Native-speakerism: Definition and background

According to Holliday (2006), native-speakerism is an ideology that can be seen in “many different areas of professional life, from employment policy to the presentation of language” (p.385) and is defined as "a pervasive ideology within ELT, characterized by the belief that ‘native-speaker’ teachers represent a ‘Western culture’ from which spring the ideals both of the English language and of English language teaching methodology" (Holliday, 2006, p. 385). Native-speakerism, as presented by Holliday (2005) is an ideology which privileges certain Western cultures, models, and speakers of English over others, and which is pervasive throughout the ELT profession. The consequences of native-speakerism can be seen to produce numerous detrimental effects on the

31 professional lives of English language teachers, and on the whole field of English language teaching.

While Holliday (2005) describes native-speakerism as an ideology which privileges 'native speakers' of English over 'non-native speakers', the term has also recently been used to describe discrimination against 'native speakers'. The most important (though not the sole) piece of literature on this is the book Native-speakerism in Japan: Intergroup dynamics in foreign language education edited by Houghton and Rivers (2013b), in which an attempt is made to redefine the term 'native-speakerism' to include any discrimination carried out against teachers on the basis of their speakerhood, regardless of their 'native' or 'non-native' status. I will explore this later in the chapter, but for now it is sufficient to note that while I agree largely with Houghton and Rivers in terms of professional discrimination against teachers, I see native-speakerism as encompassing a much broader and rather more fundamental range of beliefs and practices than simply discrimination against teachers.

However, before discussing these professional issues in depth, it will be necessary to paint a picture of the theoretical and historical background against which native-speakerism is set, in order to show how it is tied to and builds upon other strands of thought, and explain why this concept is a more suitable way to describe the current attitudes in ELT than those previously put forward. In the next section I will provide such a discussion, with reference to the theoretical precursors to native-speakerism in ELT.

3.2.1.  Theoretical precursors to native-speakerism

The concept of native-speakerism draws on previous work in critical applied linguistics by writers such as Pennycook (1998; 1994) and Phillipson (1992). However, as we shall see, it makes an effort to more accurately capture the nature of the political issues in global ELT than these previous

32 attempts. Native-speakerism also looks more closely at the professional culture of ELT, which, while a feature of earlier discussions, was rarely placed at the forefront of the proposed conceptualizations.

Phillipson (1992) put forward the controversial notion that the ELT industry is engaged in a covert neocolonial enterprise in which the West is aiming to promote its own cultural and capitalist interests though English language education projects. This, according to Phillipson, involves the collusion of organizations such as the British Council, which set up and propagate the norms and standards of the global ELT industry in order to facilitate this neocolonial enterprise. Phillipson terms this concept 'linguistic imperialism', and uses the terms "Centre" and "Periphery" to categorize and describe the dichotomy he considers to be at the heart of the issue. The terms 'Centre' and 'Periphery' were first put forward in Galtung's (1971) A structural theory of imperialism as way of classifying centres of power in imperialistic contexts. In Phillipson's adoption of this framework, 'Centre' refers to the politically powerful, English speaking West, which is responsible for the creation and dissemination of the norms of the ELT industry, while the term 'Periphery' is used to describe less politically and economically powerful countries into which English is imported. To demonstrate the ways in which the Centre imposes itself on the Periphery through ELT, Phillipson (1992) identified a number of central 'tenets of ELT' by which linguistic imperialism is propagated. These 'tenets of ELT' refer to what Phillipson considers to be unquestioned and unexamined dogmas at the heart of language teaching, which were deliberately created and are deliberately maintained in order to benefit Western nations and Western organisations at the expense of both the personal and institutional interests of individuals and countries in the 'periphery'. In the order given by Phillipson, these tenets are:

33 2) The ideal teacher of English is a native speaker.

3) The earlier English is taught the better the results. 4) The more English is taught the better the results.

