Abstract:
Even after 75 years of independence, Sri Lanka still follows the legal
system that it inherited from British colonial rule. Accordingly, the legal
jargon used in Sri Lanka’s judiciary strictly adheres to colonial linguistic
conventions that often involve Latin phrases. Yet, a fraction of Sri Lanka’s
English language academic populace is engaged in a campaign to promote
a brand of English known as Sri Lankan English formulated in their ivory
towers, incorporating all types of interlanguage anomalies committed by Sri
Lankans. So manipulative, they have even managed to influence Sri Lanka’s
Ministry of Education to propagate that substandard variety of English within
the national school system under the project “Speak English Our Way”. The
category of English the so-called Sri Lankan English campaigners (who do
not practice it within their families) attempt to promote under the popular
term “decolonization” clashes with the linguistic conventions and language
policies followed by Sri Lanka’s long-established legal institutions. Against
this background, this paper investigates how the persistent use of colonial
legal English has shaped the experiences and perceptions of key stakeholders
including legal professionals, the judiciary, and the general public and what
challenges the new category of English could pose on the common people.
The exploratory study has a qualitative research design that involves in
depth interviews, focus group discussions, and document analysis as data
collection methods. Random sampling techniques such as snowball sampling
and simple random sampling will be employed to select participants. As data
analysis methods, thematic analysis and constant comparative methods will
be employed. The gathering of the data and disclosure of information will be
done while following ethical guidelines. Upon exploration, the findings will
mainly contribute to processes related to language and legal policy reforms as
well as to establishing a positive perspective for the general public in finding
security in accessibility and comprehension of legal matters.
