#103, Research Paper: ‘Reintroduction of English as Medium of Instruction in Sri Lanka’ by Thirunavukkarasu Karunakaran

ELTWeekly Vol. 3 Issue#103 | October 31 | ISSN 0975-3036

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Reintroduction of English as Medium of Instruction in Sri Lanka

by

Thirunavukkarasu Karunakaran

Thirunavukkarasu Karunakaran has been an ESL teacher for10 years at University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka. He has MA and MPhil in Linguistics from the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. His research interests are in the areas of borrowings, bilingualism and bilingual education.

Introduction

English is now instrumental to accomplish our goals in our career and life as it is the powerful global medium that links different ethnic groups from different parts of the world. In the present day world English and computer literacy are key things which elevate one’s career and income in a big way. In Sri Lanka too, the need of English medium is realized and step is taken to raise the proficiency level of English from all levels of the students. As a change in the system of education, bilingual education was introduced to promote learning of English.

English as Medium of Instruction

English was reintroduced as medium of instruction to General Certificate Examination of Advance Level (G.C.E.A/L) science classes in Sri Lanka after using two of the country’s local languages, Sinhala and Tamil for nearly half a century. The step came into effect in 2001 and English was permitted to be used as medium of instruction along with the two local languages in certain selected schools. Different competing theories, such as the conspiracy theory and the grassroots theory, offer to explain the world wide spread of English as medium of instruction at present. The proponents of the conspiracy theory claim that there is a planned, calculated effort by both British and American agencies to assert the dominance of English and to persuade other countries to accept it as superior to any other language.

Grassroots theorists, on the other hand, maintain that English has an economic role in the world that induces its spread independently of the political and cultural hegemony of one nation or nations. Similarly, according to globalization theorists, English is considered as the language of globalization par excellence.Government of Sri Lanka reintroduced English as the medium of instruction to secondary schools in 2003. In other words, the ministry of education issued a circular instructing the principals that they could introduce English as the medium of education. Indeed, English medium education is an optional one, that is to say, those who wish to learn their subjects in English medium can continue their education in the English medium, once they complete their primary education in vernacular. The parents and the students who are lower level bilinguals acclaimed this step of the government. Consequently, in Jaffna peninsula, firstly, the national schools and missionary schools started the English medium education and the first batch of students who learned their subjects in English sat for the General certificate of Examination of ordinary level (G.C.E.O/L) in December, 2008. (more…)

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#103, Research Paper: ‘A Study of Literary Analysis: Application of Poststructuralist Approaches to Sylvia Plath’s Literature’ by Mohammad Saber Khaghaninezhad & Sahar sadat Hadigheh

ELTWeekly Vol. 3 Issue#103 | October 31 | ISSN 0975-3036

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A Study of Literary Analysis: Application of Poststructuralist Approaches to Sylvia Plath’s Literature

by

Mohammad Saber Khaghaninezhad, Ph. D student of TEFL, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran

Sahar sadat Hadigheh, Shiraz University of medical sciences, Shiraz, Iran

Abstract

The development of literary analysis is becoming increasingly interdisciplinary, inter-textual, historically, socially-aware and politically-motivated. This study is an attempt to show how literary analyses/criticisms rely on a number of interrelated and competing theoretical, methodological and ideological positions. It is also an account of the development of critical practices of literary analysis which implicitly inculcate that close reading is an integral part of literary practices. Hence, three key types of poststructuralist literary analysis/criticism, (i.e., textual, feminist, and political) have been implemented for Sylvia Plath’s (a modern American poet) literary works to illustrate the application of these theoretical foundations in practice and also to imply the possibility of interpreting the literary pieces of a single poet through quite different approaches.

Key words: textual analysis, poststructuralist, political analysis, feminist analysis

1- Introduction

Understanding the world is not simply a matter of end-stopped, closed-off classification of a dichotomy between object and subject. To Heidegger (1971, p. 123), language is not about representing something; ‘it performs real actions in the world of beings’. Analysis sets out to understand the whole of a text from its details, and the detail of a text from its whole (the hermeneutic circle). This is an important point to understand, because it creates a method of reading and re-reading. Understanding is a dynamic activity, an interaction or dialogue which is never fully completed, never finished, never closed off. Understanding, therefore, is not an activity which people can perform perfectly; it is not something that is done; it is a part of being, of existence, of language. In this sense it becomes anti-rationalist, almost mystical, and art and therefore literature assumes a status where the truth of the world speaks for itself (Eagleton, 1983). Language shows rather than tells. Telling concentrates on the idea of language as referential; showing concentrates on the idea of language as manifestation. Analysis therefore focuses not on the expression of language, but on what it means for language to speak.

What is therefore crucial about this way of thinking is that it foregrounds not the individual subject, but an interaction, a struggle, a play, where understanding and meaning can never be fixed. The ego is therefore decentred, and reality becomes a play of languages, where neither voice can ever be determined as correct or incorrect. And it is here that we have a central, fundamental contrast to the traditional empiricist preoccupation with fixed, determinate, unchanging meanings of text, for, there is a preoccupation with indeterminacy and with changing, dynamic, meanings of text. (more…)

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