ABSTRACT The discourse of Insurance is constructed and disseminated as part and parcel of modern life. Propaganda and awareness are always visible and universal in media and institutional communication. However, policy development and implementation standards differ from country to country, especially between developed and developing countries. This paper investigates a national newspaper editorial promoting insurance in Sri Lanka. The editorial, titled ‘New vistas in insurance,’ appeared on June 28, 2019, in Daily News. A linguistic approach called critical discourse analysis was used to trace general as well as ideological socio-cultural and political-economic implications covertly or overtly found in the editorial. Critical linguistic strategies were used to unpack the positions and identities of the discourse constructor, the insurer, and the insured, while revealing the constructed contextual meanings and notions. The findings were that the personalisation strategy is used to make insurance a fundamental need in life; spiritualization makes insurance an inevitable agent to safeguard religion and religious leaders; acculturation makes insurance a part of our culture; and politicisation and development agentization make insurance a leader to be respected and followed. These strategies take the form of apparent altruism, contrast, transfer moves, foregrounding and backgrounding, assumed and asserted evaluation, and emotional, ethical, and logical appeals to create fear of imminent risk and relief of lifetime benefits. Linguistic strategies such as nominalisation, verb and voice choice, word choices for verb and noun modification, and transition words contribute to these discourse strategies, especially in insurance promotion. This study highlights the need for further discourse analysis of Sri Lankan media persuasion strategies in the political, economic, and socio-cultural contexts of Sri Lanka. Keywords: critical discourse analysis, discourse, insurance and media, promotion
Thursday, November 5, 2026
Abstract
Historiography reveals many visible and latent facts and opinions about how the history of communities and regions and the evolution of their social, environmental, economic, and political systems (SEEPS) are constructed according to the historian's perspective. This paper provides a content analysis of how the historical construction of SEEPS discourse addresses these issues, focusing on the textual and historical construction in a historical text titled The Cultural Roots of the Pesalai Society, authored by S.A. Miranda. The book narrates the arrival and operations of Western colonisers, resulting in socio-political transformation in the local community, changes in religious, cultural, and national identities, and the ultimate emergence of new changes in the SEEPS. This content analysis establishes relationships among the social, political, and environmental systems in the book's historical discourse and assesses the historiographical representation of the SEEPS and the factors shaping the history of Pesalai village and the Mannar District. The text integrates SEEPS, offering governance-centric, anthropocentric, and eco-centric perspectives, while theocentric discourse dominates. The book presents the information chronologically and thematically. This paper assesses the author's historical construction to examine the impacts of the human-nature interface and natural and human-made changes in the village system, comparable to the whole district. It reveals the challenges of creating hybrid, multi-use social and environmental systems, the interaction between societal relationships and nature, and village systems aligned with political and social systems. The discourse reveals an attempt to reconcile a perennial conflict or competition between sustainable SEEPS.
Abstract
Original Articles
Abstract
Language functions empower media in 'knowledge management.' It reveals how media construct policies, nations, peoples, communities, and individuals. Scholars have developed critical discourse analysis tools for this purpose. First, they present theoretical constructs for approaching texts for these purposes. Second, they investigate 'language in use and language in a social context.' According to experts, CDA probes language organisation and linguistic units; it studies texts in context, with co-texts, at both micro- and macro-levels of the genre as linguistic and social practices. It is tied to social relations and identities, power, inequality, and social struggle. Thus, this paper undertakes a case study of The Hindu Editorial, 'Beyond the admission imbroglio,' published on Friday, the 4th of May, 2007. It investigates how language is utilised by the media to establish or change the existing knowledge base for the empowerment of interested parties or to control access to knowledge and resources by underprivileged communities. Therefore, this paper attempts to identify linguistic structures and strategies such as semantic moves, nominalisation, passivisation and topicalisation, used in media discourse to communicate visible or latent ideologies and attitudes in discourse construction and consumption. The text projects dichotomy and binary positions through functional English, discursive and linguistic constructions that reinforce the relationship between corporate power and ideology, and naturalised group-based cultural and exclusive nationalism cloaked by constitutional and inclusive nationalism. Media discourse is oriented toward legitimisation, political accommodation, and ideological management.
