ICLSL 2017

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From „Facebook‟ to „Bukiya‟: Language Change in Facebook among Undergraduates of the University of Vocational Technology.
(The Third International Conference on Linguistics in Sri Lanka, ICLSL 2017. Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Karunarathna, J. A. M. B.; Jayashan, M. N. L. C. L.; Wijayasen, W. A. S. R.; Papith, V.; Shakthibaala, S.; Dharmadasa, A.S.U.; Nizreen, Z.
Language transmits cultural values, norms and beliefs. Media has always influenced the constant change of language. Especially with the rapid change of technology, from internet to smartphones, it has changed the way people communicate. It is said that human communication has become easier and quicker through social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. As long as human communication has become quicker through social networking, language has also changed rapidly. It has contributed to English language by adding words and phrases such as „OMG‟, „LOL‟, unfriend, etc. among the users. The aim of the research is to investigate the changes occurred in the language being used in the social media among Sri Lankan users with particular focus on Facebook. Data is collected in snowball sampling technique from the undergraduates of University of Vocational Technology, through six voluntary research agents. They are active users of Facebook and collected data for four months. These voluntary research agents are undergraduates of University of Vocational Technology, Sri Lanka. In collecting data, morphological changes were focused in status updates and comments in Facebook, in Sinhala, Tamil and English among the undergraduates of University of Vocational Technology. Findings were thematically categorized and analyzed. Results shows interesting findings across languages, such as the variations of the same word in Sinhala „supiri‟, „patta‟, „pata pata‟ to „fatta‟ throughout the time, and a similar word for the same in status updates in Tamil „sattapadi‟. Further, according to findings, many morphological changes have occurred with blending and borrowing. However, comments made in English language show a comparative reduction to „likes‟ and emojis. Findings illustrate the necessity of further research in analysis of discourse across three languages in social media since the language change is rapid, complex and unprecedented.
Code Mixing as a Ruled Governed Phenomenon– A Study with Special Reference to the Tamil-English Mixed Discourse.
(The Third International Conference on Linguistics in Sri Lanka, ICLSL 2017. Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Sanmuganathan, K.; Wijerathne, W.M.
In bilingual and multilingual societies, there are usually at least two interacting language groups, each representing different cultural and linguistic features. Sri Lanka is a multilingual country where there is a tendency of mixing two languages as a communicative strategy used by the speakers. It has been observed that mixing of indigenous languages - Sinhala, Tamil and English is a common speech behaviour, which occurs in the discourse of educated bilinguals in Sri Lanka. There have been several studies on sociolinguistic, structural linguistic and psycholinguistic aspects of code mixing in different countries. In recent years, researchers have increasingly focused on the linguistic constraints on code mixing. The objective of this study is to investigate the rules of code-mixing (CM) in Tamil-English mixed language data. The focus of the present study of Tamil-English mixed discourse is the educated urban bilinguals in Jaffna. From a syntactic point of view, it is proposed that code mixing is governed by a host code/guest code principle. This principle says that in a code-mixed discourse involving languages L1 and L2, where L1 is the host code and L2 is the guest code, the morphosyntactic rules of L2 must conform to the morphosyntactic rules of L1, the language of the discourse. In order to determine the rules that govern Tamil-English CM, the qualitative method of analysis was adopted. The present study drew upon data collected a recorded spontaneous conversation between bilinguals in a language contact situation in which the two languages are syntactically very different from each other, namely, Tamil and English. The data collected were analyzed and findings were derived. Linguistically, the analysis confirms that Tamil-English Code-mixing is a rule-governed behaviour. The study addresses that Tamil English code mixing is a rule governed phenomenon, that is, there are constraints that govern where in a sentence a code-mix can occur and where it cannot occur. In that context, CM facilitates to avoid communicative hindrances.
Attitudes towards the Use of Web 2.0 Tools for Learning ESL: A Case Study Conducted at the Advanced Technological Institute, Gampaha.
(The Third International Conference on Linguistics in Sri Lanka, ICLSL 2017. Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Jayathilake, M. V. M.; Shantha, P. H. A. B.
