Symposia & Conferences
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Item Tanglish – The Hybrid Indian English.(The Third International Conference on Linguistics in Sri Lanka, ICLSL 2017. Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2017) Krishnasamy, K.New Englishes are evolving as a result of mixing English with a language. Tanglish, the hybrid variety is a blend of Tamil and English. This hybrid variety is popularly spoken by the youngsters in Tamilnadu. Advertising, media, movies are also extensively using it. The amount of mixing of English in Tamil (Tanglish) varies according to social context, attitudes, education and usage surroundings. The mixing or switching of the matrix language (Tamil) and the embedded language (English) in the form of insertions, alterations or blending inter-sententially or intra-sententially takes place with perfect ease in a Tamil-English bilingual speaker. Tanglish users have a very positive attitude towards its use and the trend shows that this hybrid variety is likely to evolve into a new language. This paper describes the various reasons for the use of Tanglish and its growing popularity. It also explores the reasons for the non-popularity or decline of the use of code mixing between two Indian languages. In multilingual India, a common person's verbal repertoire consists of at least three languages. However, the dominance of English over several other linguistic codes in the hybrid English is noteworthy. Based on observation and questionnaire, correlations are established between the level of exposure of English and its use, degree of mixing and locality of the speaker, the age of exposure to English and extent of mixing, attitude towards code mixing and its use. Language shift begins when a community chooses a new language in domains formerly reserved for the old one. This paper also discusses the implications of language shift.Item The influence of English language on the Spanish speakers(Department of English, Faculty of Humanities, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Warnakulasooriya, P.This study will be mainly focusing on three sub topics: first how English has influenced the Hispanic community in the United States, secondly how English has influenced the English- Spanish bilinguals and thirdly how English terms have influenced the Spanish language which is also known as “Anglicisms”. The background for this study is mainly based on the passion towards learning popular foreign languages. This passion towards learning languages and to examine their co relationship mainly initiated the study on “The influence of the English language on Spanish speakers”. The study was done using the qualitative research method because this is primarily exploratory research. Individual interviews, participation and observations were the main techniques used to carry out the research project. The interviews were recorded on a CD in order to observe the participants more closely. The focus group was native Spanish speakers who are either undergraduates or graduates who have come to Sri Lanka for an internship. The research gap focuses on how the influence of the English language has affected the attitudes of Spanish speakers. The findings were that although the English language has affected the Latinos on a larger scale their attitude towards the English language is fixed; English will not replace their mother tongue and they will try their best to protect their language and culture.Item Bilingualism and language pollution: A study on the impact of practicing mixed English in communication(Faculty of Humanities, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Ihalagama, H.A.S.The majority of Sinhalese people use their mother tongue as the main vehicle of communication, but there is a growing trend of mixing English terms with Sinhala terms in communication activities. It is due to English becoming a major linguistic force in Sri Lanka for various reasons such as its colonial heritage, impact of globalization, new technologies of communication, growing up in international schools, increasing number of Sri Lankans working overseas and predilection for using English by many urban occupants. As a result of this, Sinhala speaking society has become a Sinhala-English bilingual society. When people use English to the detriment of their first language, then the situation appears to be discomfited and linguistically unproductive. The present study is to examine the patterns of mixed English use in day to day communication and how it affects the contamination of Sinhala language. Data and information for this study are collected from a sample of 30 bilingual and employed individuals in public and private sectors and some advertisements in printed and electronic media and name boards of commercial places. Based on the findings it can be concluded that, practicing mixed English in communication activities, influence Sinhala speakers to imitate such bilingual variations and it will lead to pollution and unsustainability of Sinhala language which is a precious cultural asset of Sinhala community.Item The De-Facto status of the implementation of the official languages policy in police stations of Sri Lanka(Faculty of Humanities, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Wickramasinghe, D.D.The police in any given country are the guardian of the law and trust who is vested with the responsibility of maintaining public peace. Thus, they are expected to deal with the public more often than any another government official in their day today duties. The communication between the concerned parties and the police personnel is of pivotal importance in this regard – as such meditations are always interrelated with