Chitra Fernando
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fernando was educated successively at Visakha Vidyalaya, a Buddhist school for girls in Bandarawela, at Balika Maha Vidyalaya in Kalutara, and at the University of Ceylon in Peradeniya,[1] which she entered with an exhibition in history. Her university teachers included Professor E. F. C. Ludowyk, Dr H. A. Passe, Doric de Souza and Robin Mayhead. She graduated from Peradeniya in 1959 with an honours degree in English.[2]
From May 1958 to April 1960 Fernando taught English at Visakha Vidyalaya, but resigned in 1960 to join the staff of the University of Ceylon at Peradeniya as a temporary assistant lecturer in the Literature Department. A scholarship took her to Australia in 1961, where she gained an MA and PhD at the universities of Sydney and Macquarie. She then lectured at Macquarie in linguistics.[1] Her two main academic studies were "English and Sinhala Bilingualism in Sri Lanka" (1977) and "Towards a Definition of Idiom, its Nature and Function" (1978).[3]
