Native speaker: from idealization to politicization

In this Forum Discussion paper, we put forward the concept of 'speakerness' and discuss how this notion can be of relevance to the professions associated with language teaching and learning. By 'speakerness' we understand the processes through which social actors get defined by their language practices. We connect this concept with the ongoing debates around so-called 'non-native' speakers of English, which have clear implications for 'non-native teachers'. We revisit these debates by widening the scope; that is, by making connections with another controversy around speakerness, namely that around the so-called 'new speakers' of European minority languages. By aligning the two strands of debate, we argue that they respond to common trajectories of nation-building and colonial expansion articulated through the ways in which nationalist and colonialist discourses have constructed languages and deployed them as means of state and colonial rule. After tracing the historical origins of the notion of 'native speaker' and summarizing the debates on 'non-native speakers' and 'new speakers', we point to the ways in which a critical engagement with the concept of speakerness can throw light on other sociolinguistic areas in which the issue of speaker legitimacy is often recruited to naturalize inequalities of race, class or gender.

System, 2009

Although, in recent years there have been several advances in critical applied linguistics which have attempted to problematize the ideological underpinnings of language practices, there have in parallel been resistances mounted on the part of traditional applied linguistics that ...

Journal of Applied Linguistics and Professional Practice, 2022

In this Forum Discussion paper, we put forward the concept of ‘speakerness’ and discuss how this notion can be of relevance to the professions associated with language teaching and learning. By ‘speakerness’ we understand the processes through which social actors get defined by their language practices. We connect this concept with the ongoing debates around so-called ‘non-native’ speakers of English, which have clear implications for ‘non-native teachers’. We revisit these debates by widening the scope; that is, by making connections with another controversy around speakerness, namely that around the so-called ‘new speakers’ of European minority languages. By aligning the two strands of debate, we argue that they respond to common trajectories of nation-building and colonial expansion articulated through the ways in which nationalist and colonialist discourses have constructed languages and deployed them as means of state and colonial rule. After tracing the historical origins of t...

A discussion on the meaning of native speaker and its characteristics., 2018

Several researchers (Bloomfield, 1933; Davies, 1991; Widdowson, 1995) have critically discussed and analysed the wide range of different definitions that the term native speaker (NS) has been given through the ages. The branch of applied linguistics has arduously studied the meaning that this particular issue entails and, variable as it is, its constant changes. It is thus my intention in this paper to gather together as many viewpoints as possible regarding the understanding of native-speakerism. Also, I shall try to explain whether or not and to what extent can a second language (L2) learner of a language become a NS of such. Moreover, I will be discussing on the native speaker’s dominance, as it has stood as one of the biggest problems that this phenomenon presents. Finally, I will eventually attempt to draw some conclusions in order to clarify some of the questions –and problems- that it shows from its definition to its practical use.

CAUCE, Revista de Filología y su Didáctica, 2001

Linguistic identity is largely a political matter and languages are flags of allegiance. This means that the instrumental view of language is fundamentally flawed. If anything, it is the pre-theoretical sense that communication is possible or desirable in given contexts or, more technically, the presence of a relatively stable speech community, that makes us postúlate the existence of a common language. So too, it is the unwillingness to communicate or the unavailability of the means to do so that pavés the way for the sense that there are insuperable linguistic barriers to contend with. The immediate upshot of this line of reasoning is that there are no such things as languages, if by 'languages' we mean natural objects that are "out there", waiting to be discovered, described, and catalogued by the linguist. What this means is that there is an urgent need to foreground the issue of the politics of language.

Masters paper, 2009

A critical discussion of a postmodern approach to the concept of the native speaker This paper argues for the prominent influence of the postmodernist paradigm on the evolution of the concept of the native speaker and, focusing on one particular postmodern theory, proposes to examine several views of the concept that offer alternative definitions that could be suitable for all speakers who do not fit neatly in the clear-cut categories represented by the terms native and nonnative speaker.

