Kaduwa, humor and language policing: Memes and folk linguistics in Sri Lanka

Abstract

This article takes the position that knowledge and opinions about language and the intersections between language and society don’t belong merely to the academic world but also are alive in, and activated by, the community. It considers Internet memes as folklore, and memes about languages in Sri Lanka and the English language in particular as expressions of folk linguistics — the field that investigates what non-linguists know and feel about language topics and any area of linguistics that non-specialist folk engage with — since everyone has an opinion about language in general or about particular languages and how languages should be used. Such attitudes can privilege some varieties and/or accents and languages over others, sustaining and re-creating power structures. Therefore, this article, drawing on the theoretical lens of Folk linguistics and Language Ideology, and taking the position that memes posted on the Internet depict grassroots level prescriptivist views about language, uses discourse analysis to examine a corpus of memes published on the social media platforms Facebook and Twitter between 2018 and 2022 in order to reassess the complexities and tensions as well as attitudes towards English in Sri Lanka. It was found that while old divisions related to English still exist and attitudes toward English are still complex and contradictory, there are more nuanced and complex views related to the learning of and speaking English in Sri Lanka.