The 'native speaker' as a social construct

I have argued that major and commonsensical definitions of ‘native’ and ‘non-native’ speakers are insufficient and incomplete. However, even if we were to grant that Richard and Schmidt‘s (2010) definition was correct, there would still be a range of social, cultural, and political influences on how people classify others as either ‘native’ or ‘non-native’ speakers which are at least as influential on the applications of these labels. This is evident when we begin to raise questions about which English we are discussing, and whether a ‘native speaker’ of one form of English is still considered a 'native speaker' when entering a community with a different model of the language. Widdowson (2003) raises an important question about the ownership of English, and whether or not speakers of (for example) Nigerian English and speakers of American English are even speakers of the same language at all. In fact there is evidence to suggest that the 'native speaker' is a social construct (a term introduced by Berger & Luckmann, 1966), in that it is “a product not of objective observation of the world, but of the social processes and interactions in which people are constantly engaged with each other” (Burr, 2015, p. 5). As Burr (2015) puts it, “if

21 our knowledge of the world, our common ways of understanding it, is not derived from the nature of the world as it really is, where does it come from? The social constructionist answer is that people construct it between them. It is through the daily interactions between people in the course of social life that our versions of knowledge become fabricated” (p.4). If the ‘native speaker’ is not a label describing a clear and objective reality, as I have argued it is not, then the fact it is taken to be a common-sense descriptor despite this indicates that it is a social construct.

For example, Brutt-Griffler and Samimy (2001), conducted a small series of case studies around four English speakers, who all were born in areas in which English was not the dominant language and later moved to the U.S. They found that the participants were all assigned ‘native’ or ‘non-native’ status by their peers based on a range of social or superficial characteristics. For example, one participant was assigned the status of being an L2 user of English due to the fact she spoke with a slight accent, and spent her early years in Argentina. In contrast, another of the participants was considered to be a ‘native speaker’, despite having moved from Korea to the U.S. at an early age and being in almost exactly the same social and linguistic position to the first participant. This disparity appeared to be related to their willingness to identify with the dominant culture around them, and their willingness to self-identify as a ‘native speaker’. Brutt-Griffler and Samimy (2001) note that “national identity plays a crucial – and at times decisive – role in determining who is and who is not a ‘native speaker’ of English.” (p.103), and argue that “nativeness and nonnativeness among English users constitute non-elective socially constructed identities rather than linguistic categories” (p.99). Shuck (2006) shows how these labels of ‘native’ and ‘non native’ are based on a hierarchical discourse in which white, middle class ‘native speakers’ reside at the top, and those who are identified as not part of this group are located further down the hierarchy. While Shuck (2006) does not specifically relate this ideological hierarchy to the assignment of ‘native’ or ‘non native’ labels, it is not difficult to imagine how the application of

22 these labels can also be affected by the same discourses and perceptions surrounding race, nationality, and class (see also Amin, 1997; Bonfiglio, 2010; Kubota & Fujimoto, 2013; Kubota & Lin, 2006, 2009; Singh, 1998). Indeed, Leung, Harris, and Rampton (1997) argue that “language use and notions of ethnicity and social identity are inextricably linked” (p.544), and in support of this a study by Rivers and Ross (2013) found that teachers in Japan are favoured and idealised by students on the basis of race. A study by Ali (2009) even found that simply having a non-Western name can influence whether or not people are judged as 'native' or 'non-native' speakers of English.

It seems clear that the assignment of the categories of ‘native’ and ‘non-native’ speakers are often closely related to assumptions of proper standards of English, to proper models of English, and to the proper norms of English, as well as to a range of socially-determined factors such as race, nationality, class, and self-identity. As Davies (2003) states, “individuals regard themselves (and others) as native speakers for symbolic, rather than communicative purposes” (p.76), and because of this it seems that whether or not there lies any psycholinguistic truth behind the categories of ‘native speaker’ and ‘non-native speaker’, the way in which these labels are assigned is inexorably linked to such a range of social, political, historical (see Hackert, 2012), and ideological influences that any attempts at objective application are close to impossible. In this way, the concept of the 'native speaker' is revealed to be a social construct. The assignment of this role is not based principally on language proficiency but on other factors which are socially mediated and depend on mutually-constructed understandings of what constitutes a 'native speaker'.