Institutional Language Planning Situation of the Faculty of Humanities, University of Kelaniya: A Case Study

Abstract

Language planning is the deliberate, systematic and theory-based attempt to solve the communication problems of a community by selecting an official language and standardising its structure. Even though language planning is generally a national programme undertaken by a government, observations have been made of institutional language planning situations concerned with the internal language policy of individual institutes. This study intends to examine the nature of the institutional language planning situation of the Faculty of Humanities, University of Kelaniya. Out of the six faculties of the university three faculties, namely Medicine, Science and Cornmerce & Management Studies employ English as the sole medium of instruction. The other three faculties, namely Humanities, Social Sciences and Graduate Studies employ a bilingual policy of both Sinhalese and English languages as media of instruction. The Faculty of Humanities, which is the subject of investigation of the present study, is consist of ten departments. The Department of Buddhist and Pali Studies conducts lectures in both Sinhalese and English. The Department of English, conducts lectures only in English, while the English Teaching Unit conducts lectures in both Sinhalese and English. Yet, it is mandatory for students to offer exams in English. Five other departments, namely the Department of Sinhala, the Department of Sanskrit, the Department of Linguistics, the Department of Western Classical Culture, and the Department of Fine Arts conduct lectures only in Sinhalese. The Department of Hindi keeps to a trilingual policy conducting lectures in Sinhalese, English and Hindi. The Department of Modem Languages conducts lectures mostly in the respective languages taught, but the Sinhalese and English languages are also employed where necessary. All these departments except the Department of Sinhala allow undergraduates offer exams in English on request. From this brief study it is evident that the language policy of.the faculty is not uniform and depends vehemently on the subjects taught in each of the departments.