Otros dispositivos en desarrollo

One identity positioning in relation to language is that of the ‘native speaker’, which has been critiqued as problematic. Piller (2001) highlights the difficulty of defining a native speaker; rather, she identifies certain qualities which are attributed to such an

individual. The native speaker, Piller suggests, is assumed to have ‘privileged access’

to the language, whereby she is endowed with a level of knowledge that is in some way taken to be instinctively acquired (p.2). This notion of privilege, also highlighted in Kramsch (1997), serves as a powerful subject position which establishes the native speaker as the authentic source of linguistic production. At the same time, a dichotomy is established according to which the dominant position of the native speaker, as someone who speaks the authentic version of the language, is not permitted to a ‘non-native’ speaker.

The idea that there is an ‘authenticity’ embedded in the language of a ‘native’ speaker (Piller 2001, p.8) connects to the idea of there being a standard version of any given language. This is echoed in Creese, Blackledge and Takhi (2014), who note that the frequent perception of the native speaker is that of ‘the authentic embodiment of the standard language’ (p.939). Butcher (2005) questions the validity of such a supposed standard in English, given the breadth of World Englishes currently used across the globe. Yet aligned to the question of a standard language are issues that pertain to perceptions of competency, and of legitimacy. As will be seen in section 4.3.2, notions of inadequacy often underpin much official discourse about language learning; in relation to the native speaker, the non-native speaker is positioned as never able to achieve full competency, as highlighted by Pavlenko (2001). In terms of legitimacy (Bourdieu 1977), therefore, the native speaker is regarded as a ‘legitimate speaker’, a position which gives her the inherent right to speak, while the non-native speaker battles for legitimacy (Pavlenko & Norton 2007).

This can be seen quite clearly in the struggle that so-called ‘non-native’ language teachers often have in attempting to obtain recognition from their students and fellow professionals, and to challenge their positioning as ‘second-class citizens’ (Pavlenko 2003, p.251). Perceptions of such English language teachers can be seen as informed by the native/non-native speaker ideology, where learners appear to assume that those teachers positioned as native speakers have an automatically superior knowledge of English (Creese, Blackledge & Takhi 2014). More than this, there is an attendant assumption of whiteness (see section 3.4). In her discussion of the ownership of English, Norton (1997) explores ‘the extent to which English belongs to White native speakers of standard English’ (p.409). Here, Norton (1997) cites studies concerned with the issue ‘of problematic assumptions about the authentic ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher’; this includes the supposition that ‘only White people can be native speakers of English and that only native speakers know "real" English’

(p.423). This is echoed in Pavlenko (2001), who sees a situation whereby ‘standard English is equated with whiteness’ (p.330). In a similar vein, Kubota (2002) asserts the need to acknowledge racism within TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages), wherein she sees ‘Whiteness and the native speaker construct’ to be ‘in a complicit relation’ (p.87). The link between whiteness and the native speaker paradigm is also highlighted by Kubota and Lin (2009) in their joint work on racism within TESOL:

like whiteness, the classification of native speaker is one of the ‘socially dominant categories’ (p.25). The assumption is that standard English is thus the privilege of white speakers only.

While much of the literature on standard language cited here concerns English, it must at the same time be remembered that the term ‘native speaker’ is not unique to an English language context, but is also drawn upon ‘to refer to languages other than English, similarly suggesting a ‘perfect’ standard’ (Butcher 2005, p.15). This has been highlighted in the case of Japanese: Pavlenko (2001) cites memoirs which emphasise

the belief that ‘no foreigner can ever learn to speak Japanese in a native-like fashion’

(p.332), something also alluded to in Kramsch (1997, p.364). Kramsch argues against such positioning: she asserts that where once, individuals were seen as ‘born into a language’, ‘[t]he native speaker is in fact an imaginary construct’ (p.363), and sees the belief in the supposedly inherent nature of ‘native’ language acquisition to be a tenuous one.

Questions of language acquisition also tie in with work on alternative ways of

describing the individual’s relationship with language. In his seminal study on what he then termed ‘language loyalty’, Rampton (1990) suggests that the term ‘expertise’

allows for a more comprehensive assessment of an individual’s linguistic competency rather than merely an assumption of knowledge by dint of birth. This is echoed in Piller’s (2002) study of highly proficient L2 users of German and English, where these speakers sometimes found themselves able to pass for native speakers in both languages, due to their extensive knowledge of each.

Rampton’s (1990) critique of the native speaker paradigm was built upon in Leung, Harris and Rampton (1997), where alternative terms were presented: those of language expertise, language inheritance, and language affiliation. While expertise denotes levels of competency, the interrelated concepts of inheritance and affiliation refer to the way language works ‘as a symbol of social group identification’, and are thus ‘negotiated’ (Rampton 1990, p.99). Language affiliation relates to ‘the attachment or identification’ individuals may have with a particular language, regardless of ‘whether or not they nominally belong to the social group customarily associated with it’; while language inheritance denotes the way that an individual may ‘be born into a language tradition’ but does not necessarily ‘claim expertise or affiliation to that language’

(Leung, Harris & Rampton 1997, p.555). These concepts have been drawn upon in work on language and identity. Block (2007a, 2007b) considers language affiliations in

his examination of aspects of identity in second language learners; while Preece (2009) draws on both inheritance and affiliation in her study of the linguistic practices and identity constructions of undergraduate students following an academic writing course.

While the idea of a ‘native speaker’ has therefore been questioned at length in socio and applied linguistics literature, the notion has nonetheless proved hard to dislodge.

The use of this ‘short toxic phrase’ (Butcher 2005, p.22), and a belief in the ideology underpinning it, continues to prevail in English language teaching settings (Cook 1999;

Butcher 2005; Creese, Blackledge & Takhi 2014).

This continuing allusion to the native speaker paradigm can be seen to link back to the aforementioned question of who may be considered a ‘legitimate speaker’ (Bourdieu 1977). Not only are ‘native speakers’ assumed to be experts in the standard language, but to ‘have privileged access to the language community: they belong while non-native speakers do not’ (Piller 2001, p.2). To occupy this subject position gives the individual a powerful voice; thus, regardless of the questioning of the native speaker paradigm within the field of socio and applied linguistics, the idea of the native speaker remains a difficult notion to displace. Linguistic status thus influences what claims of ethnicity or nationality an individual is entitled to make, and from which categories such individuals may find themselves excluded. In the context of the UK, there is an ironic contradiction that while an individual is supposed to speak English as part of visa and residency requirements in the UK (see Chapter 2), the native speaker ideology and its implicit positioning of non-native speakers as incompetent, limits such an identity position.

Questions of belonging and ownership of language are thus also integral to the idea of the learner/user and how these positions are juxtaposed. The positions of language learner and user are explored below.