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Reflections on Thomas Paikeday's 'The Native Speaker Is Dead!' (1985)
Abstract
The year 2015 marked the 30th anniversary of the publication of a slim volume titled "The Native Speaker is Dead!" by the lexicographer Thomas Paikeday, perhaps the first work to investigate the role of the so-called 'native speaker' in the field of applied linguistics, and certainly the first to explicate some of the arguments that have become central to the 'native'/'non-native' debate in ELT. This event provides an opportunity to reflect on the theoretical and practical changes that have occurred in the 30 years since the publication of Paikeday's monograph. In this paper I will describe the central arguments made in Paikeday's book, and examine some of the changes that have since taken place in the theory of applied linguistics.
Thomas Paikeday の本『The Native Speaker is Dead! (1985)』は、2015 年で 刊行から 30 年の記念の年を迎えた。この本は、応用言語学の分野では、ネ イティヴスピーカー像について初めて取り上げた本だった。 この論文では、 Paikeday の本の主題について、近年の研究と比較することを目的とする。
RESUMEN En este trabajo expando la noción de ‘nativohablantismo’ (o ideología del hablante nativo) y discuto su presencia e implicancias en algunas investigaciones acerca de la situación sociolingüística de la lengua mapuche en Chile. En los trabajos que discuto, se asume la ventaja del hablante nativo (HN) de lengua indígena como investigador de fenómenos sociolingüísticos complejos, como el desplazamiento lingüístico, que afectan a grupos humanos también complejos. Argumento que este tipo de nativohablantismo, más que ser una alternativa teórico-metodológica para conceptualizar y estudiar la realidad sociolingüística, o ilustrar la emergencia de una epistemología propia y subalterna, solo contribuye a la creación de jerarquías intra e intergrupales, a la definición de relaciones de poder y a la disputa por la legitimidad en la generación de conocimiento. Así, este tipo de nativohablantismo, más que abrir posibilidades para pensar ciertas realidades sociolingüísticas de manera alternativa, desafiando la forma en que las hemos estudiado, limita nuestras maneras de conceptualizar estos problemas y perpetúa una visión esencialista, ahistórica y apolítica tanto de los procesos por los que atraviesan las lenguas y grupos minorizados como del aparato conceptual y metodológico con que se han estudiado. Los casos que discutiré, aunque reducidos, refieren a dos aristas no consideradas en el debate en torno al nativohablantismo (HN investigador / HN de lenguas indígenas) al mismo tiempo que revelan las paradojas presentes en torno a la politización de ciertas categorías en la lingüística: mientras que, por un lado, el concepto HN se desnaturaliza y deconstruye, por otro, se idealiza y fetichiza (MUNI TOKE, 2014c). Finalizo discutiendo las implicancias de este nativohablantismo en el contexto de las lenguas indígenas minorizadas en Chile y de la comprensión de su situación sociolingüística.
Millainen on minun arkeni kielimaisema? Miten kieleni tukevat toisiaan? Entä miten niiden käyttöä tuetaan? Onko oppilaan/hoitolapsen/työkaverin maisema samanlainen vai erilainen kuin omani? Tässä artikkelissa käsittelemme koulun kielikirjoa kielten näkyväksi tekemisen ja vertailun näkökulmasta. Keskitymme siihen, miten kielten havainnointi, maistelu ja analysointi herättelevät huomaamaan ympärillä puhuttuja kieliä, lisäävät kielitietoisuutta ja rohkaisevat käyttämään vähäistäkin kielitaitoa.
The field of teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) brings people from various racialized backgrounds together in teaching, learning, and research. The idea of race, racialization, and racism are inescapable topics that arise in the contact zones created by teaching English worldwide and thus are valid topics to explore in the field. Nonetheless, unlike our peer fields such as anthropology, education, and sociology, the field of TESOL has not sufficiently addressed the idea of race and related concepts. This special topic issue is one of the first attempts in our field to fill the gap. This introductory article will survey key concepts and theories defined and debated in various fields, including race, ethnicity, culture, racialization, racism, critical race theory, and critical White studies, to provide a foundation for future explorations.
On the prevailing view of ultimate attainment in second language acquisition, native competence cannot be achieved by postpubertal learners. The present study offers convergent experimental evidence which suggests there are exceptions to this generalization. At the same time, early arrival in the host country-even if past puberty-correlates with attainment of native norms on a variety of measures. Also investigated are the loci of competence differences in the syntax of the target language (French). Contrary to findings by Coppieters 1987, experimental performance is not predicted by the status of a given linguistic variable as within or outside the theoretical domain of Universal Grammar.
