Abstract:
Ever since the release of David Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (1915), which modified the manner in which cinema was till then perceived, cinema has been identified as a powerful method of disseminating different ideologies. Subsequently, the applicability of cinema as an ideological tool has been visible even in the Sri Lankan postwar context, where there was also a trend of war related cinema that consists of several potential aspects that can be academically discussed. As the study adopts a linguistic perspective, attention is paid to bilingual instances in randomly selected war related movies directed by Sri Lankan film directors of Sinhalese origin. With the intention of limiting the scope of the study only two movies: Matha (2012) and Gamini (2011), are selected to qualitatively analyse the elements of language contact with the objective of comprehending the undercurrent Socio Political implications to find the answers to the research question which is how have the Sinhalese film directors delineated the contact of different languages in Sri Lanka, which is fundamentally a multilinguistic country. Thus the study is based on textual analysis, with specific attention to language contact. Therefore, Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT), advocated by Howard Giles, and writings based on CAT will formulate the theoretical framework that facilitates the task of concretising the findings. The study concludes that Sinhalese film directors have treated Sinhala as the dominant language which all ethnicities should adapt, Tamil as being limited to the Tamil and Muslim citizens. However English language has been viewed as an adequate tool of coexistence as it functions as a Link Language where culturally conscious parties encounter each other.
