English Speech Production of Native Sinhala Speakers with Special Reference to Interlanguage Analysis

Abstract

Native Sinhala speakers attempt to speak in English even prior to formal education regardless of the errors they make in speech production. This study is focused on interlanguage, the linguistic system behind the learner language of these native speakers, influenced by the first language and the target language. This research was conducted to analyze the impact of the Sinhala language on the English speech production of native speakers. A qualitative research approach was taken to initiate this research with 30 native Sinhala speakers, who informally learnt to speak English. They were asked to interpret a few simple English sentences to Sinhala. Each translated utterance was simultaneously recorded and analyzed to observe the produced patterns of the inter-language. Results indicate that the inter-language production of the speakers was visible in the structure of language and specific grammar rules about spoken English. Syntactic pattern, word order, misidentifying nouns and adjectives, omission of the ‘be verbs’, the misconception of verb tenses, and chaotic pronoun placement are included in the native language influence. The findings of this inter-language analysis concluded that the native language is a dominant factor in second language speech production. Competence in the first language is the main reason for this dominance since the speaker tries to perceive a second language most comfortably. Further, the importance of introducing Psycholinguistics in Sri Lanka is emphasized. Keywords: Inter-language; Learner language; Sinhala language; Speech production; Syntactic structure