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Item Sri Lankan English (SLE) over the years: Evolution of the SLE vocabulary over two generations of SLE speakers(Faculty of Humanities, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Perera, N.; Weerasooriya, T.Sri Lankan English (SLE) has unique phonological, morphological, lexical and syntactic features which have gradually developed since the introduction of English in Sri Lanka. Vocabulary is one of the first features to be developed in SLE. Although the SLE vocabulary has been studied and recorded by researchers such as Gunesekera and Meyler, its generational difference has not been researched into. The research question of the study was: ‘Can the generational change’ observable in the selected SLE vocabulary be termed an evolution?’ This was done through a qualitative, comparative analysis of selected SLE vocabulary used in the decade 1955 – 1965 and 2005 – 2015. The primary data was taken from the Ceylon Observer of 1955 – 1965 (36 words) and the Sunday Observer of the decade 2005 – 2015 (111 words). 19 words were used in a questionnaire survey among 60 participants of which 30 were of the ages 15 – 25 and 30 were between the ages 65- 75. The results of the survey were then analyzed in detail through 10 interviews. The survey and the interviews were conducted to prove / disprove the age-gradedness of the selected SLE vocabulary and to prove / disprove the apparent time hypothesis in relation to the selected SLE vocabulary. Most of the vocabulary used disproved age-gradedness as they had specific meanings in relation to the two generations. A lexical change in the vocabulary was also observed. The usage of these terms were generation specific, which supported that the selected SLE vocabulary is not age-graded. The interviews supported the apparent time hypotheses as the older generation showed that their vocabulary has not changed significantly over the years. From these observations, it could be concluded that the generational difference observable in the selected SLE vocabulary over 60 years could be termed an evolution.Item A Method to Sort Official Correspondence through Natural Language Processing(Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Weerasooriya, T.; Perera, N.Natural language Processing (NLP) is a new branch of study in Computational Linguistics and the field has undergone rapid development over the past few decades. Keyword extraction is a popular application of NLP. The present study makes use of Stanford Core NLP, an NLP tool that enables Parts-of-Speech (POS) tagging in order to extract the keywords from official correspondence. POS tagging identifies all the parts of speech in a sentence and categorises them into the relevant grammatical categories. Capitalising on the grammatical uniformity of formal written English, the system is able to identify all the noun phrases and verb phrases of a sentence. Hence, the subject and the predicate of the sentence are isolated. Document sorting with regard to official correspondence is done through the system by analysing the „object‟ line of an official letter or the „subject‟ line of an e-mail, and listing the noun phrases and verb phrases. The document is then sorted to the relevant department. In order to prevent slips in the system, the remaining words of the „object‟ / „subject‟ lines are filtered through a keyword corpus. This increases the accuracy of the keyword extraction process. The present system proved to be more efficient that selecting keywords through a filter, as the POS tagging sorts and presents keywords in an order where the respondents are able to grasp the main idea of the sentence. The subsidiary list of words extracted through the key word corpus adds to the accuracy of the system. The present study is only limited to official correspondence in English. It could be modified to be adapted to other languages.Item Attitudes towards Sri Lankan English lexis and grammar(Department of English, University of Kelaniya, 2015) Perera, N.In Sri Lanka, English has long been a language of authority granting access to the higher classes of society. However deviating from the “British” standards and speaking Sri Lankan English is not always regarded in a positive light. The research was conducted to explore the acceptance, the notions on grammatical accuracy and lexical validity of Sri Lankan English among undergraduates and graduates of the University of Kelaniya. The findings are compared with responses from the older users of English. It is seen that both the younger generation and the older generation hold a more permissible attitude towards the use of English, which can be attributed to the increased acceptance and the popularity of Sri Lankan English. However there is less willingness to bend certain hard core rules, especially grammar rules and rules governing the pronunciation of words.