Attitudes towards Englishes in Sri Lanka

Although the study and description of the structural levels of Sri Lankan English as a variety of English in its own right have so far been in the centre of a limited number of small-scale investigations only, the sociolinguistic scenery in Sri Lanka has attracted more national and international scholarly attention. In this context, most of the sociolinguistic studies with a special focus on attitudes towards English in Sri Lanka did not differentiate between attitudes towards individual varieties of English, but conducted their investigations under the umbrella term English in Sri Lanka. Against this background, the present study examines attitudes towards Sri Lankan English, Indian English, British English and American English in Sri Lanka with the help of an attitudinal survey based on bipolar semantic differential scales and correlates the results with relevant metainformation. While the findings of the survey indicate that British English continues to be a variety of English which is highly valued in Sri Lanka, the informants also display a positive attitude towards Sri Lankan English; a finding with conceptual implications regarding variety-status of Sri Lankan English and relevance for future language planning activities in Sri Lanka.