Informed by concepts of native speakers, racial nativism, and language socialization theory, this study documented the existence of the native speaker fallacy (Phillipson, 1992, Linguistic ...imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press) in a university‐level Japanese and Chinese program in the United States. Specifically, the researcher collected survey responses from language teachers and students, conducted interviews, and observed the teacher training process, one‐on‐one teaching sessions, and classroom teaching over the course of 2 academic years. A regression analysis showed how the perception of native and non‐native speakers was significantly influenced by students’ language level, native language, and race, and by the language program itself. The cases of a dialectal speaker and biracial Japanese teachers illustrated the effects of the bifurcated categorizations on teachers who do not fit in the dichotomy. Implications derived from this study call for critical analysis of the valorization of standard dialect and investigation into ways that will make more room for diversity in the language classroom. This study also underscores the importance of debriefing meetings that allow language professionals and students to reflect their teaching and learning experiences in relation to their identities and to examine unquestioned assumptions about language and racial identities and language standardization in increasingly globalized and diverse communities.
The Challenge
Many language teachers across the world report being affected by the native speaker fallacy, but how does it affect those who do not fit in the native/non‐native dichotomy? How can language programs stress the importance of both diversity and language standards in highly globalized and diverse communities?
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
This study reports findings of a survey about keigo, Japanese honorifics, and L2‐Japanese speakers; survey respondents were teachers of Japanese as a foreign language (JFL). Researchers have studied ...keigo ideologies within Japanese society and documented approaches to keigo instruction and learners' efforts to master or resist keigo. However, researchers have not studied teachers' beliefs about keigo and neither the impact of keigo ideologies on classroom practice nor teachers' views of students as legitimate Japanese speakers have been studied. The survey examines JFL teachers' beliefs about keigo, approaches to teaching keigo, and beliefs about keigo's relevance for L2 speakers. Conducted within a qualitative framework, analysis of thematic coding and descriptive statistics demonstrate that respondents report different standards for L2 speakers that convey implicit native‐speaker bias. Findings underscore the importance of foreign language teachers reflecting on language ideologies that affect classroom practices and advocating for L2 speaker legitimacy.
The Challenge
Language ideologies such as native‐speaker bias have a negative impact on foreign language teaching and learning. What language ideologies inform foreign language teachers' beliefs about L2 speakers and foreign language learners? What can foreign language teachers do to avoid reinforcing native‐speaker bias in the classroom?
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
This study investigated perceptual differences between Japanese language instructors with different ethnolinguistic and professional backgrounds in respect to kanji (i.e., Chinese characters used in ...Japanese) instruction. A total of 199 teachers of Japanese across the United States completed a 62‐item questionnaire eliciting their attitudes toward kanji and instructional strategies. A principal component analysis identified six attitude factors (Kanji has cultural value; Kanji is useful; Kanji is difficult; Kanji is fun; Kanji has future; and Kanji learning requires special abilities) and seven strategy factors (memory strategies, context‐based strategies, confidence, sound strategies, morphological analysis, metacognitive strategies, and rote memorization). Overall, the instructors appreciated the usefulness of kanji and considered rote memorization, memory, and metacognitive strategies effective. Multivariate analyses, however, revealed the statistically significant effects of native status and school level on the self‐report instructional strategies. Specifically, nonnative instructors rated the effectiveness of sound, memory, and context‐based strategies higher than native counterparts, and that secondary school teachers showed stronger beliefs in the effectiveness of memory strategies than college instructors, who rated rote memorization most effective. In sum, Japanese language instructors in general reflect upon their own kanji instruction from multiple perspectives but show different perceptions that are attributable to their learning and professional experiences.
The Challenge
Language teachers' classroom practices reflect their underlying knowledge and beliefs, but why do individual teachers conceive different perceptions about teaching language? Do individuals' learning and teaching experiences influence their perceptual development? This study investigated perceptual differences about character instruction between native vs. nonnative, and secondary vs. postsecondary instructors of Japanese.
