Sri Lankan University Students’ and English Lecturers’ Acceptance of Selected Sri Lankan English Prepositional Verbs: Pedagogical Implications

Achala K Dissanayake

doi:10.4038/caj.v3i0.46

Abstract

One of the characteristic features of Sri Lankan English (SLE) is the use of verb-preposition combinations which do no not exist in British Standard English (BSE). Such verb formations, which could be classified as prepositional verbs, are used in abundance in SLE newspapers. This research focuses on the levels of acceptance displayed by Sri Lankan university lecturers of the English Language and Sri Lankan university students currently following English courses at the English Language Teaching Units (ELTUs) of their respective universities. The results obtained through an acceptability test firstly point to high levels of acceptance of these verb formations among university students and English lecturers of Sri Lankan universities. Secondly, the findings show that the acceptance levels displayed by the university students is higher than those displayed by English lecturers. Finally, the results reveal that, out of three SLE prepositional verbs, ‘discuss about’ is the verb that has received the highest level of acceptance where the university students are concerned. On the contrary, with regard to the English lecturers, ‘comprise of’ has received the highest level of acceptance. This paper highlights some implications that these acceptance levels displayed by Sri Lankan undergraduates and English lecturers have on the teaching of these verb formations in particular, and the pedagogy, in general, of English as a Second Language (ESL) in Sri Lanka.

Highlights

With inner circle speakers or to produce the norms of an exonormative variety of English grounded in an inner circle
The English language, following its contact with other languages after the advent of the colonial era, was subjected to a process of change caused by speakers of English as a second or foreign language who flavoured the language with features of their own native tongue
[5], (p.137) attempts to explain the emergence of WEs that took place in three different phases – the initial contact of the English language with the other languages spoken on the British Isles, the second stage which saw the passage of the English language to North America and Oceania and the “Raj phase” during which the English language was introduced to South and South-Eastern Asia, South, West and East Africa, and the Philippines

Summary

Introduction

With inner circle speakers or to produce the norms of an exonormative variety of English grounded in an inner circle. The English language, following its contact with other languages after the advent of the colonial era, was subjected to a process of change caused by speakers of English as a second or foreign language who flavoured the language with features of their own native tongue. This caused the emergence of many varieties of English, such as American English, Nigerian English and Sri Lankan English. The different Englishes that have resulted from other languages coming into contact with English have been categorized in Kachru’s Three Concentric Circles model under the headings Inner Circle (norm- providing), Outer Circle (norm-developing) and the Expanding Circle (norm-dependent) [5], (p.136-138)

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Results

Discussion

Conclusion