Chitra Jayathilake | University of Sri Jayewardenepura (original) (raw)

Papers by Chitra Jayathilake

Human traffickingdefined as organ and sex trafficking, and slavery materialized through numerous ... more Human traffickingdefined as organ and sex trafficking, and slavery materialized through numerous stratagems is a growing problem worldwide. There has been a rising interest in the topic of human trafficking, and its mounting complexity and challenge. However, research has scarcely included literary representations of human trafficking achieved via e-surveillance processes: in this respect, Asian plays have received no sufficient critical attention. This article aims to redress this dearth by investigating the processes of human trafficking as depicted in the Indian playwright Manjula Padmanabhan's Harvest, which premiered in 1999 in Greece. The play, a literary testimony to the complexity and subtlety of human trafficking processes, features storylines about human trafficking exercised through the forms of coercion, abduction, sexual seduction, fraud, deception, and abuse of power. Therefore, Harvest is closely read through Fanon's, Foucault's, and Bauman and Lyon's perspectives of surveillance in this article. Reading the play provides a point of discussion of the third world's vulnerability and its resistance to the first world's human trafficking. It sheds much light on diverse human harvesting means such as organ harvesting and repopulation, and miscegenation, utilized through e-surveillance. The article offers complex insights into human trafficking victims of surveillanceboth their vulnerability and the attempts of their agency.

Social Science Research Network, 2023

Critical Inquiry in Language Studies

Characterized by specific and rigid boundaries of institutional practices and expectations in the... more Characterized by specific and rigid boundaries of institutional practices and expectations in the academy, student writing is a synergistic literacy practice where students are required to construct generically diverse texts by yoking concepts with appropriate linguistic resources. This empirical study involving 196 first-year ESL students at a university in Sri Lanka explores why conceptual incongruities occur in argumentative essays constructed by them, and how they defend their arguments. We analyzed all their timed essays and noticed that 72 out of them contained conceptual incongruities. By "conceptual incongruities, we refer to instances where students" conceptualization process is not aligned or coherent with the essay topic. For our analysis of student texts, we have introduced two social cognitive perspectives: untutored competencies and tutored competencies. The former includes inherited, social, and ideological identities emerging from societal epistemologies whereas disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity constitute the latter. This empirical research demonstrates how students' conceptualization process is mediated by a labyrinthine repertoire of knowledge premised in students' untutored competencies and tutored competencies, signaling deviations from their essay topic.

International Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies

This article explores the ways in which Anglophone dramas in postcolonial South Africa became a t... more This article explores the ways in which Anglophone dramas in postcolonial South Africa became a tool of political and protest theater. It examines the emergence of Anglophone theater, explores its development into political praxis and discusses the performance or non-performance contexts, as well as their specific socio-political milieux, with reference to the select plays from South Africa. These plays are compelling as they characterize specific tensions internal to South Africa, while alluding to colonial legacies and global coercion. Historicization is a crucial phase in this study and the key part of the methodology that establishes their political and aesthetic significance, both at the time of performance and after. The central argument of the article is that Anglophone theater of South Africa is subjected to and bound bysocio-political and cultural dynamics of the country; the emergence of political and protest theater is often caused by subtle or overt subterfuges of biopolitics exercised internally within this postcolonial territory.

Computer Assisted Language Learning

Active Learning in Higher Education, 2021

Defined as ‘networks of learning relationships among students and significant others’, peer assis... more Defined as ‘networks of learning relationships among students and significant others’, peer assisted learning takes a bewildering array of forms in higher education. A useful way to conceptualise these is to draw from ideas of communities of practice and communicative rationality, with the degree of student autonomy a third key element. We illustrate this approach with a study of Kuppi, an example of peer assisted learning initiated and organised entirely by students. We interviewed undergraduate participants from six state universities in Sri Lanka and found strong support for this model of peer assisted learning from student learners and student tutors. These classes are characterised by informality and discussion, flexibility in timing and location and a focus on assessments. Students determine the content and who teaches, whilst tutors give their time without payment, out of fraternity and to improve their own learning and skills. The theory of communicative rationality helped e...

