, but when it comes to subtle expressions, idioms the Human Translators perform better. Thus, this research in particular, attempts to find out how far one can depend on the translations provided by the Google Translate when translating from English to Sinhalese. Necessary data has been collected through translating simple sentences, idioms, proverbs, sentences that contain subtle expressions of emotions and few complex sentences that cover both technical translations and literal translations from English to Sinhalese, using the Google Translate. Meanwhile, the same sentences, phrases and the words too have been translated again manually and the both translations were compared. In addition, a questionnaire was given in order to find out the how far the Google Translate users get a proper translation through it. Unlike the human translators, the Google translate mostly provides the direct translations instead of an accurate translation, which sometimes does not provide any sense. By analysing the data collected, it is evident that 75% of the translations obtained via the Google Translate could not give the exact idea embedded in the original text. In addition, majority has found it difficult to get a proper translation via Google Translate when translating from English to Sinhalese. Thus, though a machine translator always perform its task quicker than the Human Translator, there should be a human touch for almost every translation in order to obtain an accurate translation.