Abstract:
Diglossia is the use of two varieties, namely High (H) and Low (L) of a language
in a single speech community is wide-spread. (H) is usually the written variety
whereas (L) is the spoken variety. In linguistics, lexicon is considered to be the
language's inventory of lexemes. This includes information about the
appropriate usage of words and phrases. As Sinhalese language is a diglossic
language Sri Lankan novelists have to use it in novels. "Madol Doova" is one of
the Sri Lankan novels in which this diglossic situation is used. The aim of this
research is to reveal that both High and Low varieties of Sinhalese language are
used in Sri Lankan novels and this study based on the lexicon used in the novel
"Madol Doova" by Martin Wickramasinghe. As the methodology, data were
collected by referring "Madol Doova" and other subject related sources. When
considering lexicon used in the novel it shows that low variety is used in
dialogues and high variety is used in narrative. In that sense it is apparent that
both (H) and (L) varieties of the Sinhalese language are used in Sri Lankan
novels. Moreover it enlightens (L) the spoken language is also used in written
form. This has significantly affected the quality of Sri Lankan novels. This will
be a theoretical study which is mostly based on linguistics factors.
