What is ‘Linguistic interference’? A linguistic study with special reference to the Sinhala and English languages

Abstract

When a speaker knows more than one language, because of their disparity, one language can be influenced by the other language. This is more familiar in the bilingual context. Contemporary, Sri Lanka is a bilingual country. In Sri Lanka, Sinhala, Tamil and English are used. In this research, our attention is specially only paid to Sinhala and English languages. Especially, the problem or this research is to examine how linguistic interference functions on Sinhala and English languages in Sri Lankan context. When one uses two languages together those two languages could be influenced by each other. This process is termed in Bilingualism as interference which means the influence for each other. This belongs to the use of the language. While using two languages, not only phonological but also semantic, grammatical, lexicon and cultural changes are usually made. Here, the word ‘change’ stands for interference. In this topic, what is interference, what are the types of interference are discussed with examples with special reference to Sinhala and English languages. To study the nature of the interference of above mentioned languages data have been collected by closely referencing the colloquial use of Sinhala and English languages. Sri Lanka as a bilingual society, interference can be seen in the day to day conversation. Further, it can be divided into five categories such as phonological, semantic, grammatical, lexicon and cultural interference. In conclusion, interference is not an uncommon process of the languages used in the world. So, there is no exception to Sinhala and English.