Attitudes towards Englishes in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Although the study and description of the structural levels of Sri Lankan English as a variety of English in its own right have so far been in the centre of a limited number of small-scale investigations only, the sociolinguistic scenery in Sri Lanka has attracted more national and international scholarly attention. In this context, most of the sociolinguistic studies with a special focus on attitudes towards English in Sri Lanka did not differentiate between attitudes towards individual varieties of English, but conducted their investigations under the umbrella term English in Sri Lanka. Against this background, the present study examines attitudes towards Sri Lankan English, Indian English, British English and American English in Sri Lanka with the help of an attitudinal survey based on bipolar semantic differential scales and correlates the results with relevant metainformation. While the findings of the survey indicate that British English continues to be a variety of English which is highly valued in Sri Lanka, the informants also display a positive attitude towards Sri Lankan English; a finding with conceptual implications regarding variety-status of Sri Lankan English and relevance for future language planning activities in Sri Lanka.

Attitudes towards Englishes in India

“…In order to gain a finer understanding of the attitudes that IndE speakers have towards their local and other varieties of English, a questionnaire was devised and distributed among Indian informants in February and March 2012. The questionnaire design was inspired by Preston () and only slightly deviates with regard to the sociobiographic information sought from the questionnaire Bernaisch () used to study SLE speakers’ attitudes to regional varieties of English.…”

“…In an earlier attitudinal study, SLE speakers evaluated IndE least positively in comparison to AmE, BrE and SLE (cf. Bernaisch : 289) and it needs to be explored whether IndE speakers have a comparably adverse attitude to SLE.…”

“…For SLE, it has been shown that speakers of SLE generally have a positive attitude towards their local form of English (cf. Bernaisch : 288), which, in conjunction with variety‐specific structures of SLE, may be regarded as an attitudinal indication that ‘English in Sri Lanka is at least in the process of nativisation, possibly on its way to endonormative stabilisation’ (Mukherjee : 367). In spite of many inquiries into the structures of IndE, the attitudes towards this variety in the local speech community have so far not received comparable attention, barring some early studies such as Kachru (), Shaw () or Sahgal ().…”

“More Like You”: Disrupting Native Speakerism Through a Multimodal Online Intercultural Exchange

“…As Cook () memorably pointed out, many L2 English speakers “resign themselves to ‘failing’ to reach the native speaker target” (p. 191), and nonnative‐speaking teachers grapple with a resulting sense of themselves as lesser or illegitimate (e.g., Nuske, ; Park, ). In Sri Lanka, despite a growing acceptance of Sri Lankan English, mastery of British English remains an important source of social capital and a mark of prestige (Bernaisch, ; Ratwatte, ). For some students, then, the experience of nonjudgmental ELF interactions with these fellow nonnative speakers in the United States was in sharp contrast to their experiences in Sri Lanka.…”

“…This unequal access has led to a longstanding linguistic hierarchy with habitual English speakers as the “Anglophone elites,” who enjoy the economic and social benefits of the prestige language (Kandiah, 1984, cited in Ratwatte, ). As Mendis and Rambukwella () noted, there are “widely disparate attitudes prevalent about and towards Sri Lankan English” (p. 182), though Bernaisch () predicted that British English will remain the prestige form.…”