Deconstructing the discourses about language in language planning in South Africa

Abstract

There has been a considerable amount of interest in language policy in a multilingual South Africa. A large number of different professions, educationists, sociologists, political activists and linguists have contributed, in various ways, to the debate. In spite of the input of linguists to the debate, there has been very little analysis about the language component of the language policy debate. The aim of this article is to attempt to rectify the situation by critically deconstructing the various discourses about language and demonstrating the implications of such discourses on policy implementation.