Elamur Research⌕
☰
home / papers / 2009 / Sobre as noções ‘nativo’/não nativo’: uma dicotomia perigosa para o inglês global? On the notions “native”/”nonnative”: a dangerous dichotomy for World Englishes?

Sobre as noções ‘nativo’/não nativo’: uma dicotomia perigosa para o inglês global? On the notions “native”/”nonnative”: a dangerous dichotomy for World Englishes?

Paper · 2009 · John Robert Schmitz

Summary

The paper asks whether the labels "native speaker" and "nonnative speaker" still belong in applied linguistics now that English is spoken worldwide. Schmitz uses Kachru's three-circle model of World Englishes (inner, outer and expanding circles) and reviews critics such as Singh et al. (1995) and Rajagopalan (1997). These critics show that the term has been used to rank people by race and birthplace. It has also cast fluent outer-circle users, for example speakers of Indian or Singaporean English, as permanent learners whose output counts as defective.

Schmitz does not argue for dropping the notion. He argues that the real problem is that several distinct meanings get merged into one. As a remedy, he proposes a working typology of six senses:

  • age-of-acquisition
  • loyalty
  • objective proficiency, which has a subjective counterpart
  • the Chomskyan ideal speaker
  • blood
  • historical antecedence

Keeping these senses apart lets researchers retain the useful ones and reject the discriminatory ones. This matters because decisions about errors, interlanguage and norms all depend on which sense is assumed.

Key points

  • The typology distinguishes six senses: (a) native by age of acquisition, (b) native by loyalty, (c) native by objective proficiency (alongside a "subjective" proficiency native who merely believes in their own competence, following Preisler), (d) the idealized native speaker of Chomsky's theory, (e) native by blood, and (f) native by historical antecedence.
  • Kachru's circles frame the debate. BE, AE and CE are usually called "native" varieties, while IE, BNE (Brunei) and SE are called "nonnative". The author stresses that nativeness is a property of people, not of varieties.
  • Owusu-Ansah (1991) studied coordination of unequal grammatical units by Ghanaian university students. He argued that calling such patterns errors or interlanguage makes little sense when competent users produce them routinely.
  • Singh et al. (1995) claim that no structural feature occurs in all "nonnative" varieties of English and in none of the "native" ones.
  • Many so-called nonnative scholars became authorities on English, including Jespersen, Poutsma, Wierzbicka, Granger, Kuno and Zandvoort. The author treats this as evidence against equating birthplace with expertise.

Interesting ideas

  • I1. Split an overloaded label into explicitly named senses instead of keeping one binary, so that each claim states which sense it uses.
  • I2. Attach an attribute to the entity type it actually belongs to, as with nativeness belonging to speakers rather than to varieties.
  • I3. A deviation that is systematic across competent users is better described as a variant than as an error.
  • I4. Separate believed competence from measured competence, as in the subjective versus objective proficiency distinction.
  • I5. Acceptability judgments made on isolated, context-free sentences (the Chomskyan ideal speaker) leave out the situation in which language is actually used.

For Mova

How these ideas could serve Mova, our small open language model — its files, stages and tests:

  • I1 (world): Relations such as "speaks X natively" in the ontology could carry a sense tag (acquisition, proficiency, loyalty, ethnicity), so that reasoning never silently swaps one sense for another.
  • I2 (tree): During UD dialect conversion, Indian or Singaporean English constructions can be treated as features of a variety with its own norms, not as speaker noise to be normalized away.
  • I3 (learn): Before a self-induced repair rule "fixes" a construction, check whether the construction appears consistently in fluent text; if it does, record it as a legitimate variant.
  • I4 (learn): A witness parser's self-confidence should be kept apart from its measured accuracy on gold or negative-control data when weighting its vote in silver agreement.
  • I5 (frames): Pragmatic judgments such as implicature or irony should be evaluated with the surrounding discourse and participants, not on single sentences alone.

Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.

 Institutions

🎓University of Southern DenmarkOdense · Denmark8 works · 111 citations🎓Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP)Campinas · Brazil2 works · 2 citations

 Fields, topics and concepts

📚 Shelves 2The field of science this work belongs to (OpenAlex fields).Arts and Humanities · 16,039 worksLanguage and Linguistics · 15,891 works

🧭 Topics 1Research subjects and languages the work is about.English · 2,263 works

Cite

Cite as John Robert Schmitz. 2009. Sobre as noções ‘nativo’/não nativo’: uma dicotomia perigosa para o inglês global? On the notions “native”/”nonnative”: a dangerous dichotomy for World Englishes?. Signótica 21.

