It refers to cases in which the attributed status of a language or variety is changed, for example, the designation of a language as the Official or National language, Language of Wider Communication. It also encompasses reaching decisions regarding particular societal functions that languages might have, for example decisions about what language should be used in school, in the courts, in hospitals, in the armed forces, in police and fire services, on traffic signs, in the official work of the legislative and executive branches, etc. .
b. Corpus planning refers to changes in structure, vocabulary, spelling, or even adoption of a new script. It is basically concerned with changing the structure of the language – the nature of language itself. It often accompanies status planning. For instance, when a particular variety has been chosen to perform official functions, the chosen variety per se requires development and expansion to meet the demands of the society. Corpus planning may have an equal or even greater vintage than the status planning. For example, even if a particular written form has been selected and approved by the speakers of certain hitherto oral languages, it still requires decisions with respect to (i) the choice of a writing system (e.g., should it be Devanagari-based, Latin-based or Arabic-based), which can be a matter of considerable political significance (as in the case of Konkani); (ii) an authoritative spelling (or "orthographic") system (e.g., "colour" or "color", "xerox" or "zerox" "programme" or "program" (iii) a style manual to establish conventions for capitalization and hyphenation; (d) a terminology to be used in natural sciences and so on and so forth. Corpus planning is dynamic, ongoing and can have a sense of contemporariness.
