International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, Volume 9, Issue 2, February 2019 199 ISSN 2250-3153 http://dx.doi.org/10.29322/IJSRP.9.02.2019.p8626 www.ijsrp.org Language Education Policy Planning in Sri Lanka: Concern for unity, reality and rationality Niruba Sarath Jayasundara Senior Lecturer in Linguistics, Department of Languages and Communication Studies, Trincomalee Campus, Eastern University Sri Lanka niruba2371@gmail.com DOI: 10.29322/IJSRP.9.02.2019.p8626 http://dx.doi.org/10.29322/IJSRP.9.02.2019.p8626 Abstract: As a major part of sociolinguistics, language planning has become a major research topic for many scholars. As a branch of Applied Linguistics, language planning is not a theoretical field of academic research, but mainly based on solving language problems in society. This paper explains the language diversity in Sri Lanka and the issues related with implementing the proper language planning policy in a socio-linguistic perspective.it further elaborates the planning language in educational settings .i.e. language-in- education planning or acquisition planning. While language in education planning is associated most closely with goals for language and literacy learning in educational and school setting, the paper finally concludes with a note on the importance of medium of instruction and its implementation is srilankan scenario. This paper will review and analyze the general situation of language planning research in the past 20 years at home and look forward to the future trend of language planning research. Index Terms—language planning, language policy, linguistics 1 Introduction Planning is a human activity that arises from the need to find out a solution to a problem. There are various types of planning such as educational, economic, agricultural, industrial, etc., used for solving a nation’s problems. Language, which is considered as part and parcel of the society/ nation also, needs effective planning for achieving efficiency in language use. If there is language problems or a linguistic situation that is felt to be unsatisfactory then the language used by the concerned society/ nation should be planned in a systematic way for better use. Language planning can be preceded by identifying the concrete areas of the society, which demand planned action regarding the language resources. Various terms have been used for explaining the concept of language planning, such as glotto- politics, Language engineering, language development, language treatment, etc. Haugen (1959, p 8) defines it as “the activity of providing a normative grammar, orthography and dictionary for the guidance of writers and speakers on a non-homogeneous speech community”. He also defines language planning as “‘the normative work of language academics and committees all form of what is commonly known as language cultivation and all proposals for language reform or standardization” (1967, p 2) Tauli (1968) defines language planning as the methodological activity of regulating and improving the existing language or creating new, common, regional or international languages.