Code-switchingextrasentential shifts transferring the focus from one language to anotheris undoub... more Code-switchingextrasentential shifts transferring the focus from one language to anotheris undoubtedly a characteristic of cross-cultural encounter: it is assumed in the literature that bilinguals and multilinguals mix their languages to considerable degrees. Code-switching in its oral production has largely been researched, devoting attention to its grammatical patterns, structure and meaning. Nevertheless, very little research focuses on code-switching in writing, particularly on Sinhala-English shifts in written ecommunication methods. The overall intent of this study was to examine the use of code-switching in emails employed by Sinhala-English bilinguals. The four-fold question aimed (i) to explore the frequency of codeswitching in emails among bilinguals of English and Sinhala languages, (ii) to explore the possible relation between code-switching and email recipients, (iii) to explore the possible correlation between codeswitching and the subject matter in emails, and (iv) to explore the reasons and functions for code-switching in such emails. A questionnaire, a semi-structured interview, and a collection of emails were employed as research instruments in this exploratory study. Over 100 Sinhala-English bilinguals contributed to the questionnaire while 20 of their emails/excerpts were analyzed to triangulate the data, and 5 participants were interviewed to ascertain further the data collected. Data analysis was performed both on a statistical test (a Chi-squire test) and an evaluation of the content of emails. Evidently, code-switching is highly frequent, and preferred to a single language in informal emails. It entails diverse socio-cultural and linguistics functions in line with the social solidarity between the two users. English is used to a higher degree in code-switched emails than Sinhala despite the participants' socio-cultural, educational, professional, and gender diversity. Code-switching in emails frequently constitutes a qualitatively better form of knowledge construction. Nonetheless, future studies are expected to gather a greater number of emails to enhance generalizability.

Coloniality, Ontology, and the Question of the Posthuman, 2017

Studies in Literature and Language, 2016

Biopolitics—the strategies and mechanisms through which human life processes are managed and regu... more Biopolitics—the strategies and mechanisms through which human life processes are managed and regulated under regimes of authority—is ordinary currency in society, and ruling political systems exercise surveillance, incarceration and killings to a great extent in this regard. Michel Foucault’s work on the regulation of human beings through the production of power serves as an initial medium of investigation into biopolitics. Yet, Giorgio Agamben probes the covert and overt presence of biopolitical violence in society, particularly through his concepts of state of exception and bare life. The Indian playwright Mahasweta Devi’s Anglophone play-text Mother of 1084 (1973) enables scholars to participate in a critical forum on biopolitical praxis, because of its pervasive and explicit representation of state violence and rebels. Nonetheless, the play-text is often renowned for its reference to feminist ideology and mother-son relationship. Existing scholarship has overlooked the manifesta...

English Review: Journal of English Education, 2011

: Error correction in ESL (English as a Second Language) classes has been a focal phenomenon in S... more : Error correction in ESL (English as a Second Language) classes has been a focal phenomenon in SLA (Second Language Acquisition) research due to some controversial research results and diverse feedback practices. This paper presents a study which explored the relative efﬁcacy of three forms of error correction employed in ESL writing classes: focusing on the acquisition of one grammar element both for immediate and delayed language contexts, and collecting data from university undergraduates, this study employed an experimental research design with a pretest-treatment-posttests structure. The research revealed that the degree of success in acquiring L2 (Second Language) grammar through error correction differs according to the form of the correction and to learning contexts. While the ﬁndings are discussed in relation to the previous literature, this paper concludes creating a cline of error correction forms to be promoted in Sri Lankan L2 writing contexts, particularly in ESL cont...

