Why the Dichotomy ‘L1 Versus LX User’ is Better than ‘Native Versus Non-native Speaker

Abstract

The debate on the concept of the native speaker and its use has been raging for decades and shows no sign of abating (Rampton 1990; Davies 2003; Kamhi-Stein 2016). Davies (2003) pointed out that applied linguists and foreign language teachers all use ‘the native speaker’ as a common sense reference point, despite the fact that is hard to pin down who exactly is the native speaker (p. 1). He went on stating that the native speaker’s concept is highly dynamic and rich in ambiguity (p. 2). The term—or more specifically the uses to which it may be put—is potentially racist, as it can be used to deliberately exclude speakers of certain varieties of a language or highly proficient non-native speakers (p. 8). Rampton (1990) noted that the criticism leveled at the concept of the native speaker had not stopped the use of the term and had not reduced its ‘mystical’ property. Llurda (2009) observed that despite the growing criticism of the concept of the native speaker, nothing much had changed: ‘The native speaker is under attack but I would dare say it still is in a pretty good shape’ (2009: 48). The antonym of ‘native speaker’ is ‘non-native speaker’. This term is inherently strange. We define somebody by what she or he is not: do we categorize blue-eyed people as ‘not brown-eyed’ or left-handed people as ‘not right-handed’? The use of the term ‘non-native speaker’ does reveal a strong monolingual bias. This bias is without foundation because, as Mauranen (2012: 4) argued, ‘Monolingualism is neither the typical condition nor the gold standard’.