Washback is a concept commonly used in applied linguistics to refer to the influence of testing on teaching and learning. The purpose of this study was to investigate the washback effect of a new system of English language speaking assessment in Sri Lanka. The new assessment was introduced with the intention of promoting the teaching and learning of English speaking skills in schools as part of a Presidential educational initiative called the English as a Life Skill Programme. The study examined the washback effect of the introduction of speaking assessments at both National and school levels from the perspectives of participants at three levels of the education system: the decision making level, intervening level (teacher trainers and in-service advisors), and implementing level (teachers and students). For this purpose, a mixed methods research approach was employed. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants at the decision making level and intervening level to examine whether there were any important gaps in translating policy intentions to the implementing level participants (teachers and students). A questionnaire survey was conducted with teachers and students to investigate their perceptions of the assessment change and its effects on teaching and learning speaking in the classroom. Classroom observations were conducted to gain insights into actual classroom practices in relation to teaching and learning speaking, along with follow-up interviews to seek teachers’ accounts of their classroom practices. The study found that the assessment change did influence teachers’ and students’ perceptions of teaching and learning speaking in the classroom, as well as teachers’ instructional practices. Therefore, some of the policymakers’ intended aims were achieved. However, the intensity and direction of washback were shown to be influenced by several mediating factors such as teachers’ training and contextual factors such as the availability of classroom resources. The findings of this study suggest that assessment reforms can be used to promote change both in what is taught in the classroom and how it is taught, but to different degrees. The study indicated that washback does occur in this context, but it operates in a complex manner associated with many other variables besides the assessment itself. The findings of this study have implications for the improvement of future assessment policies in Sri Lanka, highlighting the importance of timely implementation of reforms and of monitoring them. The findings suggest that it is especially important to listen to key stakeholders’ (teachers’ and students’) voices in the initial planning and feasibility study phases of reform.

The plant family Gesneriaceae is represented in Sri Lanka by six genera: Aeschynanthus, Epithema, Championia, Henckelia, Rhynchoglossum and Rhynchotechum, with 13 species (plus one subspecies/variety) of which ten are endemic including the monotypic genus Championia, according to the last revision in 1981. They are exclusively distributed in undisturbed habitats, and some have high ornamental value. The species are morphologically diverse, but face a problem of taxonomic delineation, which is further complicated by the presence of putative hybrids. Sri Lanka and Indian Peninsula, represent the Deccan plate of the ancient Gondwanan supercontinent. The presence of a relict flora may indicate the significance of the geological history of the Deccan plate for the evolution of angiosperms. The high degree of endemism here, along with their affinities to the global angiosperm flora paints a complex picture, but its biogeographic history is still unclear. The pantropical family Gesneriaceae distributed in Sri Lanka and South India is therefore an appropriate study group in this context. Besides, the family itself has a complex but largely unresolved biogeographical history especially concerning the origin and diversification of Old World Gesneriaceae. Modern approaches for the taxonomic studies were applied, integrating morphological and molecular data. Multiple samples were collected for each species across their geographical distribution. Nuclear ITS and chloroplast trnL-F sequences for the taxa from Sri Lanka were used to generate regional genus phylogenies of all six genera, using maximum parsimony. The rate of evolution of the nuclear ITS region versus chloroplast trnL-F was varied greatly across the six genera studied. Molecular delimitations were mostly congruent with the classical taxonomy. Over 65 taxonomic characters were studied in detail to recognize synapomorphies for clades and taxa. A complete taxonomic revision of Gesneriaceae in Sri Lanka, including lectotypification, was conducted based on both, the molecular and morphological data. This resulted in the recognition of 14 species in the six genera, including one newly described species H. wijesundarae Ranasinghe and Mich. Möller. Henckelia communis and H. angusta were not supported molecularly as two separate entities but are recognized as two species because of consistent morphological differences between them. Henckelia humboldtiana is proposed to represent a species complex due to its highly variable and inconsistent molecular and morphological diversity and overlap with H. incana and H. floccosa; more research is needed here. National conservation assessments were conducted, and all 14 species were recognized as threatened. Biogeographic affinities of Sri Lankan Gesneriaceae were elucidated, generating a dated phylogeny using an existing matrix of four plastid gene regions; trnL-F, matK, rps16 and ndhF, amended by sequences generated in this study. The final combined matrix included 175 taxa including newly generated sequences for the 13 Sri Lankan taxa. Phylogenetic trees were generated using parsimony, maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference. Molecular dating was carried out using BEAST and ancestral area reconstruction using BioGeoBears. These analyses indicated that the six genera of Gesneriaceae arrived in Sri Lanka separately and sometimes different time periods. One lineage dated back to the early diversification of the subfamily Didymocarpoideae (generally regarded as the Old World Gesneriaceae), which occurred around the KT boundary, before the Deccan plate was connected to Asia.

