Native-Speakerism

ADRIAN HOLLIDAY

­Framing the Issue

Native-speakerism is an ideology that upholds the idea that so-called “native

speakers” are the best models and teachers of English because they represent
a “Western culture” from which spring the ideals both of English and of the meth-
odology for teaching it (Holliday, 2005, p. 6). As an ideology, it is a system of ideas
that represents a distorted worldview that supports a particular vested interest.
The vested interest in the case of native-speakerism is the promotion by the ELT
industry of the so-called “native speaker” brand. The realization that this is an
ideologically constructed brand derives from Phillipson’s (1992) l­ inguistic imperi-
alism thesis that the concept of the “native speaker” as a ­superior model and
teacher was explicitly constructed by American and British aid agencies in the
1960s to support their agenda of spreading English as a global product.
Further indication that the “native speaker” brand is an ideological construction
is that the native/non-native speaker distinction is not self-evident on technical
linguistic or even nationality grounds. It is instead a professionally popularized
distinction that has been falsely associated with cultural orientation (Kubota &
Lin, 2006). Teachers who are labeled “native speakers” have been falsely idealized
as organized and autonomous in fitting with the common yet mistaken descrip-
tion of so-called “individualist cultures” of the West; while teachers who are
labeled “non-native speakers” are demonized as deficient in these attributes in
fitting with the common yet mistaken description of so-called “collectivist cul-
tures” of the non-West (Holliday, 2005, p. 19, citing Kubota, Kumaravadivelu,
Nayar, and Pennycook). The collectivist stereotype is itself considered to be a
Western construction of non-Western cultural deficiency. An example of this is a
British teacher’s reference to a superior “native speaker” “birthright” at the same
time as criticizing, albeit without foundation, not only the linguistic and peda-
gogic performance, but also the cultural background and proficiency of his “non-
native speaker” colleagues (Holliday & Aboshiha, 2009, p. 667).
The Othering of teachers who are labeled “non-native speakers” therefore
results in a cultural disbelief—not believing in their ability to teach English within

The TESOL Encyclopedia of English Language Teaching, First Edition.

Edited by John I. Liontas (Project Editor: Margo DelliCarpini).
© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
DOI: 10.1002/9781118784235.eelt0027

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 2 Native-Speakerism

a Western, and indeed superficially constructed “learning group ideal” that is

characterized by “active” oral expression, initiation, self-direction, and students
working in groups and pairs (Holliday, 2005, p. 44). The association of the “non-
native speaker” label with deficiency is also deeply rooted within a wider and
equally mistaken Western perception that people from non-Western cultural back-
grounds are unable to be critical and self-determined.
Native-speakerism is also neo-racist on two counts. First, race is implicit in the
cultural Othering of “non-native speaker” teachers. It is now established within
critical sociology that any description of “other cultures” that defines and predicts
how people are going to behave is in fact racist. “Culture” thus becomes a euphe-
mism for race. Indeed, the persistence of native-speakerism resides in it being hid-
den beneath an apparently “inclusive” and “nice” professional veneer that
celebrates cultural difference (Kubota & Lin, 2006). Native-speakerists are there-
fore likely to naively convince themselves that they are protecting “non-native
speakers” from having to do what “native speakers” are able to do. This mirrors a
wider “West as steward” discourse in which the West assumes the patronizing role
of looking after the non-West (Holliday, 2013, p. 110).
The second count of racism in native-speakerism is evident in the discrimina-
tory employment practices that go far beyond the English-speaking West, where
all types of language teaching institutions and their “customers” commonly
show an albeit mistaken preference for “native speaker” teachers (e.g., Lengeling
& Mora Pablo, 2012). However, it is becoming increasingly apparent that this
marketing of “native speaker” teachers is less to do with language and more to
do with an association with “whiteness.” This is implicit in job advertisements
that specify teachers from “Center” English-speaking countries. At the same
time, “non-white” teachers who have spoken English from birth are categorized
either implicitly or explicitly as “non-native speakers.” The use of the term
“customer” is significant here. It is intended to include not only students but also
their parents, employers, and sponsors, as well as the diverse private and public
sector sources of support for such institutions, from publishers to government. In
such an environment, where native-speakerism is dominant, especially within a
neoliberal climate, citing “native speaker” teachers becomes a false marker of
quality.