With the advancement of the web technologies, almost all the fields get more benefits than previously and education is one of most benefited sectors. There is a growing interest in online classroom settings in learning second languages. There are a number of research studies that have used empirical and exploratory methods to assess and evaluate the actual impact of using Web 2.0 tools in learning English as second language, because Web 2.0 tools have shifted language learners from passive recipients into active contributors. Based on this rationale, the present study aims at exploring attitudes toward the use of Web 2.0 tools for leaning English as a second language. However, the question arises as to whether alternative higher education sector students have similar Web 2.0 experiences in ESL as their higher education sector peers. In this study, the core objective is to evaluate attitudes towards using Web 2.0 tools in Leaning English as a Second Language in the higher Education sector of Sri Lanka. Accordingly, 260 students from Advanced Technological Institute (ATI), Gampaha were selected as the sample. Framework of this study is based on Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). The study made use of a mixed method approach and the participants‟ attitudes were elicited through the use of a questionnaire which included open-ended questions to collect qualitative data and structured questions which ensured the collection of quantitative data. Responses given to open-ended questions were analyzed through coding the statements while the responses to structured questions were analyzed by calculating the frequencies. The results showed that all the respondents rated the items positively within all six dimensions of TAM. Web 2.0 tools had significant correlations to TAM dimensions and the majority of students have positive attitudes regarding the use of an interactive web environment and the learning benefits that ensued.
A Study on the Attitudes and Issues of the Undergraduates Who have Completed the Compulsory English Course for Humanities Students.
(The Third International Conference on Linguistics in Sri Lanka, ICLSL 2017. Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Keerthiwansha, N.W.B.S.
The compulsory English course is designed to improve the English language knowledge of the undergraduates to assist them to continue their respective courses at the university. However, even after the completion of the course, the majority of the undergraduates show difficulties in basic grammar, academic writing and speaking. Therefore, this particular research is designed to identify the attitudes of the undergraduates who have already completed the compulsory course to make suggestions for further improvements. Twenty-five third year undergraduates were chosen to give a questionnaire to record their attitudes regarding the course before the commencement and after the completion of the course, the remaining language issues they have and their personal opinion regarding the course. Through the data analysis it was found that the course do not have a text book. The majority of 87% have stated that the time duration of 2 hours per week for 15 weeks is not enough for the course. More importantly, when their attitude regarding the course before the commencement of the course is noteworthy because the majority of 83% had expected that the course would solve some of their English language issues and 17% had thought that the course would solve all their English language issues. On the contrary, none of the participants stated that all their issues were solved after completing the course while the majority of 74% have stated that some of their issues were solved and the remaining 16% has stated that none of their issues was solved after the course. In addition, writing skills were not improved and the time allocation for listening and speaking was quite low. Majority of 63% has specifically stated that the focus on improving speaking skills was inadequate, which was the most critical language skill for the undergraduates. Thus, designing a textbook to cover all the necessary grammar rules, extending the duration of the course, focusing more on presentation skills, speaking and academic writing can be suggested to improve the quality of the course and to meet the language needs of the undergraduates.
A Case Study on the Effectiveness of Oral Approach in Internalizing the English Tenses.
(The Third International Conference on Linguistics in Sri Lanka, ICLSL 2017. Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Sandya, B. M.; Atchuthan, Y.
Writing sentences without making mistakes in the application of tenses is important to express the intended meaning. In Sri Lankan context, even though the students are learning English as a second language from the elementary level, and even at tertiary education, they make mistakes in English tenses. The aim of this study is to examine the effectiveness of oral approach to internalize the structure of tenses. Fifty first year students from the Faculty of Business Studies at Vavuniya Campus were selected as the random sample of the study and the study was conducted for three months using quantitative and qualitative research methods. Pre-tests and post-test were conducted to evaluate the students‟ progress. According to the pre-test, 43 students (86%) made mistakes in tenses while only 7 students (14%) formed accurate sentences using the tenses. Therefore, all the tenses in English were taught one by one and at the end of the teaching of each tense, 15 minutes were allocated for oral practice. Each student in the classroom was given a chance to produce at least 10 sentences orally and when they made mistakes, they were corrected by the researcher. After three months, a written test was conducted. This post-test revealed that 48 students, 96%, wrote sentences using the tenses correctly, while only 2 students, 4%, made mistakes again. Compared to pre-test, the number of students who wrote sentences using correct structure of tenses in the post-test increased by 41 which is 82% of the total sample. The number of students who made mistakes have been reduced to 4% which was 86% in the pretest. The results show the dramatic improvement of internalization of the tenses through oral approach. Students could form grammatically correct sentences promptly on various topics using correct structure of tenses. Further the students became very active, interactive and entertainers through the practicing in the classroom. Thus the study recommends that oral approach is more effective to internalize the English tenses.