Researchers have given considerable attention to war crimes across nations. Numerous anthropologists, political scientists, and economists have conducted research on the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka; however, there is scant literature exploring violations of international law as experienced by the minorities (i.e., Tamils) from sociological and criminological perspectives. The purpose of this study is to offer an insight into how masculinity and war crimes by the military and the paramilitary forces affected the Tamils from the Northern and the Eastern provinces in Sri Lanka. I explored victimization experienced by the Tamil Diaspora populations, the construction of victimization avoidance strategies, the social forces that motivated them to leave Sri Lanka, the short and the long-term effects of victimization (i.e., sexual, economic, physical, mental), the process the refugees adopted to assimilate themselves into new space, and the resources available from Sri Lanka and place of new residence to meet their needs. Finally, I explored within gender differences and similarities of victimization as experienced by the refugees. I employed qualitative methods to collect the data, where I gathered a sample of Tamils Diaspora population from Canada and the United States of America by way of snowball sampling via advocates who worked with refugees. I used open-ended questionnaires during the face-to-face interviews. I audio-taped most of the interviews and I manually transcribed them. I took written notes of a couple of the interviews when the participants did not permit audio recording. Finally, I analyzed the collected data and present the findings. This approach informs the scientific community of how people understand and give meanings to their life experiences (Orbuch, 1997; Mishler, 1986). The findings indicate that several types of social forces contributed to how families operated during the war. For instance, the war impacted the quality of available education, the quality of available shelter, and the social and family pressures for expected roles within the community. I specifically looked at victimization experiences, the social forces that motivated them to leave Sri Lanka, the short and long-term effects of war related victimization, the process of assimilation, resources available in Sri Lanka and their new place of residence, and gender differences or similarities of war crime victimization as experienced by the refugees. The research question I explored revealed that many faced financial/economic strain, secondary victimization, sexual abuse, mental/ emotional abuse, and physical abuse. When I explored victimization avoidance strategies, the data revealed that some participants submitted while others’ social bonds allowed them to evade victimization. Next, I explored the coping strategies employed by the participants during and post-civil war. The themes that emerged to explain their coping strategies were medical/counseling assistance, deference to God, and gendered roles. I also explored the social forces that drove the participants out of the country. The data revealed that it was the impact of the internal conflict on various infrastructures that stimulated the participants’ exodus from the country. I also explored the assistance the participants received in Sri Lanka and their new place of residence. The data revealed that many of the participants received most of their help from the paramilitary. All of the participants indicated they received aid from their new place of residence. Finally, I conclude by providing theoretical discussions of the findings, limitations of the study, future recommendations, and implications. This study unveils how the Sri Lankan Tamil refugees experienced and gave meaning to their lived experiences due to the war.

This study investigates the desalination needs and available technologies in Sri Lanka. Lack of rainfall, pollution due to agricultural chemicals, presence of fluoride, increasing demand, exploitation of ground water and brackishness have created scarcity of fresh pure water specially in near costal and dry zones in Sri Lanka. Due to Cronic Kidney Disease (CKD) around 500 people died in dry zones annually which is suspected to cause by Arsenic and Cadmium contain in ground water due to agriculture chemicals.   The available desalination methods are Reverse Osmosis (RO), Solar distillation and conventional methods. The cost for RO is Rs.0.10 cents per liter and solar distillation Rs.2.96 per liter. Although the price shows that the RO is better but due to high initial investment as a third world country it is very difficult to afford huge initial investment without government intervention. The experimental solar desalination units only produce nearly 5liters of potable water per day and directly impacted by availability of solar radiation. The energy availability of Sri Lanka and future potable water demand predicted as 2188.3 Mn liters as maximum demand which will be in 2030, therefore by that time the government should have a proper plan to cater the demand and desalination plants need to be planned and built based on the demand of dry zones and specially agriculture areas.   The applicability of renewable energy for desalination in local arena was also simulated taking the Delf Reverse Osmosis plant for the simulation. Results show that the optimum design is combination of Solar PV and existing 100kW Diesel generator Set with Battery bank and converter.

