Neologisms Entering Sri Lankan English in the Backdrop of Aragalaya; an Analysis of Print Media

Abstract

The vocabulary of Sri Lankan English (SLE) has been a promising field that is growing continuously, reflecting the developments and changes in the social, political, and economic landscapes of the country. In this context, it seems that the recent developments in Sri Lanka, namely the people’s movement that erupted as a response to the plunging economy, impact SLE as a new variety of English, expanding its vocabulary in accordance with societal changes. In this light, this research intends to identify neologisms that have entered the vocabulary of SLE in print media in the backdrop of current social unrest, or the people’s movement. The second research objective is to identify the strategies used to create them. To achieve the objectives, a qualitative content analysis was conducted. In terms of data collection, 86 articles from The Sunday Observer and Ceylon Today published in February and July 2022, following the development of the people’s movement that erupted in March 2022 and reached its culmination in July 2022, were studied to identify neologisms. The relevant literature and a native speaker of SLE were consulted in identifying and analyzing the SLE words. The research shows that, within the sample of the study, 10 neologisms (aragalaya, jana aragalaya, aragalaya activists, aragalaya representatives, aragalaya people, aragalaya youth, deal politics, Galle Face protestors, Gotagogama protest site and BASL) have entered SLE vocabulary through the morphological processes of forming loan words, loan translations, compounds and acronyms.