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Though the term NATIVE SPEAKER/SIGNER is frequently used in language research, it is inconsistently conceptualized. Factors, such as age, order, and context of acquisition, in addition to ...social/cultural identity, are often differentially conflated. While the ambiguity and harmful consequences of the term NATIVE SPEAKER have been problematized across disciplines, much of this literature attempts to repurpose the term in order to include and/or exclude certain populations. This paper problematizes NATIVE SPEAKER within psycholinguistics, arguing that the term is both unhelpful to rigorous theory construction and harmful to marginalized populations by reproducing normative assumptions about behavior, experience, and identity. We propose that language researchers avoid NATIVE SPEAKER altogether, and we suggest alternate ways of characterizing language experience/use. The vagueness of NATIVE SPEAKER can create problems in research design (e.g., through systematically excluding certain populations), recruitment (as participants’ definitions might diverge from researchers’), and analysis (by distilling continuous factors into under-specified binary categories). This can result in barriers to cross-study comparison, which is particularly concerning for theory construction and replicability. From a research ethics perspective, it matters how participants are characterized and included: Excluding participants based on binary/essentialist conceptualizations of nativeness upholds deficit perspectives toward multilingualism and non-hegemonic modes of language acquisition. Finally, by implicitly assuming the existence of a critical period, NATIVE SPEAKER brings with it theoretical baggage which not all researchers may want to carry. Given the issues above and how ‘nativeness’ is racialized (particularly in European and North American contexts), we ask that researchers consider carefully whether exclusion of marginalized/minoritized populations is necessary or justified—particularly when NATIVE SPEAKER is used only as a way to achieve linguistic homogeneity. Instead, we urge psycholinguists to explicitly state the specific axes traditionally implied by NATIVENESS that they wish to target. We outline several of these (e.g., order of acquisition, allegiance, and comfort with providing intuitions) and give examples of how to recruit and describe participants while eschewing NATIVE SPEAKER. Shifting away from harmful conventions, such as NATIVE SPEAKER, will not only improve research design and analysis, but also is one way we can co-create a more just and inclusive field.
This study investigated the extent to which racialisation shapes EFL learners' conceptualizations of the 'native speaker' construct through an experimental design. Three hundred and fourteen ...university students studying at English-medium universities in Turkey were invited to take an online matched guise test. They were assigned to either the control group or the experimental group randomly. The participants in the control group were presented with photos of women in their late 20s, accompanied by 30-second speech samples recorded by White, Midwestern American women. In the experimental group, the same speech samples were accompanied by photos of similarly-aged women from racially minoritized backgrounds. The participants responded to 14 statements about each speaker on a five-point Likert scale. The statements were created based on the various qualities commonly referred to in the literature when defining 'native English speakers.' They referred to both linguistic factors such as fluency, intelligibility, age of language acquisition, intuitions about grammar, etc., and non-linguistic factors such as citizenship of an Anglophone country, birthplace, etc. The results revealed that the participants rated the speakers in the control group (White speakers) as significantly more 'native' than some speakers of colour. The discussion includes implications for teacher education and employment.
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BFBNIB, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
In intercultural interactions in which native speakers communicate with non-native speakers there is potential for asymmetries of power to shape how interaction occurs. These inequalities are not ...simply the result of a difference in command of the language between interlocutors but rather they relate to the social construction and performance of the identities of each participant. Using data drawn from intercultural interactions in a range of contexts, this article examines some of the ways in which the inequalities of power between native speakers and non-native speakers is an interactionally accomplished product by examining instances of intercultural interaction. Such inequalities are seen in instances of intervention in interactions that create and reaffirm the ideology of native speakers’ authority over language. The most obvious of such interventions are those in which the native speaker takes up an authoritative stance in relation to the linguistic productions of non-native speakers that emphasize the features and circumstances of their production rather than their communicative function. Such interventions may, however, occur in more covert ways. Where such interventions occur they may be ratified as legitimate activities by non-native speaker participants, and the power asymmetry is thereby co-constructed by the participant. However, such asymmetries may also be resisted by non-native speakers when they reassert their communicative intent and in so doing reframe the interaction away from inequalities.