A Study on the English Language (L2) Proficiency of the Bilingual Education Teachers of the Sri Lankan Government Schools in North Central Province.
(The Third International Conference on Linguistics in Sri Lanka, ICLSL 2017. Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Abeynayake, T.
Bilingual Education (BE) promotes full development of two languages, preparing individuals to function in a global society. It has become a cornerstone of education in the twenty-first century. This study examines whether the English Language (L2) proficiency of the BE teachers of the government schools in the North Central Province helps to facilitate the BE students in their subject matter. The study is based on a complex analysis, which consists of web pages, questionnaires distributed among 50 BE students in the North Central Province, the written documents of 20 selected Bilingual Education teachers, classroom observations and interviews. The data was collected and analyzed manually using Microsoft Office Excel 2007. The findings show that more than 50% of the BE teachers prove that their vocabulary is very poor. Majority of the BE teachers are not using correct English grammar for the purpose of accurate and effective communication. 65% of BE teachers make errors and mistakes when using punctuation marks. The findings strongly decide that majority of the BE learners are exposed to wrong formation of letters. The wrong articulation of words are presented to the BE learners by 90% of the BE teachers and 80% of the BE teachers make errors and mistakes in translation. The results of the research show that various language errors and mistakes are done by the BE teachers of the government schools in the North Central Province. BE learners face a number of problems in acquiring their subject matter due to the lack of English Language proficiency of the teachers. Moreover, this research illustrates whether the teachers, who educate the future generation have acquired the above mentioned competency levels in their education.
Exploitation of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to Overcome Learner Anxiety in Speaking English as a Second Language: An Action Research in a University Context.
(The Third International Conference on Linguistics in Sri Lanka, ICLSL 2017. Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Kariyawasam, A.
The present study is an action research conducted within the Sri Lankan university context to examine if learner anxiety in speaking English as a second language can effectively be combatted through Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), i.e. through cognitive restructuring and behaviour modification. As CBT has been used as one of the most efficient treatments in multiple domains related to contemporary psychological counselling and psychotherapy, the current study is an equal attempt in psycholinguistics to find pragmatic solutions to language-related problems through CBT. The research participants were a purposive sample of 8 female undergraduates who were selected as of higher L2 speaking anxiety based on L2 Speaking Anxiety Scale, and 10 therapeutic sessions were conducted with them; adhering to a methodology of mixed method research for data collection and data analysis. The research procedure consisted of a pretest, which was held initially and identified diverse manifestations of learner anxiety; with empirical evidence for the dynamic interplay between negative core-beliefs/cognitive distortions and maladaptive behaviour as well as skill deficiency which were keys to generate L2 speaking anxiety among the undergraduates. Depending on the L2 learners and the learning context, significant CBT techniques were applied accordingly. The CBT techniques used were psycho-education and developing mindfulness, countering, cognitive rehearsal, exposure and breathing techniques, developing self-esteem and skills. In conclusion, the post-test results after the therapeutic intervention revealed a significant reduction of L2 speaking, insisting that L2 speaking anxiety among undergraduates could effectively be combatted through CBT. Thus, the research was a meticulous investigation of the pragmatic aspect of anxiety reducing techniques within an Asian L2 teaching-learning context, re-conceptualizing and redefining the role of ESL teachers as well as the ESL learners at the tertiary level.
Future Tense in Jaffna Tamil: Based on Comrie‟s Point of View.
(The Third International Conference on Linguistics in Sri Lanka, ICLSL 2017. Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Senthuran, S.
There are different types of tense systems in languages of the World. In Tamil language, morphologically there are three tenses namely: Present, Past and Future tense. According to Comrie‟s views, tenses are categorized as Absolute tense and Relative tense. Relative tense has two sub categories as pure relative tense and absolute – relative tense. Absolute and relative tenses described in Comrie‟s theory are found in Tamil language: Present, past future, present progressive, past progressive, future progressive. Still tense and not-yet tenses are functioned as absolute tenses. Absolute tense means that all events are related to the present moment (time of speaking). Its reference point for the location of situation is present moment. The aim of this study is to identify the special features of future tense in Tamil language and different usages of future tense in Tamil language. This research involves descriptive method. Primary data was collected from the informants of the Jaffna Tamil native speakers through the participant observation method. Secondary data of this research were collected from related novels and books. Collected data was analysed using structural analysis and thematic analysis method. The findings revealed that future tense has special features. In Jaffna Spoken Tamil, more future tense aspects are expressed than in Comrie‟s views. Comrie mainly analyses the aspect of future tense of English and other languages. However, according to Comrie‟s theory, future tense aspects agree with Jaffna spoken Tamil. As far as Tamil is concerned, in spoken context, , the future time reference, the time adverbs, present tense forms, future suffixes and whole sentence meanings indicate the future time reference.