The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. DOI 10.5216/sig.v21i2.9161

@inproceedings{schmitz2009sobre,
  title = {{Sobre as noções ‘nativo’/não nativo’: uma dicotomia perigosa para o inglês global? On the notions “native”/”nonnative”: a dangerous dichotomy for World Englishes?}},
  author = {John Robert Schmitz},
  booktitle = {Signótica 21},
  year = {2009},
  doi = {10.5216/sig.v21i2.9161},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.5216/sig.v21i2.9161}
}

References

50 references, 0 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet.

  1. A fendras , E. A.; M illar , S.; M ac A oagáin , E.; B amgbose , A.; K achru , Y.; S aleemi , A. P.; P reisler , B.; T rudgill , P.; C oulmas , F.; D asgupta , P. On ‘new/ nonnative’ Englishes: a gamelan. Journal of Pragmatics, v. 24, p. 295-321, 1995. find
  2. B amgbose , A. Torn between the norms: innovations in world Englishes. World Englishes, v. 17, p. 1-14, 1998. find
  3. B ao , Z. Social stigma and grammatical autonomy in nonnative varieties of English. Language in society, v. 32, p. 23-36, 2003. find
  4. B augh , J, Language and race: some implications for linguistic science. In: F rederick , J.; N ewmeyer , F. J. (Ed.). Linguistics: The Cambridge Survey. v. 4: Language: the sociocultural context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. find
  5. B anjo , A. An endonormative model for the teaching of English language in Nigeria. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, v. 3, n. 2, p. 261-275, 1993. find
  6. B roshahan , L. F. English in Southern Nigeria. English Studies, v. 39, n. 3, p. 381-392, 1958. find
  7. B rutt -G riffler , J. Comments and reply. Conceptual questions in English as a world language: taking up an issue. World Englishes, v. 17, n. 3, p. 381-392, 1998. find
  8. C hen , R. Responding to compliments: a contrastive study of politeness strategies between American English and Chinese speakers. Journal of Pragmatics, v. 20, p. 49-75, 1993. find
  9. C heshire , J, Introduction: Sociolinguistics and English around the world. In: C heshire , J. (Ed.). English around the world: sociolinguistic perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. find
  10. C homsky , N. Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1965. find
  11. C orsetti , R.; P into , M. A.; T olomeo , M. Regularizing the regular: the phenomenon of overregulation in Esperanto-speaking children. Language Problems and Language Planning, v. 28, n. 3, p. 261-282, 2004. find
  12. C oulmas , F. Spies and native speakers. In: C oulmas , F. (Ed.). A festschrift for native speaker. The Hague: Moulton Publishers, 1981. find
  13. C oulmas , F. (Ed.). A festschrift for native speaker. The Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1981. find
  14. D avies , A. The native speaker in Applied Linguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1991. find
  15. D avies , A. Principle & practice in Applied Linguistics: studies in honour of H.G. Widdowson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. find
  16. F erguson , C. Towards a characterization of English foreigner talk. Anthropological Linguistics, v. 17, p. 114, 1975. find
  17. F erguson , C. Foreword. In: K achru , B. B. (Ed.). The other tongue: English across cultures. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1982. find
  18. F romkin , V. A. Speech errors as linguistic evidence. The Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1973. find
  19. F romkin , V. A. (Ed.). Errors in linguistic performance: slips of the tongue – ear, pen and hand. New York: Academic Press, 1980. find
  20. G arcía , O. Comment: que todo el pluralismo es sueño, y los sueños vida son: ethnographic dreams and reality. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, n. 110, p. 87-103, 1994. find
  21. G raddol , D. The decline of the native speaker. In: G raddol , David; M einhof , Ulrike H. . English in a changing world/ L’anglais dans um monde changeant. AILA Review, v. 13, 1999. find
  22. H ockett , C. Where the tongue slips, there slip I: to honor Roman Jakobson. The Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1967. find
  23. K achru , B. World Englishes and applied linguistics. World Englishes, v. 9. n. 1, p. 3-20, 1990. find