the factors pertaining to offences, law, and justice. Thus the need to be accountable, transparency is essentially woven in the language that is being used to converse with the concerned parties. Sri Lanka as a multi-lingual state declared its bilingual official languages status in its 13 th amendment to the constitution granting the equal parity for both Sinhala and Tamil languages after many contentious struggles over the years. Today, the state intuitions thus abide to offer their service to the public in the respective official languages – especially in the bilingual zones designated by the government taking into account the demographic census. It is in this light the current study concentrates on the implementation of the official languages policy in the Sri Lankan Police stations which play a crucial role in the process of the reconciliation in the post-war Sri Lanka. The study takes into account the linguistic landscape of Sri Lanka where the police stations are randomly selected out of the cluster sample of 72 bilingual divisional secretariats of the country (41 Gazetted & 31 recommended to be gazetted based upon the 20% of minority or more living in the respective divisional secretariats). The data for the study was obtained through the primary unprocessed data accumulated by the Official Languages Commission of Sri Lanka through official language physical audits that include onsite observations. The findings reveal that the implementation of the official languages policy in Sri Lankan Police Stations in the designated linguistic landscape (bilingual divisional secretariats) is ineffective in terms of the visibility and ambience and service delivery to the public due to the reasons stemming out from the lack of awareness/disregard of the official language policy and the related circulars, dearth of the police officers competent in the other official language, lack of in-station facilities to comply with the policy and the absence of a proper institutional mechanism to implement the official language policy.Item What is ‘Linguistic interference’? A linguistic study with special reference to the Sinhala and English languages(Faculty of Humanities, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Assajithissa Thero, KurupitaWhen a speaker knows more than one language, because of their disparity, one language can be influenced by the other language. This is more familiar in the bilingual context. Contemporary, Sri Lanka is a bilingual country. In Sri Lanka, Sinhala, Tamil and English are used. In this research, our attention is specially only paid to Sinhala and English languages. Especially, the problem or this research is to examine how linguistic interference functions on Sinhala and English languages in Sri Lankan context. When one uses two languages together those two languages could be influenced by each other. This process is termed in Bilingualism as interference which means the influence for each other. This belongs to the use of the language. While using two languages, not only phonological but also semantic, grammatical, lexicon and cultural changes are usually made. Here, the word ‘change’ stands for interference. In this topic, what is interference, what are the types of interference are discussed with examples with special reference to Sinhala and English languages. To study the nature of the interference of above mentioned languages data have been collected by closely referencing the colloquial use of Sinhala and English languages. Sri Lanka as a bilingual society, interference can be seen in the day to day conversation. Further, it can be divided into five categories such as phonological, semantic, grammatical, lexicon and cultural interference. In conclusion, interference is not an uncommon process of the languages used in the world. So, there is no exception to Sinhala and English.Item Language policy in Singapore(Faculty of Humanities, University of Kelaniya, 2015) Kamali, R.D.; Hettihewa, A.S.; Senarathna, I.R.Language is not merely a tool for human communication where it also plays an important role in the development of social identity. Therefore it is important to have a wellplanned language policy in a country and it is becoming more and more essential in an increasingly multilingual society. As a multinational country Singapore has a diverse population and it includes Chinese, Malays, Indians, Eurasians, Caucasians and Asians of different origins. As a result of that Singapore has become a multilingual nation. However, the Singapore government recognises four official langauges: English, Malay, Chinese, Tamil. Their decison to adopt English, Mandarian, Malay and Tamil as their official languages came early in their nationhood. And also Bilingualism is a fundamental aspect of their education system while English is the medium of instruction in schools, students are required to learn their mother tongues aswell. This has ensured that they are able to engage fellow singaporeans of different races, access the global economy and at the same time remain connected to their cultural roots. This study attempts to describe how the language is being planned by the Singapore government and the present condition of their language policy. Data for the research are collected by using official documents of Singapore Government, newspaper articles and from recordings of informal conversations with a group of native speakers. These informal conversations are used to identify the bilingual habits of Singapore citizens. What we learned from the study is that in Singapore all four official languages were accorded parity of recognition, a clear message that all Singaporeans are equal partners in a single nation, regardless of race or language.