5) If other languages are used much, standards of English will drop. (p.185)

The first two of these tenets are the ones most relevant to this thesis, and describe what Phillipson (1992) terms the "monolingual fallacy" and the “native speaker fallacy”, respectively. Taken together, these two central fallacious tenets manifest in the widespread belief among teachers, students, and educational authorities that English should be taught by monolingual 'native speakers'; resting on the unexamined assumption that this group of people (which, as I have already discussed, is illusory and socially constructed in the first place) are the ideal speakers, and therefore the ideal teachers of a language, despite a lack of evidence that would lend support to this assertion. This is, as already discussed in the previous chapter, an extremely problematic belief, and one that is also central to the concept of native-speakerism, discussed by Holliday (2005). Phillipson's thesis has been criticized by a number of scholars, both by those who are sympathetic to his central concern about power relations within the global ELT industry, and those who do not share his political sensibilities. To understand the criticisms of this second group, it should be noted that Phillipson (1992) was building his thesis on the basis of a conference in Makarere convened by the Commonwealth Education Liaison Committee, and it is the inferences from this conference that are made by Phillipson that have drawn some criticism. An example of this criticism can be found in Howatt with Widdowson (2004), who argues that "the conference did not in fact suggest any 'tenets' at all (and even if it had it could only speak for ESL not for ELT as a whole), still less did it give anything a 'seal of approval'." (p.312). This is a valid point, but has problems of its own. Firstly, even if it were true that the English Language Teaching (ELT) industry could be cleanly

34 divided into subgroups such as 'EFL' (English as a Foreign Language – generally considered to be English as taught in non-English speaking countries) and 'ESL' (English as a Second Language – generally considered to be English as taught in countries where it has some official status) with no overlap, the 'ESL' portion of the industry would still be one of the largest and most relevant to Phillipson's concerns. However, it is not true that things can be so cleanly categorized, and networks of influence, both professional and political, weave throughout EFL and ESL settings, a situation that is propagated by organisations such as the British Council, which accredits schools, trains teachers, and carries out overseas curriculum projects, using the same Western-originated principles in each case. Howatt with Widdowson’s (2004) criticism also does little to undermine the resultant framework describing 'linguistic imperialism' that Phillipson (1992) developed. This would in fact seem to be the most relevant point, as subsequent work has demonstrated quite conclusively that there is still a widespread preference for monolingual 'native speakers', which I will discuss later in relation to native-speakerism and professional issues for 'non-native speakers'. Pennycook (1994), while broadly sympathetic to Phillipson's viewpoint, highlights a shortcoming in the linguistic imperialism thesis, arguing that "[Phillipson's] adherence to a version of structural imperialism leaves us at a problematic impasse. The unfortunate conjunction between structuralism and neo-Marxism in world order theory has tended to reduce human relations to a reflection of the political economy (...) Phillipson amply demonstrates how and why various governments and organizations have promoted the spread of English, but rarely explores what the effects of that promotion may be apart from maintaining global capitalism" (p.56) which, Pennycook (1994) argues, leaves linguistic imperialism as "the end point of analysis and leaves little space for consideration of how English is used in diverse contexts or how it is appropriated and used in opposition to those who promote its spread" (p.57). Pennycook (1994) argues for a more nuanced understanding of the relationships between power, politics, and language which

35 features both a consideration of colonial discourses about non-Western people and languages - discourses that serve to demonstrate how similar ideas continue to survive in modern times, working to privilege certain cultures and language users over others (Pennycook, 1998) - as well as providing accounts of people from other cultures "writing back" in English; using the language of the powerful as a tool to express their own cultural and personal identity (Ashcroft, Griffiths, & Tiffin, 2003; Pennycook, 1994). Through these processes, people take ownership of the language as a way of subverting the political and cultural power of the West, and as a way of asserting their own identities. This process of subversion has been explicitly applied to ELT by Canagarajah (1999a), who documents some of the ways in which Tamil learners of English in Sri Lanka act against their lessons and their teachers; for example subverting their American-produced English textbooks by scribbling graffiti over the pages, and reconstructing them as something more relevant and authentic for their own situation (p.88).

Native-speakerism builds on these ideas in order to construct an overarching framework in which the ideological privileging of particular forms of English and particular speakers of English can be seen as a driving factor behind a number of professional issues faced by 'non-native speaker' teachers of English and various problematic attitudes in ELT surrounding which teaching methods and approaches to use, which English to teach, and whose voices should be privileged in the discussion.