Abstract:
Language planning is deliberate effort to influence the function, structure, or
acquisition of languages or language variety within a speech community. The
purpose of the paper to examine the language planning situation in South Africa,
where language has been used in both status and corpus planning as an
instrument in the periods of colonialism to apartheid to democracy. Data for the
research are collected by using articles in Google web sites, academic researches
regarding the language policy of South Africa. This research mainly focuses the
following points such as; background and languages of South Africa, how is the
language planning implemented in the case of South Africa and how does the
country face to challenge of selecting an official language with the effects at
multilingualism. South Africa offers particularly interesting context to explore
language shift in the post- apartheid era, II languages have been granted official
status in South Africa. The problem discusses here is the need of well organised
status planning which ensured with properly developed corpus planning. In
conclusion, the discourse used in the policy reflects conflicting ideologies
emanating from the history of this country and illuminates the politics that led to
the formation of a democratic state in South Africa. Consideration of
multilingualism in language discussion that led to the formation of current
language policy. Corpus planning will address a need for local and global as a
solution to challenge of global technology and modernisation. Creating language
teaching resources is one ofthe major step in corpus planning, language planning
development and policy implementation. Therefore through this paper it
highlights that even though the status planning of South Africa shows successful
features it has a shortage of well- planned corpus planning.
