Book Description

Multilingualism and the Public Sector in South Africa contributes to the discourse on language in South Africa with a specific focus on multilingualism and the public sector. The book argues for and demonstrates the relevance of putting into place appropriate language policies to help the majority of the people of South Africa take an active part in nation-building endeavours; processes in which the public sector is key. The discussion tackles the intricacies of the public sector from a constitutional; legislative and policy; human resource and organisational culture; capital and infrastructure point of view; and builds a case for the provision of multilingual services in the public sector ? as the benchmark of public sector service provision. ?This is a very useful piece of work in terms of its contribution to the general field of language and development. The author is arguing for and demonstrating the relevance of putting into place appropriate language policies to help a majority of the people of South Africa take an active part in nation-building. This can be done through many channels, and the Public Sector is one of the key areas that need to take up this challenge... Many people, linguists included, speak of the relevance of language and multilingualism, but very few are able to illustrate it in an area of relevance such as the Public Sector. This is research that will be of interest to specialists for sure, but also to the layman simply interested in finding out more about the relevance of multilingualism to society; not just in terms of social and cultural heritage, but also in terms of its contribution to an improved economic output? Paulin DJIT�, School of Humanities and Languages, University of Western Sydney ? Australia