Among the trends which have recently emerged in ELT, two are challenged in this article. One trend suggests that researchers' attention should be focused on the learner rather than on the teacher. However, the implicit message of this article is that the road to the learner leads through the teacher and that teacher-related research should therefore be increased. The other trend attempts to get rid of the native speaker versus non-native speaker division, offering various alternative terms and concepts to replace it. I argue, however, that a non-native cannot aspire to acquire a native speaker's language competence. I also argue that, in ELT, native-and non-native-speaking teachers reveal considerable differences in their teaching behaviour and that most of the discrepancies are language-related. It does not follow from this, however, that non-native-speaking teachers are by definition less efficient. Indeed, I would contend that a deficient command of English may even have hidden advantages. The explicit message of this article is that natives and non-natives have an equal chance to become successful teachers, but the routes used by the two groups are not the same.
Recently, there have been a number of studies focusing on the qualifications of native and nonnative language teachers. The notion that native speakers constitute the ideal language teachers appears to be widespread among teachers and students. This concept has been particularly influential in English teaching, although its validity has been questioned. This study aims to identify perceptional factors that are most likely to be associated with the notion held among many nonnative English-speaking teachers in East Asia that native English speakers are the ideal language teachers. This study focuses on Japanese elementary school teachers who have been asked to introduce English activities in their classes. Based on a detailed questionnaire, completed by 112 Japanese elementary school teachers, a number of perceptional factors were identified. These include: (a) their self-assessed English proficiency levels, (b) their attitudes towards nonstandard forms of English, and (c) their sense of pride in their own language and cultural heritage. 近頃、ネイティブ、ノン・ネイティブの教師の資質に関する議論が多くなされている。ネイティブ・スピーカーが理想の語学教師であるという考えは、教師や学生の間で広く浸透しているようだ。この考えは、英語指導に影響を及ぼしてきたといわれるが、その妥当性は疑問視されている。本研究は、英語を教える東アジアのノン・ネイティブ教師の間で、どのような認知要因が、ネイティブ・スピーカーが理想の語学教師であるとする考えに結びついているのかを見極めることを目的としている。本研究では、最近英語活動を行うことになった日本の小学校教師をケースとしてとりあげた。112名の小学校教師に記入してもらったアンケート調査の結果より（1）自己評価による英語力のレベル、（2）スタンダードではない英語に対する態度、（3）自らの言語（日本語）や伝統文化に対するプライドの3つの要因が、ネイティブ・スピーカーが理想の語学教師であるという考えに結びついていることがわかった。
This book explores ways to prepare teachers to teach English as an International Language (EIL) and provides theoretically-grounded models for EIL-informed teacher education. The volume includes two chapters that present a theoretical approach and principles in EIL teacher education, followed by a collection of descriptions of field-tested teacher education programs, courses, units in a course, and activities from diverse geographical and institutional contexts, which together demonstrate a variety of possible approaches to preparing teachers to teach EIL. The book helps create a space for the exploration of EIL teacher education that cuts across English as a Lingua Franca, World Englishes and other relevant scholarly communities. © 2017 Aya Matsuda and the authors of individual chapters. All rights reserved.
It has been almost 20 years since what is known as the non-native English-speaking (NNES) professionals’ movement—designed
to increase the status of NNES professionals—started within the US-based TESOL International Association. However, still missing
from the literature is an understanding of what a movement is, and why non-native English speaker teachers (NNESTs) in TESOL
constitute a movement. This article draws on the field of sociology to explain the notion of a ‘movement’ and explains the
emergence of the NNEST movement as a sociological phenomenon. The article further discusses the NNEST movement’s achievements
in creating opportunities for leadership development, and research and publications; its partial achievements in providing
NNES professionals networking opportunities; and its failure in promoting a more inclusive environment for NNES professionals.
The article ends with a call for action.
