practices of Sinhala: the insertion of the lax front close vowel /ɪ/ in spoken ... distinctive features of Non Standard Sri Lankan English (NSSLE) pronunciation.
Abstract Some factors in the pronunciation of the Sinhala/ Non Standard Sri Lankan English bilingual Rohini Chandrica Widyalankara University of Kelaniya
This paper compiles evidence from linguistic historians and print media to attest that two familiar practices of Sinhala: the insertion of the lax front close vowel /ɪ/ in spoken Sinhala before word initial consonant clusters commencing with /s/, and the lack of phonemic status for /ʃ/ which results in the
orthographic variations of /ʃ/ and /s/ not being reflected in Sinhala pronunciation, are realized as distinctive features of Non Standard Sri Lankan English (NSSLE) pronunciation. These features are no fortuitous occurrences. They in their ultimate origin are the results, particularly, of natural and nonvolitional transfer of linguistic behaviour patterns of the speaker of Sinhala to English discourse in the process of becoming a bilingual. The study cites phonological conventions which govern the diglossic variation in Sinhala which give rise to differing representations for pronunciation and orthography as a causal factor for the existence of these two S/NSSLE phonetic features. A significant number of English loan words which contain initial consonantal clusters beginning with /sk/, /skr/, /sp/, /spr/ and /st/ or the sound /ʃ/, during the process of transfer to the recipient language Sinhala, do not result in a direct phonemic transfer but evolve as an integration of an equivalent lexical item with a different phonemic shape. The interference of this familiar pronunciation in Sinhala and its transference to the pronunciation of English classifies the speaker as a S/NSSLE bilingual. But the S/SSLE bilinguals do not betray an interference from these Sinhala usages as strategic competence is brought into play and they retain separate phonemic identity within the two codes in their repertoire. It is argued that their competency in English provides the resources to control the transference of these familiar practices in Sinhala to the phonemic structures in English.