Implementing Communicative Language Teaching at Tertiary Level:A Case Study.
(The Third International Conference on Linguistics in Sri Lanka, ICLSL 2017. Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Rajakumar, T.
The English language, which is taught as a second language in Sri Lanka from the primary level is not considered as a compulsory subject in the secondary level education or at the Advance level Examination. Therefore, students do not pay much attention to learn English. In Sri Lanka, after the secondary level education, minimum numbers of students are selected to the universities. Majority of the students are enrolled to other tertiary level institutions. Most of the tertiary level learners start their English education in their tertiary level. Therefore, it is essential to teach tertiary level learners to fit the world of work because employers consider the competency in English when recruiting their employees. In the world, different types of language teaching methods are applied to teach a second language. Communicative language teaching (CLT) is one of the well-known teaching methods. This study based on CLT, which was conducted with the purpose of implementing it at tertiary level. The research intends to anayse the teachers‟ perception about CLT and challengers they face while implementing CLT in their classroom. Qualitative descriptive method was employed for this study. Data collected through classroom observation, questionnaire and teachers‟ interview. English teachers who are working at College of Technology Jaffna were taken for the study and 15 teachers were selected for answer questionnaires. Additionally, four English teachers were selected for an interview, whereas three English classrooms were observed. Then the qualitative data generated through these instruments were presented using tables and charts and they were analyzed in narrative form. The findings of the study indicated that teachers who participated this study have some ideas about CLT and they prefer to implement CLT in tertiary level. They have faced different challenges when implementing CLT in their classrooms. These challengers should be overcome to implement CLT in tertiary level.
Analyzing Styles, Spellings of Documents Demonstrating Religious Patronage of a Cluster of Buddhist Viharas.
(The Third International Conference on Linguistics in Sri Lanka, ICLSL 2017. Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Dissanayaka, G.R.
The 19th century opens by making Sri Lankans a part of the British Rule. The upward mobility of certain families in the Southern and Western maritime regions also gave impetus take over the patronage of establishing new fraternities of the Amarapura Nikaya and sponsoring the building of monasteries and temples to revive study of the Tripitakaya, Sinhala and Pali education. On one hand, a new kind of literacy and activism among lay Buddhists was the result. On the other hand, the temples however maintained its role as epicenters, for teaching, learning, publishing canonical texts and reviving ritual practices. A new elite Sinhala society emerged at the conclusion of the 19th century even in regions further than Colombo, the commercial hub and the aforesaid Southern and Western Maritime Region. The author has published research on the cluster of six „Soldara Viharayas‟ the artistic traditions and architectural features have been focused (Dissanayake 2016 and 2017). The donor inscriptions in the „Soldara Viharayas‟ at Gallengolla, Atthanagoda and Mahalolouwa are the focus of this research paper. Although they are imposing two story constructions, they have been missed in published research. Situated left to the Colombo Kandy Road on approaching Kandy from Colombo. Gallengolla and Atthanagoda are located today to the Sabaragamuwa Province and bordering them, Mahalolouwa is located in the Western Province. In the ongoing research to locate the Tampita Viharas, the trade and pilgrim routes of the Kelani Valley from Matara and Sri Pada have been mapped. Discovering former footpaths connecting Middeniya, Ambilipitiya and the Old Kandy Road (from Avissawella via Bulathkohupitiya to Aluth Nuwara) the HETC research team has been able to locate new centers of Buddhist Revival Movement based on Donor Inscriptions. At the Atthanoagoda inscription, the name of “Kurukuttal” appears as the name of the artist. The sanctum has many cartouches with descriptions of Buddha Charita painted on the wall. The style of writing, spellings and how words are divided in a sentence are most unusual. At the ICLSL Conference 2017 the research hypothesis would be, if these abnormalities result from a non native speaker writing captions of the walls.
Linguistic Analysis of “Viridu”.
(The Third International Conference on Linguistics in Sri Lanka, ICLSL 2017. Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) De Zoysa, A.