In his lectures in 1975-1976, Michel Foucault conceptualised the inclination to commit murders in... more In his lectures in 1975-1976, Michel Foucault conceptualised the inclination to commit murders in political circumstances, and delineated it as ‘political death’ (2003).1 Such killings encompass both corporeal and psychological execution exercised through diverse means, for instance, murder, manslaughter, genocide, social ostracism and exposure to deadly environments. Apparently, today political death is implemented either through implicit biopolitical stratagems or overt violence by those who are already in power or those who attempt to gain power, and is prompted through phenomena such as racism, patriotism and xenophobia. This paper aims to examine ‘political death’ prompted by racism, and interrogates the ways and means by which these murders are actualised and rationalised, but ultimately rendered invisible in society, as represented in Athol Fugard’s Anglophone play-text, Sizwe Bansi is Dead (1972): Set against the backdrop of the apartheid epoch, Fugard’s play focuses on the ...

SUBMISSION OF THESIS FOR A RESEARCH DEGRE Part I. DECLARATION by the candidate for a research deg... more SUBMISSION OF THESIS FOR A RESEARCH DEGRE Part I. DECLARATION by the candidate for a research degree. To be bound in the thesis Degree for which thesis being submitted: Doctor of Philosophy English Title of thesis: Biopolitics and postcolonial theatre: a comparative study of Anglophone plays in South Africa, India and Sri Lanka This thesis contains confidential information and is subject to the protocol set down for the submission and examination of such a thesis. YES/NO [please delete as appropriate; if YES the box in Declaration Part II should be completed]

Canadian Review of Comparative Literature / Revue Canadienne de Littérature Comparée, 2019

At an academic conference in 2018, I heard a speaker claim that a transatlantic slave ship full o... more At an academic conference in 2018, I heard a speaker claim that a transatlantic slave ship full of human cargo can be understood as a cyborg. From my perch in the back row, I gasped, and said under my breath (but, I fear, audibly), "Nooooooo," the "o" drawn out for several seconds, like a moan issuing deep from within. Perhaps I become a cyborg when I merge with my GPS app, and in a trance-like state, follow its directions, trusting Waze to navigate me around Tampa traffic, but a densely packed wooden ship full of the tears and blood and sweat of a kidnapped human workforce reduced to objects? I object. My fundamental disagreement with this thesis is that the cyborg, after Donna Haraway, is in part, a liberatory model freeing us from the epistemological binarism instantiated in the Enlightenment; it is one of the potential complications of Haraway's passing reference to the seamstress in the home sweatshop (170)-which may have mistakenly inspired the comparison to the slave ship-and it is the reason we should not, in my opinion, apply the cyborg model to any mechanism that relegates human beings to subhuman status, as the transatlantic slave trade reduced people to freight, and then to machines and beasts of burden. (Maybe if the slave ship were the Amistad, but even then, I think not.) This way of thinking about the cyborg may be best articulated in Angela Last's essay in this collection: "Cyborgs are intersectional beings that not only have a potential for multiple oppression but multiple solidarities" (70; emphasis mine). Nonetheless, this Canadian Review of Comparative Literature / Revue Canadienne de Littérature Comparée crcl september 2019 septembre rclc 0319-051x/19/46.

African Studies, 2018

This article interrogates the status of incarceration, and prisoners' rights or the lack thereof,... more This article interrogates the status of incarceration, and prisoners' rights or the lack thereof, as represented in South African dramatist Athol Fugard's Anglophone play-text, The Island (1993)co-authored by John Kani and Winston Ntshona, and premiered in 1973with a view to shedding light on incarceration and biopolitical violence. The play provides significant theatrical testimonies of political prisoners and incarceration by demonstrating corporeal and psychological dehumanisation processes in prisons during the apartheid era in South Africa. Despite the scholarly attention on the play, it is scarcely read through Foucault's and Agamben's biopolitical lenses, coupled with Nelson Mandela's prison testimonies, and this is where this reading departs from the existing scholarship. This article argues that South African black prisoners were in a prolonged period of oppression and offensive restrictions, and in a sphere outside the normal law, thus in a status of Muselmann. How the incarcerated body is mobilised as the focal point of struggle towards apartheid laws, and how it is linked to decolonisation is also examined. Prisoners attempt to regain their freedom and agency irrespective of their living circumstancesa figurative resistance to biopolitical violence. The article offers a contribution to the critical vocabulary of the play whilst interrogating the praxis of modern biopolitics.

