Trilingual Chinese Dictionary: Development of a Sri Lankan Learner-Oriented Approach Tailored for Local Learners

Sri Lanka is a diverse country that is home to three recognized languages; Sinhalese, Tamil, and English, that stem from the multicultural community that are its people. Accordingly, language plays a vital role in sustainable development and in a fostering harmony and peaceful coexistence among these communities. Within this context, the growing economic, educational and tourism links between Sri Lanka and China, have created an increasing need for Chinese language proficiency in the country. It was thereby, recommended by the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission; LLRC that Sri Lanka should develop a trilingual language policy. This study hence assesses the effectiveness of employing a trilingual Chinese dictionary tailored for Sri Lankans to enhance the vocabulary acquisition for beginners, usable by its multilingual communities. To do so, this study used a mix method, applying the Design and Development (DD) Model. The DD model was applied to construct a user-friendly, trilingual Chinese dictionary. The steps carried out included; analysis, design, development and finalizing. The analysis was based on existing scholarly research conducted among Chinese speaking and non-Chinese speaking countries to formulate the number of most commonly used Chinese words or characters. The concept chosen by this study was one thousand most common Chinese words or characters needed to develop a Sri Lankan-learner oriented lexicon. Design was conducted according to the traditional Chinese monolingual dictionaries. Development process included; Chinese word in character form, picture in early Jiaguwen or/and Jinwen forms, Pinyin, parts of speech, trilingual meaning and example. Finalizing will be the completion and publication of the dictionary for Chinese language learners in Sri Lanka. Importantly, this research has identified a significant curriculum gap along with limitations on teaching material. This study is aimed at developing a Chinese dictionary in Sinhala, Tamil and English for beginners in Sri Lanka which is of salient importance in order to further strengthen Sri Lanka-China ties.