Job Discussion Forums

[johnslat]

"In "Globish The World Over" Jean-Paul Nerri�re discusses the real English that most of the world is using. For ESL students and teachers from all cultures, plus businesses that are 'going global'."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=054zM_ON_z8&feature=player_embedded#!

And my reply to this question on Linkedin:

"how can I speak english the same as native?"

My reply:

"Dear Henry,

Hmm - well, first, which "native" do you want to speak like: American, British, Scottish, Irish, Canadian, Australian, South African. New Zealander, etc?
And then, of course, once you've narrowed that down, further narrowing will be necessary: Californian, Texan, Bostonian, Deep Southerner, Appalachian, etc, etc, etc.
For you realize, I'm sure, that some "branches" of the "native speaker tree" occasionally have a little difficulty understanding each other, owing to pronunciation, vocabulary and syntactical differences.
But it really doesn't matter since the only sure-fire, 100% guaranteed, double-your-money-back method is this: be born in one of those places and grow up speaking that "branch" of English. Or, at least, if being born there isn't possible, go there at an early age, say, before 10 or 12, and then immerse yourself.

Hardly seems worth all the bother, does it? Especially sine the whole concept of "native speakers" is regarded by some linguists as a "fallacy" anyway:

"The obvious conclusion from these facts is that not all of the subjects in this test can honestly be called �native speakers� of English. Performance errors could conceivable account for some of the mistakes, but certainly not so many as are clearly present here. These facts must force us to reconsider our conception of �native speaker� status for English, and by implication, for any language.

"The simple fact that a person has never spoken any language except hypothetical language X does not, apparently, guarantee that he/she is a native speaker of language X. Conceivably, one could be trained (with years of practice) to imitate a native speaker of some language, without actually being one. There is another, equally plausible explanation: a person might simply not be a native speaker of any language at all. Together, these two possibilities provide ample explanatory justification for the results obtained in this investigation."

http://specgram.com/PsQ.XVI.4/04.slater.fallacy.html

http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/0209maum.html

(and many other sites - just google "native speaker of English fallacy")

From your post, though, I'd say you might want to work on your use of articles (a, an, the.) And try to always use contractions whenever you can (Have you ever noticed how, when a TV show wants to identify a character as a "non-native speaker," one thing he/she NEVER does is use contractions - e.g. Ziva, the "Israeli Mossad agent" on NCIS: "I do not know."?)"

Any comments?

Regards,
John

[arthad]

John, I hope I'm not guilty of missing a joke, but Speculative Grammarian is a satirical journal. See, for example, http://specgram.com/CLIX.3/03.editors.bios.html. The article entitled "The Native Speaker Fallacy" is very much tongue-in-cheek.

[johnslat]

Dear arthad,

Sweet sufferin' succotash - I really DIDN'T know that. But apparently there ARE also researchers who take the concept seriously, among them those who believe in "linguisitc imperialism."

Phillipson's theory critiques the historic spread of English as an international language and that language's continued dominance, particularly in postcolonial settings such as India, Pakistan, Uganda, Zimbabwe, etc., but also increasingly in "neo-colonial" settings such as continental Europe. His theory draws mainly on Johan Galtung's imperialism theory, Antonio Gramsci's social theory, and in particular on his notion of cultural hegemony.

A central theme of Phillipson's theory is the complex hegemonic processes which, he asserts, continue to sustain the pre-eminence of English in the world today. His book analyzes the British Council's use of rhetoric to promote English, and discusses key tenets of English applied linguistics and English-language-teaching methodology. These tenets hold that:

English is best taught monolingually ("the monolingual fallacy");
the ideal teacher is a native speaker ("the native-speaker fallacy");"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_imperialism

http://www.waseda.jp/ocw/AsianStudies/9A-77WorldEnglishFall2005/LectureNotes/06_KoreaB_KyutaeJ/lecture2Jung-09.pdf

http://books.google.com/books?id=VSXtgWeJsKYC&pg=PA77&lpg=PA77&dq=Native+speaker+fallacy&source=bl&ots=TMSFZ9pQrD&sig=3CDfj5MUg_Kya2uTpTE1F_1MWJo&hl=en&ei=p8EzTP6jMIGInQfnvNW9CA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CDYQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=Native%20speaker%20fallacy&f=false

And to tell you the truth, I think a good case CAN be made (Ducks and runs for cover.)

