Browsing by Author "Srikantharajah, S."

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First Language Interference in Learning Tamil as a Second Language:A Case Study.
(The Third International Conference on Linguistics in Sri Lanka, ICLSL 2017. Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Srikantharajah, S.
Language learning has been one of the significant interest in the humanistic discipline. In recent studies, First Language Learning is viewed as a part of individual's biological development. Second Language Learning is a major discipline in both Applied Linguistics and Psycholinguistics, which have gained significance in educational contexts around the world today. In Sri Lanka Tamil Language acts as the First Language for Tamil and Muslim people, further the Sinhalese students learn it as a Second Language. Since Tamil and Sinhalese Languages belong to different Language families, many similarities and differences can be identified between these two languages. The aim of this research is to identify the Sinhalese Language interference in learning Tamil as a Second Language. A sample of twenty-three first year students, who are following Translation studies at the Department of Linguistics in University of Kelaniya were selected for this study. In the process of learning Tamil as a Second Language, students tend to perform many errors because of the interference of their first Language. The data were collected by studying the answer scripts, written assignments and presentations of the above-mentioned group of students. Twenty-three written assignments and answer scripts were analyzed using the theory of error analysis. Being a structural analysis, it consideres the errors from the lexical level. Thus, the first Language influence could be seen in morphological and syntactic levels. Significantly, many errors could be identified in morphological level, where 75% of the students made errors particularly in cases in Tamil. There are eight cases in Tamil and the Sinhalese students have shown no errors when making sentences in 1st (Nominative) and 8th (Vocative) cases because they are similar to Sinhalese, whereas they have made considerable number of errors when making sentences in other cases, particularly the 2nd (Accusative) and the 4th (Dative). Therefore, word-to-word translation is not effective in teaching cases in Tamil for the Sinhalese students, thus, it is recommended to teach Tamil while comparing the grammar rules with Sinhalese.
The Grammatical Aspects of Grade 10 Tamil Language and Literature old and New Syllabuses: A Comparative Analysis
(Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Srikantharajah, S.
Linguistics is the scientific study of language which includes the study of sounds, words and grammatical aspects. The rules of a language are learnt as one acquires a language. These rules include Phonology, Morphology, Syntax and Semantics which are the branches of a language. Knowing a language encompasses this entire system. The grammatical aspects [morphology and syntax] are the major areas in language learning and teaching. The structure and the meaning of a language can be studied through grammatical aspects. On the other hand understanding the meaning of a word without knowing the semantics and pragmatics is meaningless. The linguists expect to encompass the concepts of modern linguistics with the concepts of traditional grammar in language teaching. After every eight years generally the school syllabi gets updated. In 2015 the ministry of education introduced a new syllabus for grade 6 and 10 students. Based on that a comparative research study was conducted to examine the grammatical aspects found in grade 10 old (2007) and new (2015) syllabi with a linguistics perspective. Consequently, it was found out that, some new linguistic aspects have been included in the new syllabus: Allophones, technical terms, types of adjectives and concord. Further, it was found out that some linguistic aspects which could have been included in the syllabus have not been added. With my paper I suggest the linguistics aspects which could have been included in order to uplift the academic level of the syllabus. Further, the grammatical changes existing in between the two syllabi will be compared through this paper.
The Influence of Sinhalese Dative Case suffix /-ʈə/ in Learning Tamil as a Second Language in Sri Lanka: A Case Study
(International Postgraduate Research Conference 2019, Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2019) Srikantharajah, S.
Sri Lanka is a multi-lingual and multi-ethnic society. Sinhalese and Tamil Languages are regarded as national languages by the two major linguistics communities: Sinhalese and Tamils. Teaching of Second National Language in secondary school curriculum was introduced by the Sri Lankan Government as compulsory subject in grades 6 to 9 and as an optional subject in grades 10 to 11 also it is taught as compulsory and optional unit in some universities of Sri Lanka which is also one important way to promote national unity in Sri Lanka. The role of First Language [L1] has been recognized as major linguistic activity in Second language [L2] learning. Particularly due to the interference of L1, learners of L2 find it difficult at the initial stage of learning the Language. Furthermore, when constructing sentences the learners have the tendency to translate literally following the syntactic rules of their L1. The aim of this study is to identify the influence of Sinhalese dative case suffix /-ʈə/ in learning Tamil as a second Language. when the attention is focused on learning case inflection in Tamil by Sinhalese native speakers as a beginner in the first year at the Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, it has been observed that the learners faced certain difficulties to structure and comprehend the sentences with case inflected nouns due to the multiple usage of dative case marker /-ʈə/ in their L1. The comparative analysis of Sinhalese and Tamil Language says that, the Sinhalese dative case suffix /-ʈǝ/ is equal to /-kku/ in Tamil. Therefore the students who are studying Tamil as a second Language are interfered with this grammatical aspect. When the suffix /-ʈǝ/ occurs in Sinhalese sentences, they try to translate it by applying the suffix /-kku-/ in Tamil without considering the multiple usage of /-ʈǝ/. According to this research, influence of Sinhalese dative case suffix /-ʈǝ/ had been identified on the following L2 cases: Instrumental, Accusative, ablative case with the Significance meaning of motion from (an animate object) and locative case with the Significance meaning of on the person of (animate). This study is intended only for the spoken variety of Tamil and Sinhalese. The Tamil data represent the Jaffna Tamil and the Sinhalese data represent the western dialect of Sinhalese. Research sample of this study limited to 30 students at beginner level of Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya. The data was collected by reviewing the questionnaire, analyzing the students’ performance and classroom observation were also done in order to gather data. In conclusion, the knowledge of contrastive features of case inflection of the two languages and identifies the interference of First Language are very essential for effective learning and teaching a Second Language