English Language Performance and Teaching Profession - A Case
study of the Conflict-affected Vavuniya District of Sri Lanka
Jeyaseelan Gnanaseelan
l. Introduction
In light of the sociopolitical context in Sri Lanka. the idea of creating bilingual
bicultural Tamil-English co-education has been in ar-rd of itself, an cnterprise to facrlitate
social hanr,'rry through a third nredium. English. Unfortunately. the Sri Lankan language education system has not facilitated a trilingual (Tamil, Sinhala and English) system
which has been one of the original causes of the protracted conflict.
It is necessary to initiate and foster egalitarian Tamil-Sinhala cooperation in
education, particularly through the development of ELT programs and bilingual and
multicultural coeducational institutions. The core of language teacher education is centred on the activity of teaching itself, the teacher who does it, the context in which
it is done. and the pedagogy by which it is done (Freire, Freire, and Johnson, 1998). Teacher
education is posing great challenges to teachers within the English as a second language
(ESL) context in countries, such as Sri Lanita in particular. This context requires the
language teachers to have "a combination of competencies and background that may be.
unprecedented in the preparation of language teachers" (Curlain and Pesola. l99l:211).
However. relatively little has been studied in ESL, teacher education, even less among Sri
Lankan teachers of English teachers at the school 1eve1.
The treatment of learner error, grappling with such issues as whether, when, what,
and how to correct, has been described as 'a potential crisis point' in a teacher's classroom life (l\1lwright, 1988:198).The present government of Sri [-anka iptrorluce,.
many educational reforms at all levels of education suitable for the 2lst century. One of
the key components addressed the urgent need for professional development for in-service
teacher education, which impacts secondary English teachers. anrl
millions of'stuclents learning English at thc seconclary level in Sri i-ant<a. Improving their
subject and pedagogical knowledge of this enormous number of teachers - worth only less
than 10% of the secondary teachers of English, respectively holding a university degree in English or ELT at the moment of this study - provides a daunting task {b:
Colleges of Education, colleges, and teacher training colleges.
This paper investigates the errors in the use of articles in business letter writing in English. It is a case study of Business Management students at the University of Jaffna, Vavuniya Campus, Sri Lanka. The study classifies the errors and analyses their implications for the genre's linguistic and discourse structures in relation to the mental schema acquired in the past. The written texts were collected through a systematic examination. The methodology is dominated by qualitative analysis, with some relevant quantitative data. It helps explain the errors of Sri Lankan students.
Key words: article, error, sequence,
absence, addition
Introduction
In
Sri Lanka, the appropriate or acceptable use of articles in English writing, including business English, has not been well organised. The emphasis on information has pushed language to a secondary
position. As the corporate sector expands, Sri Lankan
business communication is becoming more international. Relying exclusively on a native language for business communication has limited business opportunities and investment within the country and
abroad. Recognising this inevitable need for business communication in English, all universities in Sri Lanka offering degree courses in Management, Commerce, Finance and Accountancy have incorporated English for Business Communication and Business English as a credit course, integral to their degree programmes. The Faculty of Business
Studies at the Vavuniya Campus of the University of Jaffna also offers English for Business Communication to second-year students in the Bachelor of Business Management programme (BBM) for two consecutive semesters,
allocating 30 hours per semester. Business letter writing is one of the key
genres in training their business English writing skills. Therefore, a proper
understanding of the language structure of business English is necessary,
especially of the use of articles.
Research by Sri Lankan scholars has identified a gap in practical letter-writing skills. Indifference to the proper use of
articles in letter writing is another drawback. This study may contribute to
the ideational, textual, inter-textual and interpersonal understanding of the
errors under analysis. It is imperative to investigate the use of articles in business communication discourse. This paper links article use to Sri Lankan university students' writing and their efforts to improve their writing skills.