London, UK Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, 187 páginas ISBN 978-1-137-46349-4 (Paperback) (En)Countering Native-speakerism: Global Perspectives is a compilation of Native and Non-Native English Teachers' perceptions towards native-speakerism ideologies inside the @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ (1) Exposing the Ideologies Promoting Native-speakerist Tendencies in ELT ideologies, (2) Native-speakerism and Teachers of English, (3) Native-speakerism and Perceptions of Identity and (4) Native-speakerism in the Academic Environment to four researchers' qualitative studies focused on different branches affecting the particular days as a student of sociology, Holliday has been developing his writings around the social social and anthropological aspects of language, still exists a lack of studies concerning these Canterbury Christ Church University came up with the idea of gathering their colleague's and As Kumaravadivelu states in the book's foreword, native-speakerism is the inequality betw...

Current Issues in Language Planning, 2018

This book provides an important contribution to the rapidly growing literature on post-nativespeakerist future in language education. The contributors in this volume Towards Post-Native Speakerism: Dynamics and Shifts examine English and Japanese native-speakerism in the Japanese context by providing theoretical and practical perspectives, both at the micro-and macrolevels. The book explores the crucial question of how the role of language teachers will evolve in the future as we move beyond the native-speaker learning model in language education, a topic that has not been yet explored elsewhere in detail. The new insights gained from the chapters of this volume provide a much-needed starting point on how educators can realize a post-native-speakerist future for the language classroom. English teacher-researchers firstly discuss their experiences and challenges they have faced in the classroom and at the institutional level due to the prominence of the native-speaker ideology in English language teaching field in Japan. Japanese teachers of Japanese, similarly, provide insights on how the concepts of 'native-speaker' and 'non-native speaker' are understood and experienced in their field. Finally, the book examines these issues in a wider context on a global scale while it attempts to present solutions and appropriate ways of moving past native-speakerism in language education. The book is divided into four sections. Part one of the book titled 'Individual Teacher-Researcher Narratives Related to Workplace Experience and Language-Based Inclusion/Exclusion' is made up of three chapters. In chapter one, Ng, a Singaporean Professor of English at a Japanese prefectural university, shares his personal journey of how institutional ideology rooted at native-speakerism undermined his professional identity and how he overcame this self-doubt about his professional legitimacy through critical and reflective classroom practices. Ng firstly discusses the subtle processes, such as teaching responsibilities, teaching materials, and differing professional expectations, that perpetuate the unexpressed bias towards nativespeakerism at his institution. He then details the steps he took, including educating himself about the NNEST/NEST dichotomy, reflecting on his teaching, and discovering ways to empower his students, not despite but because of his own non-native speaker status, to regain his self-confidence as a legitimate educator. Ng concludes the chapter by stressing the importance of the need to educate Japanese administrators and institutions about the dangers of this underlying bias towards native-speakerism, most importantly because ultimately, it has a negative effect on students. Bouchard, in chapter two titled 'Native-Speakerism in Japanese Junior High Schools: A Stratified Look into Teacher Narratives,' examines teacher narratives of four teachers in addition to examining their classroom materials, government policies about English education, and government-prescribed textbooks for junior high school. Through this analysis, the author discovered that both in discourse and in practice these teachers supported the monolingual paradigm of categorizing Japanese learners as unauthentic English speakers who will always be deficient speakers of English. This strong linguistic dichotomy was accompanied by beliefs of Japan's cultural isolation having a detrimental effect on students' ability to learn English and NESTs being the ideal L2 models for their students, although the teachers also CURRENT ISSUES IN LANGUAGE PLANNING

The “NNEST Movement” has been instrumental in documenting the privilege of native speakers, the marginalization of their nonnative counterparts, and the factors that may influence an individual falling into one category or another. More recently, scholars have adopted a poststructuralist orientation toward language and identity that resists dichotomized framings of language and language users. This article extends the poststructuralist orientation to consider how and why such abstract idealizations of native and nonnative speakers—what I term (non)native speakered subjectivities—emerged historically and are continuously reified and (re)produced through everyday discourse. Throughout this discussion, I weave illustrative examples from a participant in a semester-long ethnographic study that took place in a graduate teacher education program. In the conclusion, I consider implications for future theorizations of (non)native speakering as well as possibilities for increasing equity in the field of ELT.

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