The rapid global spread of the English language has serious linguistic, ideological, socio-cultural, political, and pedagogical implications as it creates both positive interactions and negative tensions between global and local forces. Accordingly, debate about issues such as the native/non-native divide, the politics of an international language, communication in a Lingua Franca, the choice of a model for ELT, and the link between English and identity(ies) has stimulated scholarly inquiry in an unprecedented way. The chapters in this volume revisit, challenge, and expand upon established arguments and positions regarding the politics, policies, pedagogies, and practices of English as an international language, as well as its sociolinguistic and socio-psychological complexities. © 2009 Farzad Sharifian and the authors of individual chapters. All rights reserved
According to current estimates, about eighty percent of English teachers worldwide are nonnative speakers of the language. The nonnative speaker movement began a decade ago to counter the discrimination faced by these teachers and to champion their causes. As the first single-authored volume on the topic since the birth of the movement, this book fills the need for a coherent account that: traces the origins and growth of the movement. summarizes the research that has been conducted. highlights the challenges faced by nonnative speaker teachers. promotes NNS teachers' professional growth. No discussion of world Englishes or the spread of English internationally is now complete without reference to the NNS movement. This book celebrates its first decade and charts a direction for its growth and development.
In 1987, the Japanese government inaugurated the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) program in response to global pressure to 'internationalize' its society. This ambitious program has grown to be a major government operation, with an annual budget of $400 million (greater than the United States NEA and NEH combined) and more than six thousand foreign nationals employed each year in public schools all over Japan. How does a relatively homogeneous and insular society react when a buzzword is suddenly turned into a reality? How did the arrival of so many foreigners affect Japan's educational bureaucracy? How did the foreigners themselves feel upon discovering that English teaching was not the primary goal of the program? In this balanced study of the JET program, David L. McConnell draws on ten years of ethnographic research to explore the cultural and political dynamics of internationalization in Japan. Through vignettes and firsthand accounts, he highlights and interprets the misunderstandings of the early years of the program, traces the culture clashes at all levels of the bureaucracy, and speculates on what lessons the JET program holds for other multicultural initiatives. This fascinating book's jargon-free style and interdisciplinary approach will make it appealing to educators, policy analysts, students of Japan, and prospective and former JET participants.
Do native and native-like non-native (i.e. near-native) speakers develop essentially identical underlying grammars of the same language? Results of extensive interviews indicate that native and near-native speakers of French have strikingly different intuitions on French sentences. In particular, the two groups have markedly divergent interpretations of sentences involving basic grammatical contrasts such as the two past tenses (imparfait and passé composé), the 3rd person pronouns il and ce, and the placement of the adjective before or after the noun. This is so in spite of the fact that the two groups appear to be equivalent at the level of language use and proficiency. These results provide a clear illustration of the relative independence of the two levels of language: on the one hand, language use, and on the other hand, underlying grammar as reflected by speakers' intuitions. It is suggested that the specific nature of the divergences between native and near-native speakers' underlying grammars also provides clues to the internal organization of language: in particular, the data indicate that near-native speakers diverge less from native speakers in formal features, such as those currently covered by studies in Universal Grammar, than in 'functional' or 'cognitive' aspects of grammar.
This book examines the ways in which English is conceptualised as a global language in Japan, and considers how the resultant language ideologies - drawn in part from universal discourses; in part from context-specific trends in social history - inform the relationships that people in Japan have towards the language. The book analyses the specific nature of the language's symbolic meaning in Japan, and how this meaning is expressed and negotiated in society. It also discusses how the ideologies of English that exist in Japan might have implications for the more general concept of 'English as a global language'. To this end it considers the question of what constitutes a 'global' language, and how, if at all, a balance can be struck between the universal and the historically-contingent when it comes to formulating a theory of English within the world.
Over the past few decades, scholars have paid increasing attention to the role of native speakerism in the field of TESOL. Several recent studies have exposed instances of native speakerism in TESOL recruitment discourses published through a variety of media, but none have focused specifically on professional websites advertising programs in Southeast Asia. In this article, the authors report findings from a critical discourse analysis of textual and visual features in 59 websites recruiting for specific language schools located in China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand. They find that the ideal candidate is overwhelmingly depicted as a young, White, enthusiastic native speaker of English from a stable list of inner-circle countries. Furthermore, they find that these sites place more emphasis on the opportunities to make money, travel, and experience adventure in exotic cultures that come with the TESOL jobs being advertised, rather than on the jobs themselves. The authors conclude by providing a discussion of their findings informed by work in cultural studies and critical race theory, and suggest ways in which readers can fight against the entrenchment of native speaker and White privilege in the field of TESOL.
