The Influence of English Language in the Production of Mixed Compounds in Colloquial Sinhala

Abstract

Language contact as an inevitable and global phenomenon has produced rich literature in sociolinguistic studies after the 1950s. Among various types of language contacts, lexical influence is prominent irrespective of the language. The main objective of this study is to find out and explore English-influenced compounds in the colloquial Sinhala language. Sinhala is the majority language in Sri Lanka and is spoken by almost 20 million people. Apart from secondary data sources and previous literature employed in this research, the primary data was collected from the chunk recordings from public media television programmes, particularly the feature programmes that use colloquial spoken language and from language classrooms of a state-run university in Sri Lanka. Qualitative content analysis was the data analytical technique, thus, the research approach has become qualitative. The study has established six major types of compound formation processes resulting from the direct influence of the English language. Their realisations in colloquial Sinhala in different contexts are presented with contextual-based examples. This study concludes that the emergence of mixed compounds in colloquial Sinhala has been excessively boosted by the direct influence of the English language and that this has produced a considerable structural change in the colloquial Sinhala language with special reference to mixed lexical formation.