The role of language policy in linguistic landscape changes in a rural area of the Free State Province of South Africa

Following previous studies on language policy and language visibility changes in the Free State Province of South Africa, which yielded evidence of the systematic Anglicisation of the public domain, a question arose as to whether the same tendency is encountered in a rural context. In pursuance of this, a comprehensive linguistic landscape survey was conducted during 2008 and 2009 in three major towns of the Kopanong Municipality, in the rural southern Free State. The resulting dataset (1 549 signs) was analysed for evidence of sociolinguistic reconfiguration and changes in language choice, as observable on public signs. A central finding is that changes in the linguistic landscape of the three towns involve a dual process: the erasure of Afrikaans, coinciding with increased monolingualisation (elevating English); and the re-bilingualisation (elevating Bantu languages) of signs. Although language policy does play some role, it is actually the lack of language visibility regulations that spearheads most of the changes.