Use of Official Languages Act, 2012 (Act No. 12 of 2012) Notices Implementation of the Reviewed Language Policy for the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment 4. Definitions

 

"Act"

means the Use of Official Languages Act, 2012 (Act No. 12 of 2012);

 

"Braille"

means a printed language for the blind in which characters are represented by patterns of raised dots;

 

"Constitution"

means the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996;

 

"functional multilingualism"

means an approach that takes into account the language preference, use and proficiency of a particular group, in other words, that not all the official languages need to function in every context;

 

"interpreting"

means the act of clarifying the meaning of verbal communication for another person who is not conversant with the language medium of a particular communication, either by giving a word-for-word translation verbally, or by providing the gist of its content in the presence of the client;

 

"language of record" (also referred to as "working language")

means an official language chosen for record keeping or archiving processes and documentation of the DFFE, in other words, plain English in the DFFE to aid in understanding;

 

"liaison interpreting"

means the most informal form of interpreting (usually by colleagues/internal staff members) to facilitate understanding between two or many parties, which may include South African Sign Language interpreting;

 

"official languages of the Republic"

means the 11 official languages of the Republic of South Africa, namely Sepedi, Xitsonga, Tshivenda, Sesotho, Setswana, isiZulu, isiNdebele, isiXhosa, Swati, Afrikaans and English in terms of section 6(1) of the Constitution;

 

"otherwise"

means other types of interpreting, such as simultaneous, consecutive, telephone or whispered interpreting, or a participant of an event acting as an interpreter in a situation where one or more of the other participants in the event (meeting, interview, etc.) do not understand the language in which the event is being held;

 

"PanSALB"

means the Pan South African Language Board;

 

"property"

means the property of the DFFE, namely buildings (inside and outside), vehicles and any other form of resource of which the DFFE has ownership;

 

"Republic"

means the Republic of South Africa;

 

"South African Sign Language"

means a system of communication used among and with deaf people, consisting of facial and manual gestures and signs in South Africa; and

 

"translation"

means the transposing of a text from one language to another,with the translated text having the same message as the original text.