The genre of Sinhala Narrative Poetry called “Viridu” has been a source of entrainment that can be traced right back to the courts of the Kings of Kotte and Kandy of the 17th and 18th century. The strong narrative element (a kind of a Ballard), the ¾ beat played on a small hand drum called “Rabana”, repeated rhythm without words, the catchy refrain, use of simple words with many colloquial borrowings, the comic, tragic, sentimental and sensational elements, nonsensical words and words imitating the rhythm have all contributed to the perennial appeal of these poems. They were once heard at the royal court, market places, tea shops at bus stands and ferries (in British colonial times), in public transport (train and bus) now even as “Viridu Bana” at Buddhist temples, “Wesak Pandals” and orphanages to collect money by relating stories of neglect, abandonment and destitution. Intensions were to emotionalize the onlookers with tragic story , moralize to the Western educated Sinhala Elite to abstain from eating beef and drinking alcohol, narrate a sensational, sad or moralizing story, create awareness, advertise a commercial product or to sell the printed version of the narrative at a market place (Kavi Kole). The media used, in addition to live performances mentioned above, were gramophone records, Sinhala Nurthi Theatre, (called Tower Hall Theatre), novels (by Piyadasa Sirisena et alia.), Radio Ceylon, Sinhala movies and Youtube and CDs today. In this particular study, a linguistic analysis will be presented to demonstrate the transformation of Sinhala Language by taking the Viridu texts examples from the following: “Auwul nada Sapiriwaedane” by Ambanwela Rala from the “Kandyan Kavikara Maduwa”, „Viridu‟ from the “Dam Street Scene” from John de Silva‟s play „Sinhala Parabhava Prakaranaya‟, enactment of Viridu in the earliest Sinhala Movies: “Hadisi Vinishchaya” (1950), “Sujatha” ( 1953) and “Rekawa” (1953), while focusing on the language change of performativity.
Effective Teaching Methods in teaching Korean Monophthongs to the Korean Language Learners in Sri Lanka.
(The Third International Conference on Linguistics in Sri Lanka, ICLSL 2017. Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Edirisooriya, E. A. I. R.
This study aims to identify the effective teaching methods in teaching Korean monophthongs to the Sinhala native speakers learning Korean as a foreign language. The learners of Korean Language in the beginner level meet difficulties in writing the Korean monophthongs correctly. This Study aims to investigate teaching methodology to overcome the problems in L2 writing. Originating in two different language families, both Korean and Sinhala languages have differences between each other in terms of the language families as well as the language type. In terms of phonology, Sri Lankan students have difficulty in clearly distinguishing the Korean vowels and other consonants. This Paper aims to investigate the specialties in two languages and to show effective teaching methods. The objectives of this study is to analyze the errors that exist in writing Korean monophthongs and to make the Korean language learner confident in the possibility in finding solutions to overcome the problems in L2 writing. In Addition, this study aims to examine an effective teaching methodology to acquire a better understanding of the Korean monophthongs and improve the writing ability of the students. This Study was conducted on twenty-five students learning Korean in the 1st year, following a general degree program in Korean studies at University of Kelaniya. This sample was chosen to examine the errors they make in learning the Korean monophthongs in the beginner level. All participants were given a vocabulary-writing task of dictation and the errors were analyzed. The result of vocabulary error analysis is summarized as follows. First, with the comparison of the Korean and Sinhala monophthong systems, it is found that there are 10 monophthongs in Korean and 8 in Sinhala. There are no phonemes of „ㅡ‟ and „ㅓ‟ ( ʌ ) in Sinhala. Indeed views vary from scholar to scholar, but according to the generally accepted theory, Sinhala monophthongs can be categorized into three parts, front vowels, middle vowels and back vowels according to the place of the movement of the tongue. The Korean monophthongs can be categorized into two parts, front vowels and back vowels. The Students felt difficulty in recognizing the ㅓ( ʌ ) and the ㅗ( ɔ ). The Comparative Study on the Korean – Sinhala vowels for graduates of Korean as a foreign Language has proven to be beneficial to distinguish the differences. Moreover, the teaching methods suggested in the paper will be beneficial for the Korean language facilitators in Sri Lanka.
Two Word Orders or One: An Investigation of Code-Blending in HKSL-Cantonese Bimodal Bilinguals.
(The Third International Conference on Linguistics in Sri Lanka, ICLSL 2017. Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Perera, L. S. S.
