Home Linguistics & Semiotics Muslims in Sri Lankan language politics: A study of Tamil- and English-medium education
Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Muslims in Sri Lankan language politics: A study of Tamil- and English-medium education

  • EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: August 19, 2018

Abstract

Sri Lanka is a conflict-ridden postcolonial nation-state that was ravaged by a civil war. Largely excluded from mainstream representations of the ethnic conflict, Muslims constitute the country’s second largest minority group. In contrast to Sinhalas and Tamils, they define their ethnic identities on the basis of religion rather than language. In this article, I draw on research at a multilingual government school to explore how Muslim teachers and students made sense of Tamil- and English-medium education in relation to ethnic, religious, and class differences. I investigate how Tamil-medium Muslim teachers responded to critiques of their speech by asserting that their heterogeneous linguistic practices were inextricably connected to their distinct ethno-religious identities. Muslim students’ lack of fit with the ethnolinguistic affiliations presupposed by the school enabled them to embrace English-medium education. However, the English bilingual program complicated Muslims’ narratives of identity by underscoring the relevance of English to class dispositions. I argue that English impacts the fraught relations of Tamil and Sinhala to ethnopolitical identities and mediates everyday social relations.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank M. S. M. Anes, Sasikumar Balasundaram, Sonia Das, Chaise LaDousa, Dennis McGilvray, Mumthaj Mubarak, Namil Nisan, L. Ramamoorthy, and S. Sandarasegaram.

References

Annamalai, E. 1980. The “Jim and Raja” conversations. Evanston: Tamil Language Study Association.Search in Google Scholar

Bass, Daniel. 2013. Everyday ethnicity in Sri Lanka: Up-country Tamil identity politics. New York: Routledge.10.4324/9780203097809Search in Google Scholar

Canagarajah, Suresh A. 2005. Dilemmas in planning English/vernacular relations in post-colonial communities. Journal of Sociolinguistics 9(3). 418–447.10.1111/j.1360-6441.2005.00299.xSearch in Google Scholar

Canagarajah, Suresh A. 2013. Translingual practice: Global Englishes and cosmopolitan relations. New York: Routledge.10.4324/9780203120293Search in Google Scholar

Daniel, E. Valentine. 1996. Charred lullabies: An anthropography of violence. Princeton, N. J: Princeton University Press.10.1515/9781400822034Search in Google Scholar

Davis, Christina P. 2012. “Is Jaffna Tamil the best?” Producing “legitimate” language in a multilingual Sri Lankan school. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 22(2). 197–218.10.1111/j.1548-1395.2012.01148.xSearch in Google Scholar

Davis, Christina P. 2015. Speaking conflict: Ideological barriers to bilingual policy implementation in civil war Sri Lanka. Anthropology & Education Quarterly 46(2). 95–112.10.1111/aeq.12093Search in Google Scholar

De Silva, Chandra R. 1999. The role of education in ameliorating political violence. In Robert I. Rotberg (ed.), Creating peace in Sri Lanka: Civil war and reconciliation, 109–130. Washington, D.C: Brookings Institution Press.Search in Google Scholar

Devotta, Neil. 2004. Blowback: Linguistic nationalism, institutional decay, and the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka. Stanford: Stanford University Press.10.1515/9781503624566Search in Google Scholar

Ferguson, Charles. 1991. Diglossia revisited. Southwest Journal of Linguistics 10(1). 214–234.Search in Google Scholar

Fishman, Joshua. 1965. Who speaks what language to whom and when?. La Linguistique 2. 67–88.10.4324/9781003060406-9Search in Google Scholar

Gunesekera, Manique. 2005. The postcolonial identity of Sri Lankan English. Colombo: Katha Publishers.Search in Google Scholar

Hastings, Adi. 2008. Licked by the mother tongue: Imagining everyday Sanskrit at home and in the world. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 18(1). 24–45.10.1111/j.1548-1395.2008.00002.xSearch in Google Scholar

Higgins, Christina. 2009. English as a local language: Post-colonial identities and multilingual practices. Briston: Multilingual Matters.10.21832/9781847691828Search in Google Scholar

Hussein, Asiff. 2007. Sarandib: An ethnological study of the Muslims of Sri Lanka. Dehiwala: A. J. Prints (Pvt) Ltd.Search in Google Scholar

Imtiyaz, A R M. & S. R. H. Hoole. 2011. Some critical notes on the non-Tamil identity of the Muslims of Sri Lanka, and on Tamil–Muslim relations. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 32(2). 208–231.10.1080/00856401.2011.587504Search in Google Scholar

Kandiah, T. 2010. “Kaduva”: Power and the English language weapon in Sri Lanka. In S. Fernando, M. Gunesekera & A. Parakrama (eds.), English in Sri Lanka: Ceylon English, Lankan English, Sri Lankan English, 36–65. Colombo: SLELTA.Search in Google Scholar

LaDousa, Chaise. 2010. On mother and other tongues: Sociolinguistics, schools, and language ideology in northern India. Language Sciences 32. 602–614.10.1016/j.langsci.2010.08.001Search in Google Scholar

LaDousa, Chaise. 2014. Hindi is our ground, English is our sky: Education, language, and social class in contemporary India. New York: Berghahn.Search in Google Scholar