­Making the Case

The vested interests of native-speakerism are therefore multidirectional. They can

impact on a wide range of professional and other settings, where the ideology
provides a default and often tacit image of English and how it should be taught,
against which teachers, academics, students, and other members of the public
position themselves either in resistance or compliance and many shades in
between. This is evident not only in teacher and student struggles to construct
language and cultural identity on both sides of the so-called native/non-native
speaker divide, but also in perceptions of English and culture in bilingual families

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 Native-Speakerism 3

and diaspora as well as academic journals (Swan, Aboshiha, & Holliday, 2015).
Native-speakerism continues deeply and relentlessly to reduce the academic and
professional status of those it labels (Kumaravadivelu, 2016). The commodifica-
tion of teachers who are labeled “native speakers” also extends to them being
defined within a speakerhood role which does not recognize their wider
professionalism.
There has been considerable acknowledgment that the native/non-native
speaker distinction is problematic. Using the “native speaker” label as a criterion
for employment has been banned by professional bodies such as TESOL and
BAAL. The native/non-native speaker issue has also been discussed extensively
in the literature and research, especially in the Non-Native English Speakers in
TESOL Interest Section. Nevertheless, the terms “native speaker” and “non-native
speaker” continue to be an everyday currency for talking about professional dif-
ference. Despite its continued damaging impact on how colleagues in the profes-
sion are perceived, by themselves, their students, and the wider society, it is
increasingly clear that native-speakerism as an ideology remains deeply embed-
ded. There are a number of reasons why this is the case.
The ideology of native-speakerism is largely denied within the ELT profession
(Holliday & Aboshiha, 2009). Partly due to the modernism implicit in all profes-
sions, the native/non-native speaker distinction is constructed as real, harmless,
and indeed useful, as long as it is thought to be used carefully and objectively
and as long as employment discrimination is legislated against. A particularly
dangerous aspect of native-speakerism is that it tries to construct a sense of
equality of opportunity by emphasizing that teachers who are labeled “native
speakers” and “non-native speakers” can be treated as separate types of profes-
sionals with separate qualities and therefore separate rights that pertain to these
qualities. Being separate but equal is further encouraged by the continued com-
mon belief that teachers who are labeled “non-native speakers” have a separate
and exclusive ability to understand what it is like to learn English in their own
countries. Hence, while it is acknowledged that they have the right to compete
for jobs everywhere, it is not really expected that they will, not because there is
the false belief that there is something deep in their nature that will make them
not wish to. Native-speakerism further supports this notion of deficiency by
encouraging the idea that teachers who are labeled “non-native speakers” will
have greater difficulty traveling across cultural boundaries to work in distant
locations. This false notion is grounded in the mistaken belief described above
that they do not come from so-called individualist cultures and therefore find it
harder to behave autonomously in settings outside their natural so-called col-
lectivist environments.
Much established research into the native/non-native speaker issue also feeds
the notion that the distinction is real. While there is a clear objective to challenge
native-speakerist inequality, ironically, within an objectivist, positivist tradition,
much research begins with the notion that there really are two types of teacher,
with the aim of researching their differences, respective characteristics, and contri-
butions. This comparative research has also become a common topic for

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 4 Native-Speakerism

dissertations and theses in university teacher education programs, perhaps more

as a point of interest than as a means for raising critical awareness. Kumaravadivelu
(2016) argues strongly that such research does nothing but strengthen the hegem-
ony of native-speakerism. The development of standardized acronyms such as NS
and NNS, and NEST and NNEST further fix the concepts as definable and meas-
urable entities that need to be researched further. Employing easy acronyms serves
to professionally routinize, normalize, or reify the native/non-native speaker dis-
tinction as a domesticated, thinking-as-usual professional routine. On the other
hand, for many teachers who are labeled “non-native speakers,” these acronyms
serve as an activist springboard from which to launch opposition. Nevertheless,
the problem with using the “non-native speaker” label as an activist platform is
that, unlike race labels, the majority of professionals just do not appreciate its
political implication, and therefore the label persists in a domesticated form.

