Status and corpus planning: addressing language policy implementation problems in south africa

STATUS AND CORPUS PLANNING: ADDRESSING LANGUAGE POLICY IMPLEMENTATION PROBLEMS IN SOUTH AFRICA

• Mtholeni N. Ngcobo

• DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS

• UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA

LANGUAGE PLANNING

• A social construct

• Production of a policy

• Policy aspect of planning;

• Allocation (Gorman, 1973)

• Language happening (Jernudd & Das Gupta, 1971)

• Language Treatment (Neustupný, 1974)

Language Planning

• De facto language planning vs. de jure language planning

• Practices vs. Policy

FOURFOLD MODEL

• Selection of the norm

• Codification

• Implementation

• Elaboration

• Antia (2000) two-by-two matrix

• Norm + function = language

• Society + language = planning

THEORETICAL MODELS

• Rational model (canonical or ideal planning)

• Alternative model

• Rational model:

• National/official language choice – purely government decision

• Alternative model

• Accommodate several types/levels of government or non-governmental decision-making and implementation

THEORETICAL MODELS cont…

• Several planning mechanisms

• Less organized and less coordinated sources of change

LANGUAGE MANAGEMENT

• A reaction against centralisation

• Focus on discourse

STATUS vs. CORPUS PLANNING

• Compartmentalization (Kloss, 1969)

• Status planning:

• Discourse of language politics and society

• Social aspects of language planning (Kaplan and Baldauf, 1997)

• Related to political issues

• Focus on legislative decisions

STATUS vs. CORPUS cont…

• Corpus Planning

• Focus on changes by deliberate planning to the corpus or shape of a language

• Orthography, grammar, lexica (Antia, 2000)

• Relationship (status & corpus)

• Dichotomous and complementary

LP IN SA

• Socio-historical view:

• Traditional structural planning of culture and language

• Symbolic power: the creation of the linguistic field; hebitus (Bordieu, 1991)

• The de jure emphasis (1822) – Anglicisation

• Objection – Dutch speaking people

• 1910 – Union of SA

LP in SA cont…

• English and Afrikaans legislation

• Standardization of some indigenous languages

LP in Democratic SA

• Correction intervention: 11 official languages

• Compromise and accommodating (Bellamy, 1999)

• LANGTAG and PANSALB

• Promotion of the use of official languages

• Development of minority language

• Constitutional base & the Bill of Rights

POLICY DOCUMENTS

• The National Policy Framework- 2003

• The Implementation Plan - 2003

• Language in Education Policy - 1996

• Language Policy for Higher Education

• The Western Cape Provincial Language Act of 1998

THE NATURE OF SALP

• Emotional connotations that languages hold: various voices and interests

• Objectively designed: to maintain ethnic diversity and compromise

• Deliberate and political policy of multilingualism

• Symbolic

THE NATURE OF SALP cont…

• Aims: promote, develop, respect

• Language groupings: Nguni, Sotho, Venda, Ndebele, English and Afrikaans

CHALLENGES AND CONSTRAINTS

• Implementation problem

• English dominance

• The balance of the needs and preferences

• Escape clauses: practicability, usage etc.

• Discourse: equality vs. equity, individual rights vs. group rights

FROM STATUS TO CORPUS LP

• Interlinguistically competitive market place

• Policy approach vs. the cultivation approach

• Policy: created the climate of transformation or reconstruction and development (Webb 2000)

• Development and corpus planning (a practical implementation strategy)

FROM STATUS TO CORPUS LP

• Beautify, amplify and dignify (Fishman 1996)

• Terminology development, interpreting and translation

• The use of new and acceptable conventions and the involvement of the designated audience

• The development of teaching material and other applications

CONCLUSION

• The SA Policy is good

• Status planning should be complemented with corpus planning

• Idealistic vs. pragmatic types of language planning

• A need for localisation or glocalisation: a response to global technology (Antia, 2000)