To explain what language planning is and why it is important.

To describe the three models: status planning, corpus planning, and

acquisition planning.

To show how each model helps in the development and use of

language.

To give examples of how these models are applied in real life.

WHAT IS LANGUAGE PLANNING?

"The development of policies and programs designed to direct or

change language use, as though the establishment of an official language,
the standardisation or modernisation of language, or the development or
alternation of writing system."

Language planning, also known as language engineering, is the

deliberate effort to influence the function, structure, or acquisition of a
language within a speech community. Introduced by Einar Haugen in the late
1950s, it has since become a key area of study in sociolinguistics, often
linked to language policy alongside ideology and practices. Scholars provide
varying definitions: Robert L. Cooper (1989) describes it as preparing a
normative orthography, grammar, and dictionary to guide speakers and
writers, while Joshua Fishman (1987) views it as the authoritative allocation
of resources to achieve language status and corpus goals. Rubin and Jernudd
(1971) define it as planned language change focused on solving
communication problems, and Kaplan and Baldauf (1997) emphasize it as
laws, beliefs, and practices designed to either initiate or prevent change in
language use. Weinstein further highlights it as a government-authorized
effort to alter a language’s function to address communication challenges.

Language planning is generally divided into three types or models:

status planning, which determines the role and function of a language (such
as declaring a national or official language); corpus planning, which involves
developing or reforming orthography, grammar, and vocabulary; and
acquisition planning, which manages how languages are taught, learned, and
transmitted. Though often associated with governments, language planning
may also be carried out by non-governmental organizations or individuals,
depending on social and cultural needs. Its goals typically include promoting
national unity, reducing linguistic diversity, improving communication, and
preserving or standardizing language use. Beyond education, language
planning also extends to domains such as law, administration, and media. As
a sociolinguistic practice, it is both a means of addressing language-related
issues and a tool that can influence broader social processes, including
language shift, assimilation, and preservation.
STATUS PLANNING

Status planning addresses the function of language in society,

and typically involves the allocation of languages to official roles in different
domain (Ferguson: 2006). Usually the process of allocating the function of a
language occurs spontaneously, however it may also occurs as the result of
language planning. Furthermore, according to Kloss and Stewart (1968) there
are four common attributes in status planning:
1. Language origin
Language origin refers to the status of language whether it is a
given language or imported to the speech community.
2. Degree of standardization
It refers to extent of the development of a formal set of norms that
define correct usage of the language.
3. Juridical status
It refers to status of the language whether it serves as an official
language, national language, lingua franca or vernacular.
4. Vitality
Vitality refers to the ratio or percent of users of a language to
another variable, like total population.

Status planning is concerned with official decisions about the

appropriate use of a language. The results of status planning are laws,
clauses in constitutions prescribing the official standing of languages, and
regulations for their use in public administration. It refers to a deliberate
attempt of allocating value-extending functions within a society, within the
speech community. Such an initiative positively affects the status and widens
the acceptability of the variety to a larger audience and there are multiple
reasons why we need to do it, and why we want to do it. A prestige value is
assigned, the linguistic attitude changes, and language gains currency and
wider use. Speakers also construct identity associated with it and the
language has upward mobility in the linguistic hierarchy of the region. And
what can be the extended functions of the language of that particular
variety? It can be used in administration governance, in education, media,
the judiciary, and in different formal social spaces.
And it gives, it vitalizes the language gives status to the language and it
changes the attitude towards the language. It creates a lot of corpus, it
needs to be standardized and the process of standardization makes the
language rich and widely functional for the speakers and users of it.

This refers to status planning where the agency, the government agency
declares by legislation or by declaring a policy by including this language in a
formal domain and
extending the use of it in a variety of ways. And this is how a language gains
status, a language gains prestige value, our social and linguistic attitude
changes towards the language, language becomes more acceptable and it
also has a very positive impact on the users of the language. It is an
inclusive process, it includes more varieties.

CORPUS PLANNING

Corpus planning is an extension of status planning which involves the

act of making, and planning decisions for bringing about changes in the
forms, structures, and use of the chosen varieties to suit the desired purpose
and functions. And it requires to creation of a lot of reference materials style,
works on script, and orthography, to suit the purpose of extended use of it in
the formal domain. And then agencies popularize the use and it changes the
attitude, linguistic attitude of the people, it is widely accepted and it
becomes functional in various formal domains and such activities require a
lot of experts, linguists, language experts who work towards creating a lot of
material, reference material, style, who work on the script. They create
grammar, manuals, manuals of use, standard dictionaries, thesaurus, and a
lot of other reference materials as the ultimate source of reference to the
users and the use in the functional domain.

There are three processes involved in corpus planning, graphization,

standardization, and modernization. So, graphization refers to the
orthographic representation of language work on that where we standardize
the script, standardization refers to making it more user-friendly by
modifying and adding elements at all grammatical levels and making it
acceptable and popularizing it by using it in formal domains. Modernization is
the requirement to suit the purpose of these extended domains where the
language might require to have new vocabulary lists, new terms new
expressions.

GRAPHIZATION

It refers to the development, selection, and modification of scripts and

orthographic conventions for that chosen variety. The use of writing in a
speech, see writing freezes, writing makes the text immortal, it freezes the
rules, it frames the rules and also prescribes the rules and it has very long-
lasting everlasting social-cultural effects. It includes easier communication or
material through generations, communication with a greater number of
people, and standard, it functions as a standard against all other varieties in
the spoken form of that particular variety. Writing makes things formal and
everlasting.

STANDARDIZATION
 The process of standardization of the variety of the language and
Wardhaugh, 2006, lists a lot of motivating factors behind it why it requires to
be standardized he says, “The process by which a language has been
codified in some way that process usually involves the development of such
things as grammar, spelling books, and dictionaries, and possibly a
literature.”

For all the users of the language to refer to if there is a felt deviation in
the use. And he further says it allows the language to serve as a model for
everyone in the speech community to agree upon in order to communicate,
so it socializes the use of it, it regulates the use of it when we socialize and
communicate. It can be employed to reflect and symbolize some kind of
identity and can also be used to give prestige to speakers and makes the
language easier to teach in schools.

Therefore we need a standard form to teach in school, so in order to

maintain uniformity this initiative helps us to create a standard variety with a
lot of supporting documents, the Corpus of literature, grammar books,
spelling books, user manuals, and thesaurus and reference points, reference
resources for the language used. So that is the process of standardization
that is the use of it.

MODERNIZATION

It occurs when a language needs to expand its resources to meet

extended functions. For example, in science and technology, we need to
accommodate new ideas, inventions to how to encode and express
inventions, and

New developments in the field of technology, so a whole jargon is

created. Modernization occurs when a particular dielectric is assigned an
extended function in a particular formal domain, you need to have a lot of
new words and expressions to be added to it to suit the purpose of use.

ACQUISITION PLANNING

Acquisition planning presupposes or implies status planning and corpus

planning. It is a long-term planning and long-term implementation.
Acquisition planning refers to creating a fresh generation of users in that
language and we do it by introducing this variety to education, early
education. We popularize and use it in school curricula, and syllabi, we teach
it as a subject or it may become a medium of instruction. Looking at the
Indian case you may be familiar with the trilingual formula. So in order to
maintain the multilingual fabric of the country this formula was suggested in
the Education Policy, 1968, continued in 1986, and re-emphasized in the
NAP – National Education Policy of India 2020 which advocates education in
the mother tongue.