Role of English in a trilingual society

by Lionel WIJESIRI

The Government of Sri Lanka is committed to secure the language rights of all communities and to transform the country into a trilingual society, President Mahinda Rajapaksa said recently. It is revealed that already a Ten Year National Plan for a Trilingual Sri Lanka has been prepared setting the foundation for a national initiative to encourage the acquisition of trilingual skills and competencies by all citizens of the country.

Our constitution says that the Official Language of Sri Lanka shall be Sinhala and Tamil shall also be an official language. English shall be the link language. The National Languages of Sri Lanka shall be Sinhala and Tamil. A person is entitled to be educated through the medium of either of the National Languages with certain provisions.

The designating Sinhala and Tamil as official and national languages is a symbol of unity and help in creating a unified Sri Lankan identity. In this symbolic role, it serves the political purpose of resisting ethnicity. As for the provision that Tamil language may be used in the North and East provinces for administration purposes, it is explained that the state, being democratic and sensitive to the rights of the minority units. As English is the official link language, it too is taught at the higher levels especially to those who seek to study science and technology.

Powerful language

Learning the two national languages in the school is a foundational prerequisite in the promotion of tolerance in dealing with people from other cultures and help children to develop an understanding of the varying needs of different people.

Opportunities are created for communication with different people and a child is given the possibility to be "proud" of itself.

But above all, learning English language will help in the occupational qualifications of our children, improving their future prospects and providing more opportunities for the future. It means power in their hands.

Learning a powerful global language such as English makes it possible for its speakers and writers to obtain a higher share of gratification, whether tangible or intangible, over the others. This is mostly possible in modern societies where there are domains such as the bureaucracy, the judiciary, the military, commerce, the media, and research and so on. In primitive tribes the manipulation of language matters less; in agricultural societies it emerges and becomes pervasive but is not the only passport to power.

Among the three languages spoken in Sri Lanka, English is the language of privilege and empowerment.

It is the language where most knowledge systems and professional skills are documented and expressed. Indeed, when the marginalized pick up the language, it becomes a crucial scaffolding to break through their condemnations of centuries determined by religion, social prejudice and class.

Parallel system

As far as English language is concerned it is as firmly entrenched in the domains of power in Sri Lanka as it was in 1948. The major reason for this can be understood with reference to the elites patronage of English in the name of efficiency, modernisation and so on.

To begin with, the old Civil Service of Sri Lanka was an Anglicised body of men who had moulded themselves in the tradition of the British. It is understandable that members of this elite had a stake in the continuation of English because it differentiated them from the masses; gave them a competitive edge over those with Sinhala or Tamil-medium or traditional education; and, above all, was the kind of cultural capital which had snob value and constituted a class-identity marker.

In the 21st century, it is said that things have changed. Today is supposed to be the era of the common man. We see the emergence of a new middle/working class Sri Lanka with equal opportunities to rise to the top. But at the same time, we see that a new elite force is born who want to preserve, and indeed strengthen, the hegemony of English.

They have invested in a parallel system of elitist schooling of which the defining feature is teaching all subjects, through the medium of English. These are known as International Schools.

This has created new generations, and ever increasing pools, of young people who have a direct stake in preserving English.

All the arguments which applied to a small elite of the early generation of Sri Lanka now applies to young aspirants who stand ready to enter the ranks of this elite.

And their parents, some of them not at ease in English, have invested far too much in their children education seriously to consider decreasing the cultural capital and importance of English.

In recent years, with more young people from the affluent classes appearing in the British O and A level examinations, with the world-wide coverage of the BBC and the CNN, with globalisation and the talk about English being a world language, with stories of young people emigrating all over the world armed with English knowledge, this language is becoming a commodity in more demand than ever before.

Globalisation

The globalisation has increased the pressure of English on all other languages. While this has also created an increased awareness of language rights and movements to preserve languages, it has generally resulted in more people learning English.

In Sri Lanka this means that the poor are under more pressure than before because they cannot afford expensive schools that sell English at exorbitant rates.

While it may not be possible to reverse the trend of globalisation, it is possible to promote the concept of trilingualism.

This means that we should add to our repertoire of languages to gain power while retaining skills and pride in our own languages. In order to do this the state and our education system should promote the concept of linguistic rights.

Linguistic rights derive from the concept of human rights, the idea developed over the last two or three centuries that human beings, by virtue of their nature as humans, have certain rights which should be protected by all governments.

We must affirm the language diversity in the country. We must affirm the linguistic human rights of all people.

We must affirm that no language is superior to another. We must affirm, accordingly, that all people have the right to hear, speak, read, and write language(s) of their choosing; no one should be denied the choice or the chance to use whichever language they prefer.

Strengthening the link language, the Government should strive to offer high quality English education in all Government schools.

It should do so in an effort to facilitate student access to a range of academic discourses, so that students in the country, whether they are from Government or Private schools, will have equal opportunities to succeed at higher education.

Directions concerning English are not attempts to deprive students of their linguistic human rights, but are intended to be defensible actions that support students' successful acquisition of an international link language.

Notwithstanding the multilingual history of our country, the role of English as our link language has never seriously been questioned. All levels of government should adequately fund programs to teach English to any resident who desires to learn it.

For many more decades to come it seems unlikely that English will be dethroned from its position of reigning link language.