The present study compared the motivations to teach Chinese between native and nonnative pre-service teachers of Chinese as a second/foreign language (CSL/CFL). The participants included 325 native ...and 325 non-native Chinese-speaking pre-service CSL/CFL teachers registered in the Masters in Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages (MTCSOL) programs; the teachers were asked to complete a 24-item questionnaire. Two major findings emerged. First, a similar six-factor teacher motivation was observed for both the native and non-native teachers. Second, the two groups showed non-significant differences in their ratings of the importance of cross-cultural value, intrinsic value, altruistic value, and fallback career choice as types of motivation but differed significantly in their ratings of extrinsic value and social influence. These results highlight the differences and similarities in the motivation of the second language teacher and offer insights into the variables at different levels that might influence the motivation of the second language teacher. Teacher motivation is advised to be taken into account in the training and administration of CSL/CFL teachers to alleviate the problems of teacher shortage outside China.
Background. Literature indicates that in academic writing, authors are expected to demonstrate a noticeable stance so that they can make their meaning clear. Therefore, differences between native and ...non-native writers along with cross-disciplinary academic writing assume great significance.
Purpose. The interactional, dialogic, and reflective nature of academic writing requires writers to utilize stance-establishing tools in their writing, the most prominent ones being stance nouns. In addition, the that-clause construction plays a vital role in conveying the author’s stance. Studies that compare L1 Turkish writers of English and L1 English writers regarding academic writing are rather scarce. As such, the present paper aims to analyze L1 Turkish writers of English and L1 English writers in eight disciplines from natural and social sciences in terms of the use of stance nouns in that-clause constructions.
Methods. The study employs Jiang and Hyland's (2016) functional classification model in exploring the nominal stance in cross-disciplinary writing of L1 Turkish writers of English and L1 English writers. To this end, journals with high impact in eight disciplines from social and natural sciences were scanned and a total of 320 articles were included in the corpus. The social sciences included in the present study cover applied linguistics, history, psychology, and sociology while the natural sciences cover medicine, engineering, astronomy, and biology. In total, a corpus of 2.232.164 words was formed.
Results and Implications. The study found significant differences not only in terms of natural and social sciences but also in terms of L1/L2 distinction. In addition, a secondary purpose of the study was to see whether writers in social and natural sciences differed in terms of empiricist and interpretive rationality. The results indicated that writers in social sciences tended to use more status and cognition nouns, indicating that they tend to be more interpretive. With significant differences between Turkish and English writers from a cross-disciplinary perspective, the present study offers important insights into how writers weave their stance in academic writing. Moreover, the present study also confirmed that writers in social sciences, whether L1 or L2, tend to use more stance nouns compared with writers in natural sciences.
While numerous studies have shown how native speakerism can negatively affect the professional trajectories of those perceived as ‘non-native speaker’, little is known about the ‘native’ and ...‘non-native speaker’ representation among course book authors (CBAs). Therefore, this article aims to analyse the ‘nativeness’, ethnicity and country of origin of general English CBAs to understand to what extent native speakerism affects who is recruited as a CBA. Twenty-eight general English adult course books published globally were analysed and three commissioning editors (CEs) were interviewed. The results show that out of 126 CBAs in the sample, 122 are ‘native speakers’ and 123 are white. In addition, the vast majority (79%) come from the UK. While the CEs confirmed they are committed to equality, it is clear that the current CBA recruitment policies lead to a perpetuation of native speakerism and to a situation where most general English CBAs are white ‘native speakers’ from the UK. It is suggested that greater attention is paid by CEs and publishers to recruiting more diverse CBA teams. As the interviewed CEs confirmed, such greater diversity could lead to more diversity in the content of the books.
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NUK, OILJ, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
This study aims to determine quality textbook Syahid Wa Ta'allam Li al-Nathiqin Bighairiha. This study uses the method descriptive qualitative with type of research is library research. The main ...data source of this research is sourced from textbooks Syahid Wa Ta'allam Li al-Nathiqin Bighairiha compiled by Hasan Muhammad Abdul maqsud lecturer at Ain Syams University, Cairo, Egypt. Collection of research data with techniques documentation in depth literature review and then analyze it. Based on analysis, the researcher have found this book was included in the category of good textbooks. But, from some existing assessment. The book Syahid Wa Ta'allam Li al-Nathiqin Bighairiha are some deficianicies that need to be improved, such as covers are less attractive to students, not keep up with the times and development.
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