Bimodal bilingualism is one of the rarely explored areas in bilingualism. It allows simultaneous production of two languages, which distinguishes it from unimodal approach. This paper attempts to make some adjustment of Grosjean‟s language mode theory to adapt it to bimodal bilingualism. The study attempts to identify whether bimodal bilingual adults will be able to produce code-blends with different and even contradictory word-orders, if so whther it occur frequently or rarely. Meanwhile, if in the code-blends, one language follows the other‟s word order, will bimodal bilinguals prefer to follow a particular language? If so, which language do they prefer? The limited researches taken in this field are focused on production of two languages of deaf people and CODA. The hypothesis is two languages cannot be produced following two correct word orders. Two subjects were taken with gender balance. Subjects were asked to produce two languages simultaneously assuming that subjects are talking to one Cantonese monolingual and one HKSL monolingual at the same time. Therefore, two structures that have contradictory word orders in HKSL and Cantonese were chosen: modifiers and negations are used as parameters.The experiment task contained two parts: question answering and picture description. Data was transcribed through software called ELAN, and transcribed into HKSL, Cantonese pinyin and English glossary. HKSL native signer was consulted to generalize the negations and modifiers in sign languages more accurately. According to the data, when languages of two modes are produced simultaneously, word order of one language usually follows that of the other (92.31% and 84.44%); and both of the two subjects‟ HKSL word orders follow Cantonese ones to a larger extend (73.08% and 84.44%). Their Cantonese rarely follow HKSL (19.23% and 00.00%). Both of them, however, occasionally produce two languages in different but correct orders (7.69% and 15.56%). Finally, the data was converted into Excel sheets for analysis.The results show that word order of one language always follows that of the other. Different but correct word orders are rarely observed. Further research with more subjects and other parameters or from different perspectives are expected.
A Study on the Utility of Hierarchical Phrase-Based Model for Low Resource Languages.
(The Third International Conference on Linguistics in Sri Lanka, ICLSL 2017. Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Shanmugarasa, Y.; Thayasivam, U.
With the rebellion of internet, people got more opportunities to go global. There is the issue of communication, which is made more challenging due to difference in languages. English is the generally spoken language and there is no assurance that everyone is proficient in it. Therefore, translation plays a major role. Currently, South Asian languages are dominantly translated using traditional statistical and neural machine translation approaches. South Asian languages lack necessary natural language resources and tools, hence are classified as low resourced languages. This limits the effectiveness achievable in machine translation of those languages. Compared to English language, South Asian languages are morphologically rich and are commonly used in different sentence structures. For example, the structure of a sentence is subject-verb-object in English while it is subject-object-verb in most South Asian languages. As official languages of Sri Lanka are low resourced, when it is used to translate using traditional statistical machine translation, it is impossible to produce sentences with acceptable sentence structure because of sub-phrases which can only be reordered using distortion reordering model, are independent of their context. In addition, using phrases longer than three words barely improves the translation because such phrases are infrequent in the corpora due to data sparsity. To overcome this problem hierarchical phrase model translation, which uses grammar rules formed by the Synchronous Context Free Grammar, can be used. Moses is selected to build the baseline system. In the experiments, the system used 50000 parallel sentences for Tamil and English. Using BLEU as a metric, the hierarchical phrase-based model achieves 3.42 for Tamil to English translation and 1.73 for vice-versa. This score improves 0.72 from traditional approach. For Sinhala to Tamil, it achieves 11.18 and 10.73 for vice-versa. Moreover, the system could further be improved by establishing certain rules.
Error-Analysis of Spoken English of Sri Lankan ESL Learners and Its Implications for Syllabus Design.
(The Third International Conference on Linguistics in Sri Lanka, ICLSL 2017. Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Silva, K. S. R.
Error analysis plays a significant role in language planning and syllabus design. It helps to identify the causes of common errors, and strategies used by language learners, and to obtain information on common difficulties faced by language learners during the learning process. This, in return it would help syllabus designers to devise effective teaching techniques and develop appropriate teaching and test material to cater to the needs of learners of different proficiency levels. However, little research has been carried out in Sri Lanka to thoroughly investigate learner-errors and consequently, teaching and test materials have been developed without paying much attention to the linguistic difficulties faced by the local student population. In this context, this study was developed to investigate and analyse the errors made by Sri Lankan learners when learning English as a second language. Specifically, its aim was to identify and analyze the grammatical errors made by adult learners when speaking in English. The language data were obtained from simulated oral interactions of twenty-five students participating in a role-playing language exercise during a twelve-week English course in a tertiary level institute. The students were all proficient learners who had been selected to intermediate level after going through a proficiency test. The oral interactions were recorded, transcribed and classified under the Linguistic Category classification and the Surface Structure Taxonomy proposed by Dulay et al (1982). The error analysis of the oral interactions showed that the most common grammar errors were in the use of tenses (46 %) and subject-verb agreement (20%). Other errors fell into the categories of plural forms (8%), prepositions (8%), and articles (12%). The results show that Sri Lankan learners still have difficulty in the use of tenses and subject-verb-agreement, even at the intermediate level, and therefore the need for more emphasis on error-analysis when designing ESL syllabi in Sri Lanka is highlighted.