The communicative functions and linguistic forms of nouns and noun phrases in letter writing in English reveal linguistic and non-linguistic implications in the Sri Lankan English Language Teaching and Learning context. This is a case study of the texts produced by the students from Tamil and Sinhala language communities of Vavuniya Campus of the University of Jaffna in Sri Lanka. This research describes the structural and functional types the respondents used, their quantity, quality, and distinct features compared with universal types and functions. The analysis is both quantitative and qualitative. The findings distinguish the universal patterns from the local patterns typical of a non-native ESL learning context. It identifies the structure of noun-phrase components, pre- and post-modifiers, the embedded structure of NPs within other phrases and clauses (and vice versa), and, functionally, discourse themes, the subject, object, and predicative complements. The learner's competence in the use and types of nouns, nominalisation, the distinction between nouns and other linguistic units, within their types and functions, and the comparative use of abstract ideas over concrete actions in the NPs are identified and analysed for logical and pragmatic relations.
The paper presents, in a systematic form, some of the results of the investigation into the nature, functions, problems, and implications in the use of English as the medium of Instruction (EMI) in the Business Management courses at Vavuniya Campus of the University of Jaffna, located in the conflict-affected northern part of Sri Lanka. This case study examines the responses of students and teachers from the Tamil and Sinhala language communities in the Faculty of Business Studies. This paper analyses perceptions of the medium of instruction, the EMI background, available and accessible resources, the language abilities of teachers and learners, learning styles and pedagogy, the EMI methodology, and the socio-economic and socio-political contexts typical of a non-native English learning context. The analysis is quantitative and qualitative. It identifies the functional perspective of EMI in Sri Lanka and suggests practical strategies for contextualization and acculturation in EMI organisation and positions. The paper assesses learners' and teachers' capacity to use English. Ethnic conflict and linguistic politics in Sri Lanka have contributed to multiple factors shaping the current use of English as the medium. It has conflicted with domestic realities and global globalisation trends, which shape efficiency and effectiveness.
Wednesday, November 4, 2026
Over the last decade, Sri Lankan academics and professionals have shown an increased interest in doing small-scale research nationally and regionally. Sri Lankan universities and professional organisations and societies have launched many English-medium journals and research conferences. They encourage publication and presentation for financial, professional, and humanitarian benefits. Many write the findings of their research and submit. However, beyond the quality and quantity of the research papers, the Academic English used in the papers still lacks mastery and fine-tuning. Academic English style needs improvement to meet international standards. This is one of the main factors limiting publication and presentation in indexed and international journals and conferences. A linguistic approach called stylistic analysis uses extracted texts from papers published in business management and finance at national universities’ conferences in 2019 and 2020 to describe and explain features and expressions that are not academically standard and to suggest appropriate alternatives. It is qualitative. These findings show the overall implications of wordiness. It exemplifies wrong or low-standard academic writing practices in preposition use, punctuation in complex and compound sentences and sentence adverb punctuation, verb-preposition and verb-noun combinations in hypothesis formulation, word use, word relations within a sentence, active and passive voice use, diversity in using the types of clauses and phrases, nominalisation vs verbalisation, adverb and adverbial phrases and clauses, linking words, and diversity in academic vocabulary. Thus, this paper creates awareness of efficient and effective Academic English practices in drafting research papers to meet national and international standards.
Research Articles
Abstract
The paper presents a case study of early childhood language development focused on a Tamil child from Sri Lanka. The research study aims to analyse the progress a Tamil child from Sri Lanka achieves in language development at the five levels: phonological, morphological, syntactical, semantic, and pragmatic. The methodology involves a five-fold linguistic analysis of some utterances extracted from a conversation between the researcher and the subject, who is a six-year-old Sri Lankan Tamil child, based on a story presented in the form of a monologue. It reveals that the child had acquired the necessary language skills in Tamil to communicate his thoughts in advance of the conversation. Also, his speech is equal to that of an adult, if not for some interlanguage expressions and discourse markers. The findings reveal that the child has managed to internalise the structure of the Tamil language, which is his mother tongue. The child possesses a considerable fund of ‘language universals’ that are required in the narration of his story. Although the story is not his own creation but heard from his teachers or parents, the utterances he makes are similar to those used by an adult. Most of the sentences he utters represent a high level of competence. So, this paper identifies the child’s language output under Chomsky’s mentalist approach to language and transformational generative language acquisition. It is perceived that his innate language faculties help him utter sentences, in addition to his exposure to the use of language by the adults in the environment.