Cogent Arts & Humanities, 2018

as soon as possible after acceptance. Copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof... more as soon as possible after acceptance. Copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof will be undertaken on this manuscript before final publication of the Version of Record (VoR). Please note that during production and pre-press, errors may be discovered which could affect the content.

Social Science Research Network, 2021

Journal of Language Teaching and Research

English Medium Instruction (EMI) is a growing educational praxis in the world. Sri Lanka also pra... more English Medium Instruction (EMI) is a growing educational praxis in the world. Sri Lanka also practises EMI in primary, secondary and university education contexts. Nevertheless, EMI is not adequately researched: the existing scholarship alludes to the significance of its context-dependency (e.g., Snchez-Prez, Maria del Mar 2020). Moreover, there is a lacuna of scholarly knowledge of how EMI works in Sri Lankan educational contexts. Hence, this exploratory study examined lecturers’ practices of, and insights into, EMI within the context of Sri Lankan higher education. The data were drawn from in-depth qualitative interviews with ten lecturers who teach Social Sciences through EMI at three state universities in the country. Interviewees – encompassing males and females and belonging to varying age groups – have a range of EMI teaching experience and different professional and educational qualifications. Qualitative thematic analysis was utilised to uncover themes related to EMI in th...

Social Science Research Network, 2023

Critical Inquiry in Language Studies

International Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies

Computer Assisted Language Learning

Active Learning in Higher Education, 2021

Coloniality, Ontology, and the Question of the Posthuman, 2017

Studies in Literature and Language, 2016

English Review: Journal of English Education, 2011

Canadian Review of Comparative Literature / Revue Canadienne de Littérature Comparée, 2019

African Studies, 2018

Cogent Arts & Humanities, 2018

Social Science Research Network, 2021

Journal of Language Teaching and Research

University of Sri Jayewardenepura, 2020

This is an index of English dramas written by Sri Lankan writers. This book concurrently features... more This is an index of English dramas written by Sri Lankan writers. This book concurrently features Ernest Macintyre's new play Silindu of Baddegama.
The book is co-authored by Chitra Jayathilake, Kanchanakesi Warnapala and Rakhitha M. Wijayawardhana

The Fundamentals of Testing and Assessment for Language and Literature is a reference and textboo... more The Fundamentals of Testing and Assessment for Language and Literature is a reference and textbook for students reading for BA and MA Degrees related to English and/or Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL). The distinctive flavor in this book is its simple expressions and authentic examples. The book is suitable for students at elementary and intermediate levels, who are ready to move on to a more powerful command and practice of testing and assessment.

London and New York: Routledge, 2017

This book brings together emerging insights from across the humanities and social sciences to h... more This book brings together emerging insights from across the humanities and social sciences to highlight how postcolonial studies are being transformed by increasingly influential and radical approaches to nature, matter, subjectivity, human agency, and politics. These include decolonial studies, political ontology, political ecology, indigeneity, and posthumanisms. The book examines how postcolonial perspectives demand of posthumanisms and their often ontological discourses that they reflexively situate their own challenges within the many long histories of decolonised practice. Just as postcolonial research needs to critically engage with radical transitions suggested by the ontological turn and its related posthumanist developments, so too do posthumanisms need to decolonise their conceptual and analytic lenses. The chapters' interdisciplinary analyses are developed through global, critical, and empirical cases that include: city spaces and urbanisms in the Global North and South; food politics and colonial land use; cultural and cosmic representation in film, theatre, and poetry; nation building; the Anthropocene; materiality; the void; pluriversality; and, indigenous world views. Theoretically and conceptually rich, the book proposes new trajectories through which postcolonial and posthuman scholarships can learn from one another and so critically advance.