A Research on Applying the 'Liushu Theory' on Teaching Chinese Characters to Sri Lankan Student.
(The Third International Conference on Linguistics in Sri Lanka, ICLSL 2017. Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Fernando, K. D. K. D. T.
Starting from the year 2004, the students who are learning Chinese in Sri Lanka have gradually increased. Among the problems observed among the learners, the main problem was the inadequacy of study resources including Chinese books, articles and research books for the students who learned Chinese. Specially, there was a less amount of books and other academic material related to Chinese language. Therefore, the teachers used various methods including writing on the black board, reading characters, explaining the meaning of the words, and giving homework in teaching. Because of the use of traditional teaching methods, which were rather ineffective in the classrooms, the learning process was impeded and the students lacked extensive knowledge on Chinese language. To overcome this issue, a theory called “liu shu” was introduced, which was specially created for the Sri Lankan students. The theory was first implemented in University of Kelaniya, where 2 groups, each consisting of 25 students who are learning Chinese in first year were selected for the experiment. One group was taught according the method “liu shu”, and the other according to the current traditional teaching methods. After two months, an examination was held to evaluate the students. It was observed that the lowest marks obtained the group taught according to the “liu shu” method was higher than the highest mark obtained by the other group. Therefore it was concluded that using the method “liu shu” one can ascertain how to write correct Chinese characters, how to pronounce Chinese characters correctly, how to improve the knowledge of the history of Chinese, tradition and culture of Chinese and the civilization of Chinese better than when using traditional teaching methodologies. Further, as a result of that research, eight new methods of teaching Chinese were created, which highlight the importance of the method as an improved and effective learning as well as a teaching method.
Challenges to Spoken Sri Lankan Tamil in the Post-war Period.
(The Third International Conference on Linguistics in Sri Lanka, ICLSL 2017. Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Kesavan, S.
Sri Lanka has unique variety of spoken Tamil, which is different from Indian Tamil. Comparing with Indian-Tamil, Sri Lankan Tamil has several unique qualities. Sri Lankan Tamil is spoken in several areas in Sri Lanka such as Jaffna, Killinochi, Mullaitivu, Vavuniya, Mannar, Ampara, Batticaloa, Trincomalee, Polonnaruwa and Colombo. During the war period, the dynamics of the Tamil community and the living patterns of the population were observed to be stagnant. In that period, the relationship between the Tamil community and the other communities was limited. It was not possible for ordinary people to get knowledge of technology. In the post-war period, Sri Lankan spoken Tamil lost its unique qualities. The post-war social and economic changes have changed the Sri Lankan Tamil Speech. A community, which had little technical knowledge, is suddenly exposed to modern technologies; it has influenced the language. In this context, there is a need to examine the real state of the Sri Lankan Tamil as a language in the social, economic and cultural arenas. The primary source of information to this study was field based data collection technique. The researcher employed qualitative data collection techniques: direct observation, participative observation, semi structured interviews and Case studies. Descriptive Research methodology and Historical Research methodology are used for this research. The study ended up with number of interesting findings. This study attempts to highlight the Challenges facing contemporary spoken Sri Lankan Tamil and it provides evidence to protect the Sri Lankan Spoken Tamil.
A Case Study on the University Students‟ Beliefs on the Methodology Used for English Language Teaching.
(The Third International Conference on Linguistics in Sri Lanka, ICLSL 2017. Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Dayananda, G.M.C.M.; Premaratne, C. D. H. M.