This paper investigates if and how job advertisements for English language teachers discriminate against candidates with particular backgrounds. Based on an analysis of 77 advertisements (42 from East Asia and 35 from the Middle East), the paper identifies seven factors that are included as key requirements in these advertisements. A number of these factors, such as age, gender, nationality, nativeness and race, are ―biographical‖ in nature and may be used to discriminate against particular populations of candidates. While discriminatory issues were observed in advertisements from both East Asia and from the Middle East, there were some differences between the two regions. The findings of this study suggest that the discriminatory practices that the field has been trying to eliminate are still visible and that more work needs to be carried out to make TESOL an equitable profession.
The article examines recent evidence that has been offered to support the notion of a sensitive period for second language acquisition. An analysis of that research leaves several questions unresolved. Two small-scale studies are described which attempt to explore some of these issues. In both cases, it is found that the correspondence between language structures in the first and second language is the most important factor affecting acquisition. The age at which second language acquisitions begins is not a significant factor in either study, but the length of residence, indicating the amount of time spent speaking the second language, is significant in the second study. The conclusion is that there is insufficient evidence to accept the claim that mastery of a second language is determined wholly, or even primarily, by maturational factors. Some suggestions are made for an alternative interpretation based on processing differences between older and younger language learners.
The English conversation school (eikaiwa) industry in Japan has grown significantly over the past twenty-five years. In this paper I perform a semiological analysis on a set of eikaiwa promotional materials gathered in Tokyo and Kanagawa during the period 1998-2002. This analysis relies on a framework of social modalities (Rose, 2001 Visual Methodologies Sage, London) within which a set of gendered Occidentalized longings (akogare) is discussed. Career development, establishment of relationships with white males, and the potentials for foreign travel and study are highlighted by these eikaiwa promotions. These factors are presented as radical gender alterities that work against the social modalities encountered in Japan. These modalities include a set of rigid life-course expectations and a mode of social regulation that strongly directs women's professional and personal development. While English-language learning and use contain potentials for epistemological challenge to ideologies of gender, the eikaiwa visually emphasize the development of new selfhood (atarashii jibun). In these promotions key signification is performed by white-male and Japanese-female pairings. According to Kelsky (2001 Women on the Verge Duke University Press, Durham, NC), the white male is represented as an agent of personal transformation and liberation associated with the development of new selfhood. The white male embodies an Occidentalist fantasy that is associated with personal freedom, career development, and individuation. Simultaneously, the promotions articulate with the valorization of female agency in the broader Japanese cultural sphere, and with what Kelsky (1999, page 238) terms "emergent erotic discourses of new selfhood". Where women are featured, in contrast to Western promotional materials, their purpose is to appeal to other women. This is accomplished by presenting famous women in professionally iconic settings. When they do appear, Japanese males are infantalized and marginalized. The eikaiwa are therefore marketed as wonderlands, rich with radical gender alterities, within which the akogare of female students can be realized.
The text of a lecture delivered at the JALT (Japanese Association of Language Teachers) Conference in 1988.
This study suggests that identity-formation is related to the social process of identity-assignation in the mother tongue context. The case studies of four English speakers are summarized in this study. The four English speakers, who were all born outside the mother tongue context, bend categories in various ways. This uncovers the ways in which mother tongue speakers situate other English users and how such social attitudes help shape the identities of those users. The findings support the contention that nativeness and nonnativeness among English users constitute non-elective socially constructed identities rather than linguistic categories.
The native speaker still has a privileged position in English language teaching, representing both the model speaker and the ideal teacher. Non-native-speaker teachers of English are often perceived as having a lower status than their native-speaking counterparts, and have been shown to face discriminatory attitudes when applying for teaching jobs. To date, research into the employment of non-native-speaker teachers has been carried out only in the United States; this study extends that research by providing data on the United Kingdom. Questionnaires were distributed to those responsible for recruitment at English language teaching institutions in the UK in order to investigate the extent to which employers regard being a native English speaker as an important criterion when making hiring decisions. 72.3% of the 90 respondents judged the ‘native English speaker criterion’ to be either moderately or very important. The conclusion that employers regard this criterion as important was shown to apply to the whole sample as well as to the separate groups of private language schools only and universities only. As a pre-interview criterion, the ‘native English speaker criterion’ thus excludes competent English language teachers from consideration in the recruitment process.
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