International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume IV, Issue III, March 2020 | ISSN 2454–6186

Implementing the Trilingual Policy: Challenges Encountered by the Translators of Government Institutes in Sri Lanka

H. A. D. Madhavee¹, Manoj Ariyaratne²
Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka

Abstract: – In a multilingual country like Sri Lanka, languages act as an indispensable factor for the ethnic identity of each community. Language policies are systemized and implemented to achieve a planned conversion in the language use in one or more communities. In Sri Lanka,language has been a cause for the communal unrest during the past few decades. After facing many crisis situations and thirty years of brutal war the trilingual policy has formulated to build up reconciliation among social groups. In terms of legal provisions, the trilingual policy is definitely established but practical implementation is a challenge. In the process of implementing the trilingual policy translators play a pivotal role. They are the bridge builders between languages. Translators confront certain barriers when implementing language policies. In order to investigate challenges encountered by translators in the arena of the implementation of the trilingual policy this study applies a mixed approach which includes both quantitative and qualitative data allocated by a survey. The research study analyses the perspective of government translators regarding the trilingual policy and attempts to highlight the solutions that can initiate to overcome the barriers. It was found that the effectiveness of the implementation of the trilingual policy get affected by the dearth of qualified and experienced personal who have the ability to translate in Tamil and Sinhala languages. This scarcity is the major drawback in implementing the trilingual policy. This study found that the positive attitude towards second language learning and professional training institute for translators will be of utmost importance to the success of the trilingual policy.

Key Words: Translation, Translators, Trilingual policy, Government institutions, Challenges

I. INTRODUCTION

The word ‘translation’ originally buds from the Latin term ‘tranlatio’ which stands to mean ‘bring across’. One would identify it as a form of art which bridges the communication gap that arises due to lack of understanding of two different language elements. J. C. Catford states that it is a process performed by people. In the process of translation, the language to be translated is known as “source language” (SL) while the language to be translated into is known as “target language” (TL). Hence, scholars such as Catford (1995) further describe translation as the substitution of textual material in a specific language (SL) by equivalent textual material in another language (TL).