Browsing by Author "Wickramasinghe, C."

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An Analysis on Sinhalese Subtitling on the Movie "The Dictator”
(Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Kaushalya, H.; Wickramasinghe, C.; Gunawardhana, T.
The cinema is a captivating, if complex route to the cultural sphere where it is born, which makes it difficult for the spectators from another lin/,'llistic dimension to grasp the notion behind the screen. This is one ofthe areas in which translators are most visible with their work in subtitling. Subtitling is the bridge that links those two cultural spheres that appear as a textual version of dialogue, in a movie that are usually displayed at the bottom of the screen. It is generally agreed that subtitling via cultures is rather a difficult task. This study is based on the film "The Dictator" by Larry Charles where a dictator who dreams that democracy would never come to his country he so lovingly oppressed. It extends for a time duration of ninety minutes with constant dialogues. A Sinhalese version of subtitling has never been released. When analysed, several factors could be identified as the notion behind this. The biggest problem a translator would encounter during the process of subtitling the movie is the unique language style of the protagonist. He has such an absurd composition that he uses a lot of personal affiictions, swearing and slang from a language combination of Hebrew, Arabic and English. Transferring satire is the other complication a translator may encounter. Satire plays a major role in the movie but the sense of humour bounds with certain dialogues are vastly related to American culture and sexually explicit content that Sri Lankan spectatorship may not be familiarised with. Thus, it is problematic for a translator to utilise the content appropriately. Hence, if advanced with the above complications, the outcome would be unproductive. This results in a loss; partial or complete of the source film's message.
Redesigning new policy options for thalassemia prevention in Sri Lanka
(Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, 2022) Amarasinghe, N.; Amarasena, A.; Thabrew, A.; Werawatte, P.; Premawardhena, A.; Malik, F.; Abusayeed, M.; Wickramasinghe, C.
Sri Lanka, a country with 22 million people, has nearly 2000 thalassemia patients with severe thalassemia, two-thirds of whom have beta thalassemia major (TM). The current prevention program based on promoting “safe marriages”, which has been in existence for over 15 years, has failed to reduce thalassemia major births. We set about to examine the cost-effectiveness of novel policy options for thalassemia prevention in Sri Lanka. METHODS: The current cost for treatment of a thalassemia major patient (USD 2602/yr) was compared against the cost per reduction of single birth with three novel strategies, namely intensifying the screening in the current five districts combined with an education program (policy option 1), a nationwide screening program (policy option 2), and antenatal screening combined with the termination of pregnancy (policy option 3). The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) of the different strategies was calculated. RESULTS: The status quo was considered to reduce one TM birth whilst the new policy options were able to reduce births by 14, 35, and 48, respectively. The costs incurred for the program for a year for status quo and the three novel programs were USD 104,788, 173,884, 781,372, and 904,186 respectively. Cost per prevention of a thalassemia major birth was USD 87,324, 12,420, 22,324, and 20,084, respectively. The lifetime cost per treatment of a thalassemia major patient was USD 34,653. CONCLUSIONS: Given the current legal restriction on termination of pregnancy for fetal indications, policy option 2, an island-wide screening with mass education, is the most cost-effective and will be expected to deliver a substantial reduction in new births.