Beliefs are a main construct in the process of Language learning. Students‟ beliefs on the methodology that their teachers employ in improving language skills of the students play a major role in English language teaching and learning. The aim of this research is to identify the attitudes of the university students on the methodology used in the English language teaching process. The data was collected by a modified questionnaire administered from the Beliefs about Language Learning Inventory by Horwitz. It was distributed among forty first year undergraduates of the Faculty of Business Studies and Finance in the Wayamba University of Sri Lanka. For further confirmation, three lecturers who conducted English lectures for the Faculty of Business Studies and Finance were interviewed. 100% of the students accept that they should repeat and practice a lot to be successful in the Language classroom. 92.5% of the students believe that new technology must be used in an innovative way and 52.5% of the students think that exposure to the culture of the native speakers is important in enhancing the English Language competence. According to the key findings of this research, it is evident that time allocated for the practice is not satisfactory and immediate correction of errors is essential as errors can be fossilized. Due to the less exposure to the culture of native English speakers, it is beneficial to encourage students for the practice of the language as it will develop the communication competence. Therefore, it is important to promote student centered learning and out of classroom language learning among the university students to be successful in English language learning process. The research findings depicts that it is vital to introduce information communication technology to the second language classroom.
Segmentation of Chunks in Developing a Mental Lexico-Syntactic System: A Case Study Based on A Young Second Language Learner.
(The Third International Conference on Linguistics in Sri Lanka, ICLSL 2017. Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Dissanayake, S. A. R. R. P.
There is growing evidence in the field of psycholinguistics that children are sensitive to the properties of multi-word combinations of building blocks, which include multi-word chunks. These chunks, when used in early production allow them to discover grammatical relations and co-occurrence patterns that exist between words. This case study was designed to investigate how a young second language learner, aged 3 years, in his early stages of language learning, acquires the basic elements of language. The researcher was a participant-observer who lived with a young learner who just began to learn English as a second language while simultaneously acquiring his first language. The learner was provided with second language input only by the researcher while the child communicated with others in his first language. The utterances produced by the learner were recorded and the database consists of transcribed interaction recorded over six months. According to the collected data, there is an indication of analysis starting with formulaic chunks and of extension beyond the mere segmentation stage. It was evident that the learner began to segment the chunks and replace them with other parts of analyzed chunks. The results revealed a number of regular developmental patterns and the overall analysis suggests a developmental pattern of lexico-syntactic elements to convey basic meanings. Initially, one lexical element is used to convey a complete meaning and then a larger chunk which conveys the same meaning is analyzed and segmented to convey other meanings. (eg; ‘water‟ conveying the meaning “I want some water‟ and gradually „want water‟ as one chunk conveying this meaning and then segmenting elements of this larger chunk to produce the utterance „want apple‟ to convey another meaning). The study confirms the use of larger chunks to discover the units of language and the regularities governing their combination. Further studies can be designed to investigate how this chunks segmentation affects the learning of grammar.
The Implication of Syllabication on the Use of Comparative and Superlative Adjectives in Essay Writing.
(The Third International Conference on Linguistics in Sri Lanka, ICLSL 2017. Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Jayaseelan, S.
Using appropriate adjectives for comparison plays an immense role in writing. The two forms, the comparative and the superlative are formed based on the word syllable. Depending on the syllables, the form differs. Therefore, using the adjectives in writing is a challenge for many ESL students. This paper investigates the incorrect forms in comparative essays written by business management students during the first year English course. The study attempts to identify the reason of the ESL learners to have difficulties in using the correct forms, despite the fact that they have learnt and known the relevant rules for years. The objective of the study is to pay attention to the use of the comparative and the superlative forms of the adjectives correctly, which could influence the learners to improve their writing. Fifty undergraduates from the first year Bachelor of Business Management Programme were selected as the sample for this study, in which convenience sampling method was used. The students were given the compare and contrast topic essay as the assignment. The aim of the writing assignment was to test their ability in the use of comparative and superlative adjectives while focusing on the content of the essay. The word-limit was 250 words. The compositions were collected within 30 minutes. Further, the data were collected through direct classroom observations, interviews and structured questionnaires administered to 50 students. The collected data was subjected to an error analysis and the erroneous sentences were put into a table. The SPSS package was used to come up with results regarding the students‟ errors and the performance in general. The findings show that the mean value (3.94) of the errors indicates that the students did not master the comparative and superlative adjectives. The performance of the mean value is (2.86). Further, analysis of the questionnaires show that the 36 students are not aware or not clear of the demarcation of the syllabic forms such as mono-, di- and poly-syllabic because the forms of adjectives vary based on the number of the syllables. However, only ten students responded positively to the forms of adjectives.