多言語国家スリランカの言語使用状況-西部州とウバ州における、シンハラ語母語話者、タミル語母語話者の場面別言語使用状況-

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Sri Lanka is a multilingual nation, where various languages, races, and religions exist. Sinhalese, Muslims and Tamils reside together with Burger, Marais and native people called ‘Veddah'. Sri Lankan people use three languages; Sinhala, English, and Tamil in their daily communication. To examine the language situation in Sri Lanka means to analyze the cultural and social circumstances within Sri Lanka.In particular the Code Switching (CS) is seen in various situations in Sri Lanka. It is expected that a person would switch the language code depending on the situation. This also differs according to various circumstances such as speaker's life style and living conditions at home, academic background and the social hierarchy. Furthermore, it is estimated that differences in CS between Tamil minority and Sinhala majority would exist. It is important to consider these points in order to examine the situation of communication. English is also used quite often in Sri Lanka. The influence and the necessity of English would be examined through a survey of English usage spreading in the real world.

The questionnaire style survey has been conducted and it was administered based on pilot research in Japan. It is necessary to investigate various circumstances that people face in order to examine the true language usage conditions. The investigation considered people in various places and situations throughout Sri Lanka.Sri Lanka consists of nine states. The research was done in eight states: Central Province, Eastern Province, Northern Province, Southern Province, Western Province North western Province, Uva Province and Sabaragamuwa province.The research was done as follows:The locations : at a house of a standard family, at a bank, at a school and at a postoffice in each locations.The subjects : 525 people including students, office workers, house-wives, farmers,and elderly people.

The format of investigation: The questionnaire included four communication situations and questionsIn this paper, the language usage conditions of Sinhalese native speakers and the Tamil native speakers of both Western Province and Uva Province are analyzed in various situations. As the result, the Sinhalese native speakers in Western Province showed many examples of code switching between Sinhalese and English. Moreover, English code switching was seen frequently in the home.When considering the Uva Province, the Sinhalese native speakers use both Sinhala and English while a significant proportion of them are trilingual speakers there. They often change between the three main languages; Sinhala, English and Tamil are used quite often at schools, offices, hospitals, and so on.To examine a number of communication scenes in different language groups in Sri Lanka, it was clearly seen that there are more trilingual speakers among Tamil native speakers who more likely to switch between three languages in different situations, while Sinhalese speakers switch between two languages. The data of the survey also showed that the usage of languages varies according to the speakers' social status, region where he or she lives, academic background, age, etc.

Moreover, when the communication is taking place at home, the Sinhalese native speakers often use the code switching between Sinhalese and English. However, the elderly people in Sri Lanka, especially people living in Uva Province, rarely speak English due to their poor academic background.It has become clear that the language usage conditions differ from one another depending on the society, the region, and the educational level, and age of the person in Sri Lanka.However it is not well known yet when and how the code switching happens. As for code switching between English and Sinhalese, it is important to record their natural conversation in various scenes to analyze certain characteristics of the code switching. This would help clarify how Sri Lankans use these languages.

千葉大学大学院人文社会科学研究科研究プロジェクト報告書第239集「ユーラシアの多言語社会と言語政策」中川裕 編

"Eurasian Multilingual Society and Language Policy" Report on Research Project No.239