User talk:Palesahonoko

Language Planning

It plays a crucial role in social domains and in the interaction of people in different speech communities. The planning of language in a country is usually done by the government of the particular country. The government will delegate a task team to deal with the status of language in that country. The task team will come up with solutions that are in line with the future intentions that the government have for the country. Language is an important factor in terms of the build up of a society.

The task team appointed will be supported by allocating linguistic and financial resources in order for them to implement policy and planning measures. The definition for language planning is taken from Mesthrie. According to Mesthrie (2009:371) the term ‘language planning’ refers to all conscious efforts that aim at changing the linguistic behaviour of a speech community. There are several examples of language planning in the South African context: Looking at the role that minority languages should play in education; The selection and implementation of 11 South African languages to serve as official languages; Advocacy of the use of ‘plain language’ in legislation, contracts and agreements, etc.

The term ‘policy’ refers to substantial statements of the intentions regarding the result of particular activities. According to Coulmas policies are captured in formal planning documents and –in the case of language policy –explicitly state motives for and goals of action on language matters ( 2005, 186). Mesthrie assisted in distinguishing the different types of language planning activities (2009, 372). They are as follows : Status planning Corpus planning Prestige planning Acquisition planning