Little, Angela. 2003. Labouring to learn: Towards the political economy of plantations, people, and education in Sri Lanka. Colombo: Social Scientists’ Association.Search in Google Scholar

McGilvray, Dennis B. 2008. Crucible of conflict: Tamil and Muslim society on the east coast of Sri Lanka. Durham: Duke University Press.10.1515/9780822389187Search in Google Scholar

McGilvray, Dennis B. & Mirak Raheem. 2007. Muslim perspectives on the Sri Lankan conflict. Washington, D.C.: East-West Center.Search in Google Scholar

Ministry of Education, Sri Lanka. 2015. Education data 2015. Electronic document, http://www.moe.gov.lk/english/images/Statistics/EducationData_2015.pdf (accessed 26 July 2016).Search in Google Scholar

National Education Commission. 2003. Policy proposals: Summary of recommendations. Electronic document, http://www.nec.gov.lk/web/images/pdf/policies/National_Policy_2003.pdf (accessed 16 June 2014).Search in Google Scholar

Nuhman, M. A. 2007. Sri Lankan Muslims: Ethnic identity within cultural diversity. Colombo: International Center for Ethnic Studies.Search in Google Scholar

Nuhman, M. A. 2013. Language and education of Sri Lanka Muslims: Problems and prospects. Fortieth Marhoom Dr. A. M. A. Azeez oration. Electronic document, http://sailanmuslim.com/news/2013/11/07/language-and-education-of-sri-lankan-muslims-problems-and-prospects-by-dr-m-a-nuhman/ (accessed 7 July 2016).Search in Google Scholar

O’Sullivan, Meghan. 1999. conflict as a catalyst: The changing politics of the Sri Lankan Muslims. In Siri Gamage & I. B. Watson (eds.), conflict and community in contemporary Sri Lanka:‘Pearl of the East’ or the ‘island of tears’?, 254–278. New Delhi: Sage Publications.Search in Google Scholar

Pennycook, A. D. 2007. Global Englishes and transcultural flows. New York: Routledge.10.4324/9780203088807Search in Google Scholar

Pennycook, A. D. 2013. Language policies, language ideologies and local language practices. In B. H. Goh, Lisa Lim & Robbie Lionel Wee (eds.), The politics of English: South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Asia Pacific, 1–18. Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing.10.1075/wlp.4.02penSearch in Google Scholar

Perera, Lal, S. Wijetunga & A. S. Balasooriya. 2004. Education reform and political violence in Sri Lanka. In Sobhi Tawil & Alexandra Harley (eds.), Education, conflict, and social cohesion, 375–414. Paris: UNESCO, International Bureau of Education.Search in Google Scholar

Ramanathan, Vaidehi. 2005. The English-vernacular divide: Postcolonial language politics and practice. Buffalo, NY: Multilingual Matters LTD.10.21832/9781853597718Search in Google Scholar

Ramaswamy, Sumathi. 1997. Passions of the tongue: Language devotion in Tamil India. 1891–1970. Berkeley: University of California Press.10.1525/9780520918795Search in Google Scholar

Rogers, John D. 1994. Post-orientalism and the interpretation of pre-modern and modern political identities: The case of Sri Lanka. Journal of Asian Studies 53. 10–23.10.2307/2059524Search in Google Scholar

Samaraweera, Vijaya. 1979. The Muslim revivalist movement, 1880–1915. In Michael Roberts (ed.), Sri Lanka: Collective identities revisited, vol. 1. Colombo: Marga Institute.Search in Google Scholar

Schieffelin, Bambi & Kathryn A. Woolard. 1994. Language ideology. Annual Review of Anthropology 23(1). 55–82.10.1146/annurev.an.23.100194.000415Search in Google Scholar

Schiffman, Harold F. 1999. A reference grammar of spoken Tamil. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511519925Search in Google Scholar

Sørensen, Birgitte Refslund. 2008. The politics of citizenship and difference in Sri Lankan schools. Anthropology & Education Quarterly 39(4). 423–443.10.1111/j.1548-1492.2008.00031.xSearch in Google Scholar

Spencer, Jonathan (ed.). 1990. Sri Lanka: History and roots of conflict. New York: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar

Suseendirarajah, S. 1999. Tamil language in Sri Lanka. In K. Balasubramanian, K. Ratnamalar & R. Subadhini (eds.), Linguistics and culture: Select papers of S. Suseendirarajah, 1–23. Jaffna: University of Jaffna.Search in Google Scholar

Tambiah, S. J. 1986. Sri Lanka: Ethnic fratricide and the dismantling of democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Search in Google Scholar

Thiranagama, Sharika. 2011. In my mothers house: Civil war in Sri Lanka. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.10.9783/9780812205114Search in Google Scholar

Wickramasinghe, Nira. 2006. Sri Lanka in the modern age: A history of contested identities. London: Foundation Books.Search in Google Scholar

Woolard, Kathryn. A. 1998. Introduction: Language ideology as a field of inquiry. In K. A. Woolard & P. V. Kroskrity (eds.), Language ideologies: Practice and theory, 3–47. New York: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2018-08-19
Published in Print: 2018-08-28

© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Downloaded on 22.3.2026 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/ijsl-2018-0026/html
Scroll to top button