The thesis deals with the ethnic conflict on Sri Lanka from the point of view of the constructivist theory of identity and cultural schemes. The history of the island is explained through this attitude, particulary an impact of colonization on a local society and on contruction of ethnic identities. At the end, the main causes of the conflict are pinpointed, possible future provisions are recommended and the current situation is assessed.

This thesis “Inherently Hybrid: Contestations and Renegotiations of Prescribed Identities in Contemporary Sri Lankan English Writing” examines work by Nihal de Silva, David Blacker and Vivimarie VanderPoorten to analyse their negotiation of identity, belonging and citizenship within contemporary Sri Lankan English Writing. This negotiation of identity is then placed in relation to the Eelam Wars as well as hybridity and cosmopolitanism, which have become a part of Sri Lankan identity because of the nation’s postcolonial past. Genre and form are employed as ways into exploring the tensions within Sri Lankan English writing, especially because they prescribe on the texts selected a specific way of approaching and presenting the ethnic conflict that is a widespread theme in much of contemporary Sri Lankan writing. The first chapter looks at De Silva’s adventure romance The Road From Elephant Pass. It examines how the novel engenders a renegotiation of identities through the effects of the ethnic conflict upon the attitudes, behaviours and ideologies of the island’s populations, symbolically represented through the narrator, who is a Sinhalese Buddhist officer in the Sri Lankan Army and his eventual lover, who is a rebel fighting for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. I analyse the arguments presented in the text around identity, belonging and patriotism and focus on the representations of ethnic and racial identity that ultimately expose the constructedness of these various positions, revealing the unacknowledged but real hybridity of the Sri Lankan peoples. I look at markers of cultural capital and tease out how class identities rely on cosmopolitanism, characterised by a knowledge of English, and how that further reveals the performativity of identity. The second chapter examines Blacker’s political thriller A Cause Untrue. Here I explore how the use of detail and description provides an appearance of imparting a complete and realistic perspective on the war. I demonstrate how the novel, through the calculated use of what I will characterise as a ‘reality effect’, takes on the manifestation of being an authority on the war. Blacker’s use of recognisable historical events allows him to create an alternative narrative of history, one that has all the hallmarks of being a true retelling even as it is apparent that his text utilises the ‘reality effect’ to imagine Sri Lanka creatively. This demonstrates how the selection of the thriller genre provides Blacker with a specific way of representing the nation and its diasporas’ in relation to the Eelam Wars. The third chapter focuses on VanderPoorten’s collection of poetry nothing prepares you. Here I investigate how the concepts of hybridity and cosmopolitanism are located within the language used to construct her poetry. I explore how this hybridity and cosmopolitanism of language works together with the form and content of her poems to provide a disquieting of fixed notions of identity, citizenship and belonging. The conclusion to the study revisits the issues that my three chapters deal with, bringing together an overall account of hybridity, cosmopolitanism and identity. I look at the constructedness and performance of identity with the aim of providing a nuanced reading of the renegotiations of identity and citizenship that are taking place because of the ethnic conflict. By summing up the different manifestations of the various gendered, ethnic and class identities represented and presented in the texts that I explore, I illustrate the wider implications of the points of connection between identity and power on the one hand and nationalism, dogma and political rhetoric on the other. Identities within the Sri Lankan nation blur the distinctions between alien and citizen, between one who belongs and subscribes to set expectations, norms and practices and one who challenges these markers of identity.

This thesis, “Re-visioning a Discipline: Martin Wickramasinghe’s Contribution to Comparative Literature,” explores the comparative approach of Martin Wickramasinghe, the pioneering twentieth-century Sri Lankan novelist, literary-cultural critic, and journalist. Wickramasinghe drew on Sinhala folk and classical, Pali, Sanskrit, and Western literary traditions, especially those of England, and Russia. His comparative approach had two main principles: First, literary concepts do not belong to any literary culture on the basis of their origin. Second, any concept that exists in a given literary culture can be “remoulded” and incorporated by another culture. The rejection of the notion of origin-based ownership of literary concepts and the reformulation of literary concepts as phenomena that may be circulated among literary cultures create a hierarchy-less base for comparison. In creating his comparative approach, Wickramasinghe problematized the binaries of local and metropolitan, village and city, and national and international. I examine his comparative approach by analyzing, first, his re-interpretations of the concepts of reader and grāmyatā (vulgarity). For example, Wickramasinghe challenged the elitism of Sanskrit literary theoretical conceptions of the reader and vulgarity. Second, I discuss how he “remoulded” different literary concepts in his theoretical writings and fiction. For example, he created a concept of realism that drew on classical Sinhala narratives as well as Western literature and theory. In this thesis, I place Wickramasinghe’s comparative approach in conversation with postcolonial scholarship such as that of Dipesh Chakrabarty, Simon Gikandi, Revathi Krishnaswamy, Gayathri Spivak, and S. Subramaniam. Wickramasinghe’s comparative approach provides us new insights on how to compare different literary cultures without ascribing hierarchical values to these cultures. He rejected the binaries of colonial and postcolonial Sri Lanka and, instead, situated himself in a liminal position. His writings illumine how Pali, Sanskrit, and European metropolitan literary traditions all impacted Sinhala literary culture in different historical periods. Wickramasinghe focused on how Sinhala literary culture appropriates literary concepts from other literary traditions rather than on the traditions themselves.

