Browsing by Author "Jeyaseelan, S."

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A Comparative Study of Words in Tamil Baby Talk
(Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Wijeratne, W.M.; Jeyaseelan, S.
This research study is aimed at identifying similarities and differences of baby words in Tamil. Baby talk (BT) is the language used by infants aged below five or six years to talk to each other or to talk to parents or care givers. BT is also used with adult intimates as well as pets to show affection. Sometimes it is used with adults to show contempt. Baby talk is referred to as caretaker speech, infant-directed speech (IDS), child-directed speech (CDS), motherese or parentese. BT is found in any language, and Sinhala and Tamil are not exceptions. In Tamil it is called "koiy". BT may differ from place to place and from person to person. This phenomenon is seen in Tamil Baby Talk as well. Thus data was collected from northern part of Sri Lanka, namely Vavuniya, Mannar, Trincomalee and Jaffna with the help of mothers and caretakers of five children. Direct observation was also carried out. Transcribed data was analyzed structurally to identify similarities and differences. It is found that BT words are not the same everywhere and have some variations depending on the place and person. In some instances the whole word is different, in other instances the phonemic shape or the morphology differed significantly.
A Comparative Study of Words in Tamil Baby Talk.
(Journal of the Faculty of Graduate Studies, 2017) Wijeratne, W. M.; Jeyaseelan, S.
Baby talk (BT) is the language used by babies who are below five or six years, for the purpose of communicating with each other or with their parents or care takers. Dil (1971:13, as given in Meegaskumbura 1980:289) uses it "to refer to the adult talk to the baby". Kelkar (1964:40) identifies it as a "fond concession". That is to say that adults use baby talk for fondling. Accordingly, they use it to develop intimacy and to show affection. BT encourages children to engage in the conversation lively. Ferguson (1964:103) defines it as "any special form of language which is regarded by speech community as being primarily appropriate for talking to young children and which is generally regarded as not the normal adult use of language". This indicates that BT is a special, 'not normal' language variety. Thus, it is called "abnormal type" (Sapier, 1949:179), "simplified version" (Bloomfield, 1933:472), "marginal system" Ferguson (ibid), "devient style" (Bell, 1976:158). BT is also referred to as caretaker speech, Infant-Directed Speech (IDS), Child-Directed Speech (CDS) or motherese. Child-Directed Speech (CDS) is the use of intonation, pitch, repetition and the simplification of syntax that adults use to address infants (Chang, 2010). For Example: Phrases like “do you want miiiiiiiilk “? “You want bikka”? These are referred as "motherese" or "parentese". It is the spontaneous way of talking in which mothers, fathers, and caretakers do speak with infants and young children.
Error Analysis: An Investigation of the Writing of English as a Second Language
(University of Kelaniya, 2015) Wijeratne, W.M.; Jeyaseelan, S.
Errors are significant in the teaching and learning process of English as Second Language learners. Error analysis is a useful practice in second language learning because it reveals the problematic areas to teachers, syllabus designers and text book writers. Therefore, it is mandatory for teachers to summarize these frequently appearing errors, and stress to students of these errors as often as possible so that they can make greater effort to avoid them and improve their writing. The purpose of this study was to investigate the errors committed in using the articles, the past tense and the irregular past tense made by Vavuniya Campus first year English as Second Language learners in their English writings. For this study seventy-two students were taken as a sample and the same number of scripts were collected as a data and analyzed. Based on the Corder’s error analysis method the data was analyzed qualitatively. The findings reveal these errors are mainly caused by over-generalization. Intralingual errors occur due to the difficulty and irregular nature of the English language. Further, the failure to learn, understand the concept and use grammatical elements highlights the excessive use of the articles and irregular past tense in their writing. This study reveals that the performance of the Sri Lankan university students in the use of the rules of grammatical morphemes in concrete entities and events are yet to be improved. This poses a serious problem in using the grammatical morphemes with abstract entities and events of management discipline with sophisticated linguistic and theoretical expressions at the tertiary level. To be sustainable, this recommendation has to be implemented at the school level as well.
Learning grammatical morphemes in English writing skill courses: an experimental study. M.Phil. Thesis, University of Kelaniya.
(2014) Jeyaseelan, S.
The Logical Relationship between the Writing Errors and the Acquisition Order of the English Grammatical Morphemes
(Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Jeyaseelan, S.; Wijeratne, W.M.
The study of the acquisition of the grammatical morphemes seems to be a key concern of this study in terms of the order of acquisition. Acquisition order is very much inter-related with the process of second language learning and acquisition. The grammatical morpheme like third person singular –„s‟ is acquired later than the other morphemes such as the plural-„s‟ and the past tense –„ed‟. The research problem is however, the teachers deal with the learners making errors in such morphemes repetitively. The objective is to investigate the logical relationship between the acquisition order and the errors. The first year students of the Faculty of Business Studies of Vavuniya Campus were selected as the sample. The convenient sampling method was used. The data were collected by conducting tests based on the nine grammatical morphemes. The findings reveal that the use of some morphemes the copula-„be‟, the auxiliary-„be‟, the possessive –„s‟, and the irregular past are used less than the plural –„s‟, the past tense –„ed‟, and the progressive –„ing‟. The reasons for less or no errors in the use of the morphemes can be attributed to the non-attempt nature and a strategy of the respondents to avoid using any forms difficult to be used correctly. There is a logical relationship between the findings of the ranking order of the morphemes based on the results of the closed test and the findings of their use in the creative writing assignment. The morphemes of the lower ranks in the closed-test are used less or not used at all in the creative writing.