­Pedagogic Implications

The pedagogical implications of native-speakerism stretch far beyond the

­classroom to attitudes and values that both pervade the whole ELT profession and
extend to society as a whole, wherever English teaching and learning are consid-
ered to be an important activity. The origins of the ideology in postcolonial actions
of the past cannot now be undone. It is the progress and implication of these
actions that now need to be addressed. Within classrooms, this is to do with the
way in which English and its teaching are presented by all parties, ranging from
teachers, to textbook writers, curriculum designers, and school managers.
An important area for this action might be undoing the preoccupation with so-
called “native speaker” language culture on which native-speakerism is built. This
means shifting the perception of what makes English authentic away from what
amounts to a constructed “American” or “British” culture, and toward language
that is meaningfully rooted in the lived experiences of students. This requires a
more multilingual and multicultural approach to English. The viability of this shift
relates to a wide-ranging discussion about the role of English in the world. An
example is the case of Chinese secondary and primary education reported in Gong
and Holliday (2013). Students from rural areas, in their decentered criticality, reject
the “native speaker” cultural content of their textbooks in favor of a deeply cosmo-
politan desire to engage with the world on their own terms.
A non-native-speakerist curriculum would therefore focus on language stu-
dents and teachers employing their existing cultural and linguistic experience to
engage creatively with a cosmopolitan world. This shift has an important impli-
cation for teachers. They must themselves struggle to move away from basing
their professional knowledge on “American” or “British” language and culture to
a broader grounding in the sociolinguistics and cultural studies of how the back-
grounds of their students relate to a wider cosmopolitan world. They need to be
grounded in the possibilities of an English that expresses the cultural realities of
their students.

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 Native-Speakerism 5

This does not mean that there cannot be an engagement with language forms
and literatures that are generated by particular cultural backgrounds. This is not
arguing for a culture-free lingua franca approach. It means instead that such
engagement with the foreign should be with full knowledge of the politics of rep-
resentation that underpin such realities. The experience that students bring with
them in this respect is of how these linguistic and cultural forces operate in their
own society. This experience is there from an early age, but in tacit forms that teach-
ers need to help their students to externalize. The concept of critical pedagogy may
seem relevant here, as long as there is no hint of a Western-led liberationism.
There also needs to be a shift in perceptions about what our students are able to
do, and away from the prejudice that “activity” in language learning is rooted in a
mistaken sense of individualism, criticality, and autonomy that is only found in the
West. This shift will directly counter the cultural disbelief, referred to above, that is
implicit in native-speakerism. The process of shifting from cultural disbelief to
cultural belief—that non-Western people “can,” just like everyone else, rather than
“cannot”—requires starting with the principle that people from all cultural back-
grounds are equally able in all respects, and that this ability is enriched by diver-
sity. This appreciation of hitherto unexpected cultural contributions comes from a
number of sources in critical sociology, where it is argued that the margins that
have been unrecognized by the West are now claiming center-stage (e.g., Hall, 1991).
Students themselves need to be encouraged to participate in this colonization of
the center; and to do so they need to be educated in the politics of English as a
world language. This contribution of the students grows naturally from the recog-
nition of their innate critical intelligence and also implies a healthy shift to a more
multilingual approach and away from the English-only approach that has been
revealed to us as a fallacy by Phillipson (1992). Language ability must therefore be
rooted in knowledge and a broader educational base, and be moved on from the
narrow, skills-based instrumentality of the “learning group ideal” referred to
above. Such a broader educational approach will also serve to accommodate a
broader richness of cultural experience and classroom behaviors.
This more critical cosmopolitan approach also serves to undo any notion that
teachers who have been labeled “non-native speakers” are geographically limited
in their roles. Instead, cultural belief recognizes and indeed capitalizes on the hith-
erto unrecognized cultural experience that teachers bring with them, whoever
they may be and from whatever cultural background. Cultural travel in particular
must be appreciated as an immense resource because of the greater diversity of
experience it brings. Within the current global politics, where there is a mistaken
belief that the West has the monopoly on English and criticality, teachers who
travel from elsewhere thus carry with them the valuable contribution of decen-
tered Englishes and decentered criticality. In this new non-native-speakerist order,
the ability to teach would be disconnected from place of birth or perceptions of
what is the mother tongue; and multilingual and multicultural pasts will be
­considered an added advantage.
Taking action against the embedded acceptance within the ELT profession that
the native/non-native speaker distinction is real and harmless requires a radical

