in some context. This contact is related to certain demographic factors such as education, age and sex. In reality, these are not totally independent variables but are often interrelated.
There are two components for any bilingualism study. The first is to identify the independent variables, those social characteristics that may correlate with bilingualism, and their distribution
throughout the community. This is found out through a demographic study based either on a government census or on a private census conducted at the time of the survey. The second step is assessing the
dependent variable, the level of bilingualism, which occurs in conjunction with the various characteristics.
Bilingualism is a very important issue in determining the vitality and future of a language, as well as determining the need for vernacular literature. Bilingualism study is also helpful for designing the
promotion of any mother tongue language materials. At the outset of this project, it was decided to conduct bilingualism testing in at least two villages of both Muthuvan and Mannan.
Malayalam is the state and official language of Kerala and is also the second language of many Muthuvan and Mannan people. It is the medium of instruction in schools and also dominates radio,
television and printed media. The Muthuvan and Mannan had a greater amount of contact with Tamiliyans than with Malayalis prior to 50 years ago and it seems that Tamil was their second language
at that time. Therefore, the older generation of Muthuvan and Mannan people may understand Tamil better than Malayalam. Nevertheless, presently both Muthuvan and Mannan people are more connected
with the use of Malayalam. Therefore, it was felt that the study of bilingualism in Tamil was unnecessary and more attention was given to the study of bilingualism in Malayalam.
The main tool used to gauge bilingualism in Malayalam in this study was a Malayalam Recorded Text Test RTT. Another method for testing bilingual proficiency is Sentence Repetition Testing SRT.
This method is more refined in discriminating levels of bilingual proficiency than an RTT. However, a Malayalam SRT has not been developed yet and the time required to develop a Malayalam SRT was more
than the survey allowed. Another tool that can assess the higher levels of bilingual proficiency is Second Language Oral Proficiency Evaluation SLOPE. But SLOPE requires more time to administer than was
available for this project, and also needs trained test administers. A few questions regarding people’s self- reported abilities in Malayalam were also asked. The researchers’ observations in the field area also help
evaluate the present picture of bilingualism among these groups. Demographic information about the villages where bilingualism was assessed in this study was primarily available from ITDP’s 1999 report.
5.2 Recorded Text Test
5.2.1 Procedure
A recorded text can be used to provide a preliminary assessment of a community’s abilities in a second language. The procedures for evaluation of bilingual ability using this method are the same as those that
were used for dialect intelligibility testing see section 3.2.1. As this method only evaluates comprehension ability of simple narratives, it is not adequate for evaluating higher levels of bilingual
proficiency Blair 1990:74.
When using a recorded text test for bilingualism testing, care should be taken to test a sample that is representative of the demographic characteristics of the community. A sample of subjects should therefore
include both men and women, young and old and both educated and uneducated in the same proportions as exist in the community.
A more complete description of RTT procedures, the story, the questions used in the testing, the demographic profile of the subjects, test scores, the post-HTT and post-RTT responses can be seen in
Appendix C.
5.2.2 Site selection
A simple narrative story in Malayalam was developed in Karunapuram village, which is in Idukki district, to be used in the bilingualism study. This village is located in the central, and standard, dialect of
Malayalam.
Two sites from Muthuvan, Kozhiyala and Thalayirappan, were selected for bilingualism testing. Kozhiyala is representative of the Tamil Muthuvan variety and Thalayirappan is representative of the
Malayalam Muthuvan variety. Kumily and Kodakallu were selected for bilingualism testing among the Mannan. Kumily was
selected because it is an exterior settlement, located in Pirmed tahsil. Kodakallu was selected from Devikulam tahsil. It is an interior settlement and is on the opposite side of the Mannan area from Kumily.
The site selection for bilingualism study was also affected by the choice of sites for the dialect area study.
5.2.3 Results
A Malayalam RTT was tested in two Muthuvan and two Mannan villages as a preliminary test of their bilingualism in Malayalam. Table 16 shows a summary of the results. The bold figures show the
hometown test result and indicate that it was a valid text.
Table 16. Malayalam RTT results
Communities Tested “My Childhood Days”
Karunapuram Avg
SD N=
99 2.89
12 Kozhiyala Tamil
Muthuvan Avg
SD N=
87 9.04
11
Thalayirappan Malayalam Muthuvan
Avg SD
N= 89
10.5 10
Kodakallu Mannan Avg
SD N=
89 9.14
10
Kumily Mannan Avg
SD N=
93 12.5
11 Subjects in both Kozhiyala and Thalayirappan did well on the Malayalam RTT, showing good
understanding of a simple narrative story. The results strongly suggest the need for more extensive bilingualism testing. This is due to the fact that an RTT can only accurately measure lower levels of
bilingualism. There is no notable difference in the scoring of Tamil Muthuvan and Malayalam Muthuvan subjects
on the test. All but one of the subjects reported that they fully understood the text. However, three subjects reported that they understood the Muthuvan story which had been played first for dialect
intelligibility testing better than the Malayalam story. The Malayalam RTT results in Mannan villages also show that the subjects understood the story.
Subjects in Kumily an exterior location had a slightly higher average score than the subjects from the interior Kodakallu village. However, there was also a slightly higher standard deviation among the scores
by the subjects in Kumily, showing that comprehension of the story in that site was not as predictable. All of the Mannan subjects indicated that they felt they fully understood the story.
5.3 Self-reported bilingualism in Malayalam