Regards,
John

[gaijinalways]

How about just duck and cover courtesy the Atomic Cafe?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-w0Up-212g

[Sashadroogie]

'Native speaker' just means that that was the language you grew up speaking. Perhaps even one language of many. However, the fallacy is that this accident of birth automatically confers 'expert' status to such speakers. It doesn't. I know plenty of English speakers who learnt it as a second language who can get a band 9 score on their IELTS, for example, and plenty more 'native' speakers who undoubtedly would not.

Anybody ever tested a compatriot in an English proficiency test? Strange experience - especially when the candidate does not use a range of structures, or a wide range of vocabulary, cannot structure a written sentence properly, let alone a paragraph, and so you have to award a much lower mark than the foreigner who has a fiendishly wide range of structures and manages a conversation with extreme proficiency. Truly expert, though most people would say 'non-native'.

[fluffyhamster]

John, if you don't mind, here's a suggestion to help make the thread easier to read and generally navigate (and thus comment on perhaps): edit the Google Books link right down using different search terms e.g. editor rather than title, and then use the GB 'Link' function to supply the specific page, thus:
http://books.google.com/books?id=VSXtgWeJsKYC&lpg=PP1&dq=George%20Braine&pg=PA77#v=onepage&q&f=false

It's possible to cut down on the length even more (if you experiment a bit and work out what is and isn't needed in the URL):
http://books.google.com/books?id=VSXtgWeJsKYC&pg=PA77#v=onepage&q&f=false

Or you could "just" say: 'Search for George Braine's Non-Native Educators in English Language Teaching on Google Books, and take a look at its chapter 6/pp77-92 (Canagarajah's 'Interrogating the "Native Speaker Fallacy": Non-Linguistic Roots, Non-Pedagogical Results').

But I suppose I'll try reading the thread and maybe post a comment even before/without any edit!

[johnslat]

Dear gaijinalways,

I'm so old I can actually remember DOING those drills in school back in the 50s.
Ah, the good old days/

Dear fluffyhamster.

Usually I make use of "tiny url"

http://tinyurl.com/

where I would have gotten this:

http://tinyurl.com/22uj6kd

nut I was in a bit of a rush when I posted that.

Regards,
John

[fluffyhamster]

Well, you know what they say, John: Haste makes waste.

[johnslat]

Dear fluffyhamster,

It certainly does - and it makes for some interesting typos:

"nut I was in a bit of a rush when I posted that."

Regards,
John

[Sashadroogie]

Thought it was code for nutshell...

[fluffyhamster]

John, if we read much into every typo committed on (to?) Dave's then we'd hardly have any time left to gripe about issues of formatting, let alone content. But what was so interesting about your typo, now that you come to mention it?

Anyway, regarding the thread topic(s) (finally!): the concept of a 'native speaker' may be hard to rigorously define, but then, culture and language is complex; it's usually pretty clear however who isn't one or even nearing the rough level assumed: non-natives will be struggling (unnecessarily) with aspects of life and living in the community in which the language in question is spoken.

This of course is a bit of a separate issue from whether a native speaker (especially one with little or no linguistic training) will in the abstract make a good language teacher. The implication always seems to be that a trained non-native will at least be better at certain aspects of technical explanation, general syllabus organization, pedagogy etc, and they may in fact be preferable when "communicating internationally" rather than physically-socially integrating into a definite, relatively fixed geographical NS community is the goal. But IMHO you can't beat a trained native speaker, even if they are ostensibly monolingual (though being bilingual - able to speak the L1 of at least some if not the majority of one's students - will certainly help at times, and when used in moderation).

Just thought, this might be of interest (though it's only me blathering on in reply to a questionnaire):
http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/viewtopic.php?t=9781

As for 'linguistic imperialism' and the like, the flip side of the coin is that few in the West would seriously argue that foreign languages (for those who can't travel in order to immerse themselves in the language where it is widely spoken) shouldn't be studied ('imported' if you like) into the West at least, and native speakers of those languages are generally valued more highly than non-native speakers, which is probably all as it should be.

[gaijinalways]

This concept of Globish is interesting, seems to be a unified pidgen English. It's actually not a bad idea, and historically has been used off and on in trading areas with non-English speakers and English speakers (and French/German, etc..).

Certainly his idea of no jokes and idioms is a pretty cut and dried rule for many negotiations where non-native speakers of the communicating language are involved. But I notice he didn't suggest the same rule for other languages, such as his own, French. Why only adopt it for English?

Of course if you're assuming, as it is now, that most business and scientific research will be done in English, then it sounds like a good idea. Jargon is used in other areas, so why not use a 'lingua jargon' one for international business?

Hmm, need to digest that one fully.