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 6 Native-Speakerism

removal of the core terminology that underpins it. This viewpoint follows that of
Kumaravadivelu (2016) in believing that there needs to be a quite radical para-
digm change in the way that we think of and talk about teachers, as speakers and
users of English, without using the terms “native speaker” and “non-native
speaker.” Not using the common acronyms such as NS and NNS, and NEST and
NNEST, and taking the more laborious route of always putting “native speaker”
and “non-native speaker” in inverted commas reminds us, in every paragraph,
that they are “so-called.” To go further and repeatedly spell out the concept of
“teachers who are labeled as” makes it clear that using the terms is a labeling activ-
ity that does not actually correspond to who the teachers actually are, and that
using the terms represents a discourse that keeps the ideology of native-speaker-
ism alive. A definition of discourse which is meaningful here is a way of talking
about things and presenting ideas that promotes a particular ideology. Power is
added to discourses by virtue of them often being unconscious and between the
lines of everyday communication. Undoing the discourse and the ideology that it
serves therefore requires hard work and attention to the detail of how we com-
municate with each other. It may of course be possible for a native/non-native
speaker discourse to exist outside the ideology of native-speakerism, for example,
where the teaching of a particular language is not associated with a global cultural
politics. This seems not to be possible in the case of ELT because of its global poli-
tics. The same work has to be done as with gender, race, and sexuality, taking
constant action against prejudices that linger deep within our way of being. This
action needs to be taken throughout the ELT profession, in teacher education,
research, curriculum development, and so on.

SEE ALSO: NNESTs; Race and Ethnicity in Teacher Education; Race, Ethnicity,
and NNESTs; Racial, Ethnic, and Cultural Stereotypes in Teaching English

References

Gong, Y., & Holliday, A. R. (2013). Cultures of change. In K. Hyland & L. Wong (Eds.),
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Hall, S. (1991). Old and new identities, old and new ethnicities. In A. D. King (Ed.), Culture,
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Holliday, A. R., & Aboshiha, P. J. (2009). The denial of ideology in perceptions of “nonnative
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Kumaravadivelu, B. (2016). The decolonial option in English teaching: Can the subaltern
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 Native-Speakerism 7

Lengeling, M., & Mora Pablo, I. (2012). A critical discourse analysis of advertisments:
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Suggested Readings

Canagarajah, S. (1999). Resisting linguistic imperialism. Oxford, England: Oxford

University Press.
Hall, S. (1996). The West and the rest: Discourse and power. In S. Hall, D. Held, D. Hubert,
& K. Thompson (Eds.), Modernity: An introduction to modern societies (pp. 184–228). Oxford,
England: Blackwell.
Holliday, A. R. (2011). Intercultural communication and ideology. London, England: Sage.
Holliday, A. R. (2014). Intercultural awareness for young learners. AL Forum, TESOL
Applied Linguistics Interest Section (September). Retrieved from http://newsmanager.
commpartners.com/tesolalis/issues/2014-08-27/4.html
Houghton, S., & Rivers, D. (Eds.). (2013). Native-speakerism in foreign language education:
Intergroup dynamics in Japan. Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters.

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