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Item 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.Item 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.