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Idén till denna uppsats tog sin början i en kyrka i Kandy, i centrala Sri Lanka, i januari 2019. Två präster från Svenska kyrkan och jag hade varit på besök i landet och vi skulle avsluta vår vistelse med att fira högmässa i anglikanska St. Paul’s Church på trettondedag jul. Efter gudstjänsten fick vi under kyrkfikat möjlighet att sitta ned med kyrkoherden och diskutera religionsdialog. Något som blev tydligt för mig under samtalet var hur ifrågasatt den kristna minoriteten i landet är. St. Paul’s Church byggdes under den brittiska kolonialtiden och ligger vägg i vägg med Sri Lankas viktigaste buddhisttempel – Sri Dalada Maligawa. Marken som omgärdar templet är omstridd och församlingen har fått utstå flera verbala och fysiska attacker från buddhister som inte velat ha kyrkan på den mark som britterna tog ifrån dem under 1800-talet. Kyrkoherdens berättelse fick mig att vilja undersöka situationen närmare – hur ser relationen mellan kristna och människor av annan trosuppfattning egentligen ut? Eftersom jag är student erbjöd han sig att kontakta ett teologiskt college i centralprovinsen för att jag skulle få möjlighet att själv undersöka hur studenter och lärare arbetar med frågan. Sri Lanka har med sin mångreligiösa miljö givit världen flera pionjärer inom religionsdialog. Aloysius Pieris – jesuitpräst och grundare av Tulana Research Center for Encounter and Dialogue, Wesley Ariarajah – Kyrkornas världsråds sekreterare för interreligiösa relationer och Lynn de Silva – tidigare vid Ecumenical Institute for Study and Dialogue i Colombo, är några av dem. Att ägna sig åt religionsdialog i en kontext där man som samfund befinner sig i minoritet borde vara viktigt för att kunna samexistera, tänkte jag. Min egen bild av begreppet är att religionsdialog handlar om konstruktiva interaktioner över religionsgränser där människor försöker nå en ömsesidig förståelse av sin religiösa nästa för att i förlängningen främja fred mellan människor av olika trosuppfattningar. Ekumenik handlar för mig om relationer i samarbete och bön mellan kristna. Mina uppfattningar kom att utmanas under resan tillbaka till Sri Lanka i augusti samma år. Det blev början på en tid som kom att ge mig nya perspektiv och erfarenheter som resulterade i denna uppsats.

River sand mining from the Maha Oya is the main source of income and a force that drives economic activity for residents along the river. This study takes place in Sri Lanka, there are three villages included in this project: Jambugaswatte, Janituspuraya and Thoppuwa. In Sri Lanka, sand serves as the main building material. It is used to make bricks, tiles, asphalt and concrete, therefore demanding a high market value. However, the over-extraction of sand comes along with significant environmental problems. These communities depend on the river in many ways and the health of the river directly corresponds to the health of the ecosystem as a whole. Along the Maha Oya two important elements of survival are in conflict with one another: residents simultaneously need a healthy, thriving ecosystem to live in, as well as economic opportunities. With support from the Environmental Foundation Ltd. (EFL)--a Sri Lankan environmental justice NGO--this study focuses on the complex situation with sand mining on the Maha Oya. Data for this study comes from fifteen formal interviews with a Sinhala-English translator. These interviews are used to address the two research questions for this project: how do village residents along the Maha Oya perceive sand mining? And what are the emotional, practical and theoretical responses of village residents to the effects of sand mining on their local ecosystems? In order to envision a sustainable future, it is vital to begin with a clear understanding of community perceptions of these complex issues, which are at the heart of this project.