Department of Cultural Affairs, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Wayamba Development and Cultural Affairs, Sri Lanka, 2017

The role played by Classroom Interactional Feedback (CIF) in second language acquisition has been... more The role played by Classroom Interactional Feedback (CIF) in second language acquisition has been the focus of concern to teachers and researchers in the last decade. Research, on the subject of CIF has grown steadily, investigating the effects of different CIF types and their relationship with the immediate acquisition of language. However, existing research results are inconsistent: little research has focussed on how CIF affects long-term learning: furthermore, no research refers to CIF observed in Sri Lankan language contexts.
This study investigated the types and frequency of CIF and their relationship with learners’ acquisition of language: it investigated the facilitative role of CIF for learners’ short-term learning and long-term learning. In this action research, English as a Second Language classroom was closely observed while its learners were exposed to classroom interaction: it followed on six, 23-24 year old female university undergraduates (Sri Lankan) over a period of 15 weeks. In order to collect data, a twofold design was employed: a pretest-posttests design and observing classroom sessions. The test paper focused on grammar and incorporated 3 different test techniques. After completing 15 hours of teaching sessions, two posttests were held in the 9th week and in the 15th week respectively. All the classroom sessions were audio and video recorded and the researcher also observed the sessions. The findings, thus, are based on the different CIF types transcribed verbatim and the scores of the three language tests. The findings of classroom observation revealed that there is a positive correlation between CIF and the immediate acquisition of language although the degree of success varies: the degree of success differs according to the type of CIF but not according to the frequency of CIF. Frequency distribution of CIF types indicated that the CIF techniques, which prompt learners’ self-repair, are preferred to reformulative CIF techniques. When learners were given opportunities to reformulate or modify their non-target-like utterances by themselves without implicit or explicit model, the results indicated a high rate of language acquisition. CIF types such as elicitations, confirmation checks and clarification requests which push learners strongly to modify their language output indicated significant positive results than the CIF types which did not involve active participation from learners. Statistical tests on test scores also showed that there is a positive relationship between the modified language output and CIF for the acquisition of language, even for long-term learning. The overall results indicated a high language gain due to CIF. The results are discussed particularly in relation to the hypotheses (Swain, 1995 and Long, 1996) which claim that implicit feedback which can be obtained through negotiated interaction facilitates second language learning. The research implies the significance of CIF types and concludes by creating clines of CIFs to be promoted in SLA contexts, particularly in the Sri Lankan L2 teaching context at University level.

Ernest MacIntyre's play-text, Rasanayagam's Last Riot: A Political Fiction for the Theatre, emerg... more Ernest MacIntyre's play-text, Rasanayagam's Last Riot: A Political Fiction for the Theatre, emerges through the political milieu of the recent history of postcolonial Sri Lanka. Macintyre is a Sri Lankan playwright, but a migrant, domiciled in Australia. Rasanayagam's Last Riot is a postcolonial aestheticization of the war in Sri Lanka; it overtly bespeaks its political significance. The play narrativizes the ethnic cleansing during the Sri Lankan civil war(s); specifically, it exposes how biopolitical operations are exercised through ethno-linguistic differences. It also portrays the involvement of media, especially the BBC, as disembodied biopolitical influences, strictly bound up with the colonial legacy. Although the play can be read as a prediction of the thirty-year old civil war in Sri Lanka between the state and the LTTE that lasted from the late '80s until 2009, it still remains an understudied text that begs for further analysis. The aim of this paper is to examine the ways in which the play portrays embodied and disembodied biopolitics in the recent past in Sri Lanka. It questions the role played by the English-speaking middle classes in relation to the ethnic tensions in the country, and explores the re-negotiations of the Sri Lankan linguistic (and ethnic) cartography in the face of the war. My analysis problematizes received views of biopolitics and gestures towards a reading of the text (and of the event it represents) as manifested postcolonial experiences and 'debris' of colonialism. This study argues that the play is a powerful metaphorical transposition of the biopolitical removal of an ethnic group of a country still dominated by the (disembodied) presence of the colonial legacy and coercion.