South Asia

Sri Lanka

Professor in German

University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka

neelakshi3@yahoo.com

Department of Modern Languages, University of Kelaniya
Kelaniya, Sri Lanka

phone: 94/11-290-3721
fax: 94/11-2911-485

Sri Lanka

Sinhala - Literary and Spoken Sinhala

Reference: reference tracking, reference devices, speaker, addressee and
third person reference in discourse, role of socio-linguistic factors in
reference

Gradation: mechanisms used by native speakers to denote gradation,
degrees, dimensional adjectives, positive, comparative, superlative etc.

Gender and number: how gender is represented in languages; masculine,
feminine, neuter, human/non-human, living beings/objects; how number is
represented in languages; singular, plural, dual, interpretation of
different numbers, groups, quantities

Language Change & Linguistic Borrowing: English loan-words: influence of
loan-words on the linguistic structure of a given language

Corpus Linguistics: compiling corpora with electronic databases

Contrastive Linguistics

Computational Linguistics

Foreign language teaching: identifying areas of difficulty in learning
German as a foreign language by Sinhala native speakers, E-learning and
computer based language teaching, web based technology and interactive
multimedia content in language learning, blended learning and open learning

Teaching of English as a Second Language to Sinhala native speakers;
Intercultural communication in language teaching; ICT in Language
Teaching/Learning

South Asia-related Books & Monographs

(1) Ch. Premawardhena, N. (2002): Referenz-Indizes im Deutschen und im
Singhalesischen: Eine kontrastive Studie, Siegen. Univerlag: (also PhD
dissertation). 245 pp

South Asia-related Research Papers:

(2) Ch. Premawardhena, N. Integrating Computer aided learning teaching
English as a second Language: A Sri Lankan experience. International
Conference on Interactive Computer Aided Learning (ICL 2009), September
2009, Villach, Austria

(3) Ch. Premawardhena, N. (2008). Impact of socio-cultural aspects on
language in a changing world: An analysis of Modern Sinhala In: Marion
Grein (Ed.) Dialogue in and between different cultures.IADA, 53-63 ISSN
1999-5598

(4) Ch. Premawardhena, N. Integrating computer aided language learning
to enhance English language skills of Sri Lankan university students,
International Conference on Interactive Computer Aided Learning (ICL
2008), September 2008, Villach, Austria.

(5) Ch. Premawardhena, N. (2007). How Diplomatic Can a Language Be? The
unwritten rules in a language: an analysis of Spoken Sinhala. In: Marion
Grein & Edda Weigand (Eds). Dialogue and Culture, John
Benjamins:Amsterdam, pp. 213-225.

(6) Ch. Premawardhena, N. (2007) Integrating Literature into foreign
language teaching: A Sri Lankan perspective. In: Novitas Royal. Ed. Arda
Arikan. Vol.I.2., pp 92-97. ISSN 1307-4733

(7) Ch. Premawardhena, N. Web-based teaching as a performance enhancer
in foreign language teaching in Sri Lanka, International Conference on
Interactive Computer Aided Learning (ICL 2007), September 2007, Villach,
Austria

(8) Ch. Premawardhena, N. (2006), Impact of English Loan Words in Modern
Sinhala. In: Amarasinghe, S.; Fonseka, E.A.G.; Ruuskanen, D.D.K.
(Eds.). Sri Lanka at Crossroads: Continuity and Change. Proceedings of the
9th International Conference on Sri Lankan Studies. Matara: University of
Ruhuna. pp 136-146

(9) De Silva, Chandima H. / Ch. Premawardhena, N. (2006), Some
Computational Aspects of Natural Language Understanding: A Case Study of
Sinhala. In: Amarasinghe, S.; Fonseka, E.A.G.; Ruuskanen, D.D.K. (Eds.).
Sri Lanka at Crossroads: Continuity and Change. Matara: University of
Ruhuna. pp 146-155

(10) Ch. Premawardhena, N. Bilingualism in a Sri Lankan context: An
analysis of Modern Sinhala and Sri Lankan English. 6th International
Symposium in Bilingualism ISB06, May-June 2007, Hamburg, Germany, pp.
278-279

(11) Ch. Premawardhena, N. Socio-cultural aspects reflected in a
language: an analysis of degrees of respect in Spoken Sinhala,
International Symposium, Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka, July 2006,
p 133

(12) Ch. Premawardhena, N. Linguistic borrowing in a changing world: a
contrastive analysis of English loan words in Sinhala and German.
International Symposium, Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka, July 2006,
p 135

(13) Ch. Premawardhena, N. Enhancing Quality of English Teaching: Some
suggestions derived from Foreign Language Teaching in Sri Lanka.
Conference on Enhancing University English Language Teaching (EUE),
Colombo, June 2006, p 11 (full paper in print)

(14) Ch. Premawardhena, N. Lerntraditionen im Vergleich: Sri Lanka und
Deutschland. 14th International Congress on Education and Information
Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany, February 2006, CD-ROM

(15) Ch. Premawardhena, N. (2005), Pronunciation difficulties
encountered by Sinhala native speakers in learning German as a foreign
language. In: Journal of Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka, Vol. 5. No.
1. pp 48-58

(16) Ch. Premawardhena, N.; De Silva, C.H., Sutadhara, T, Some
sociolinguistic aspects of a corpus of Spoken Sinhala from the Western
Province of Sri Lanka. 10th International Conference on Sri Lanka Studies,
Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, December 2005.p 103

(17) Ch. Premawardhena, N. Some aspects of intercultural communication
in Foreign Language Teaching. 10th International Conference on Sri Lanka
Studies, Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, December 2005 p 185

(18) Ch. Premawardhena, N.; De Silva, C.H. Integrating ICT in Foreign
Language Teaching: A Sri Lankan experience. 10th International Conference
on Sri Lanka Studies, Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, December 2005. p 186

(19) Ch. Premawardhena, N. DaF-Unterricht in Sri Lanka, interkulturelle
Aspekte und Interferenz der Mutter- bzw. Zweitsprache. 'Symposium für
Germanistik', New Delhi, October 2005

(20) Ch. Premawardhena, N. (2003), Internationalismen im
Singhalesischen. In: Peter Braun/Burkhard Schaeder/Johannes Volmer (Eds.),
Internationalismen-Studien zur interlingualen Lexikographie II in der
"Reihe Germanistische Linguistik" Tübingen: Niemeyer. 169-182

(21) Ch. Premawardhena, N. /Sutadhara, T. / De Silva, Chandima H. Some
Aspects of Representing a Corpus of Spoken Sinhala in an Electronic
Database. Annual Research Symposium, University of Kelaniya, Kelaniya, Sri
Lanka, November 2003. p 7

(22) Rathnayaka, Dilrukshi/ Ch. Premawardhena, N. Reference Devices in
Japanese. Annual Research Symposium, University of Kelaniya, Kelaniya, Sri
Lanka, November 2003, p 5

(23) Ch. Premawardhena, N. (2002), Reference Devices in Sinhala. In:
Pronouns, Grammar and Representation, Horst J. Simon, Heike Wiese (Eds.)
Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 63-84

(24) Ch. Premawardhena, N. Reference Tracking in German and Sinhala.
Annual Sessions ofGerman Society of Linguistics (DGfS), Marburg, Germany,
March 2000.

corpus linguistics ; contrastive linguistics ; computational linguistics ; ...