  24. K achru , B. World Englishes: agony and ecstasy. Journal of Aesthetic Education, v. 30, n. 2, p. 135-155, 1996. find
  25. K achru , B. World Englishes and English-using communities. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, v. 17, p. 66-87, 1997. find
  26. K achru , Y. Social meaning and creativity in Indian speech acts. In: A latis , J. E. (Ed.). Language, communication and social meaning: Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1992. find
  27. K hubchandani , L. M.; H osali , P. Grassroots English in a communicative paradigm. Language Problems and Language Planning, v. 23, n. 3, p. 251-272, 1999. find
  28. K ummer , W. Malinche, patron-saint or informants? In: C oulmas , F. (Ed.). A festschrift for native speaker. The Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1981. find
  29. L ippi -G reen , R, Accent, standard language ideology, and discriminatory pretext in the courts. Language in Society, v. 23, p. 163-198, 1994. find
  30. M azrui , A, A. The political sociology of the English language: an African perspective. The Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1975. find
  31. M esthrie , R. Review of Rajendra Singh (Ed.). The native speaker: multilingual perspectives (Language and development, 4), Language in Society, v. 29, n. 2, p. 239-282, 2000. find
  32. N elson , C. L. My language, your culture: whose communicative competence? World Englishes, v. 4, n. 2, p. 243-250, 1985. find
  33. O wusu -A nsah , L. K. Is it or is it not interlanguage? A head-on confrontation with nonnative English. Edinburgh Working Papers in Applied Linguistics, n. 2, p. 51-61, 1991. find
  34. P aikeday , T. M. The native speaker is dead! Toronto: Paikeday Publishing Company Inc., 1985. find
  35. P aradis , M. Neurolinguistic aspects of the native speaker. In: S ingh , Rajendra (Ed.). The native speaker: multilingual perspectives. New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1998. find
  36. R ajagopalan , K. Linguistics and the myth of nativity: comments over new/ nonnative Englishes. Journal of Pragmatics, v. 27, p. 225-231, 1997. find
  37. R ajagopalan , K. Nonnative teachers of English and their anxieties; ingredients for an experiment in action research. In: I lurda , E. (Ed.). Nonnative language teachers: empirical perspectives. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2002. find
  38. R ickford , J. R. Unequal partnership: sociolinguistics and the African-American speech community. Language in Society, v. 26, p. 161-197, 1997. find
  39. R ushdie , S. In good faith. London: Granta, 1989. find
  40. S chneider , E.W. The dynamics of new Englishes: from identity construction to dialect birth. Language, v. 79, n. 2, p. 233-281, 2003. find
  41. S ingh , R.; D’S ouza , J.; M ohanan , K. P.; P rabu , N. S. On new/nonnative Englishes: a quartet. Journal of Pragmatics, v. 24, p. 283-294, 1995. find
  42. S ingh , R. New/nonnative Englishes revisited: a reply to my colleagues. Journal of Pragmatics, v. 24, p. 323-333, 1995. find
  43. S ingh , R. (Ed.). The native speaker: multilingual perspectives. New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1998. find
  44. S ingh , R.; S tanton , J. Cohesion and social stratification. Review of Applied Linguistics, v. 56, p. 1-10, 1982. find
  45. S ingh , R.; L ele , J.; M artohardjono , G. Communication in a multilingual society: some missed opportunities. Language and Society, v. 17, p. 43-59, 1988. find
  46. S ilva , R. S. Pragmatics, bilingualism and the native speaker. Language and Communication, v. 20, p. 161-178, 2000. find
  47. T se , L. Resisting and reversing language shift: heritage-language resilience among U.S native biliterates. Harvard Educational Review, v. 71, n. 4, p. 676-706, 2001 find
  48. W iddowson , H. G. The ownership of English. Tesol Quarterly, v. 28, n. 2, p. 337-389, summer 1994. find
  49. W illliams , R. Key words: a vocabulary of culture and society. New York: Oxford University Press, 1976. find
  50. Y ano , Y. World Englishes in 2000 and beyond. World Englishes, v. 20, n. 2, p. 119-131, 2001. find

Updated

↑ back to top

This page in Markdown → https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/schmitz-2009-sobre-nocoes-nativo-nao-nativo/