native speech definition

British Council

Native Speakerism – what is it and why does it matter?

By ann veitch, ebru weston & huma riaz, british council, 29 june 2023 - 16:00.

Are the terms ‘native speaker’ and ‘non-native speaker’ appropriate, practical and useful to describe language identity, use and understanding? In terms of English, which country or countries are we referring to as ‘native’? And which part of that specific country? Whose English is ‘native English’? Does ‘nativeness’ in English Language Teaching (ELT) equate to a better teaching and learning experience and improved learning outcomes? The British Council’s Ann Veitch and Ebru Weston, from the English Programmes team and teacher Huma Riaz explore these questions:

“I’m Huma. I have worked in India, England and now the UAE. I have been teaching for over 13 years for the British Council during which time I have also donned many other hats as a teacher trainer, an e-moderator, a materials writer and an examiner. I’m an Indian and I grew up in India. I’m multilingual with English as my fourth language. Since childhood, I’ve had access to all of my language repertoire for performing various functions requiring the use of different languages. Currently, I use English for almost everything other than speaking to my parents and my in-laws. I think English is my only dominant language because I’m not a native speaker of any of the other languages I know including my mother tongue or home language, so what would my English language passport say? A non-native speaker, a ‘developing’ native speaker, a hybrid or simply a ‘speaker’ of English?” 

“I’m Ebru and am from Turkey. I came to England 24 years ago and have lived in England, Spain, Tanzania and Sudan during those years. I am bilingual but with limited visits to Turkey and use of Turkish, I feel English has become my dominant language over the years. 

“Leaving a nine-year career in marketing, I decided to become an English language teacher as I realised how much I loved teaching. After completing the CELTA course during the summer of 2011, I rewrote my CV and sent it to over 10 language schools in a city in Spain. I was turned down by all schools but one on the basis of me being Turkish. Following my interview with the only school who got back to me, I was told that I gave a good interview and sounded ‘very British’ so they would like to offer me a job but on one condition – I had to tell my students I was British. It was hard, especially for someone who was born and brought up and educated in Turkey. I was shocked to hear this condition but I was desperate for a job so I took it. And there started the uncomfortable journey of lying to my students for two years that my mother was Turkish and my father was English. I was delighted when I got my next job and that I did not have to lie about who I was to anybody anymore.”

“I’m Ann and I would be classed as a ‘native speaker’. I grew up in a working class, poor, rather insular community in Gateshead, in the North of England. As such, I grew up speaking English in a dialect, known as Geordie. Geordie is known as a ‘strong dialect’ because of its phonological, grammatical and lexical differences to ‘standard’ English. Attitudes towards and stereotypes associated with dialects shift over time but Geordie has rarely been associated with power, social status, prestige, intellect or competence. In accent surveys conducted in the UK, it’s often linked to words like ‘trustworthy’, ‘likeable’, ‘friendly’ and ‘motivational’. I spent 20 years living and working overseas where, as a white, native teacher, albeit with a ‘strange’ accent, jobs were easy to find. For many years I tried to speak ‘posh’, rarely spoke in dialect, apologised for my accent and tried not to be irritated when British people commented that ‘I hadn’t lost my accent’ or Geordies and the community I grew up amongst commented that I had.”

Despite the recognition that English is a global language, a lingua franca, an international language, owned and used by many, concepts of ‘native speaker’ and ‘non-native speaker’, and the associated baggage these terms carry, are pervasive. Within ELT, there has been movement to stop using the terms ‘native/non-native’, redress the marginalisation of and discrimination against ‘non-native’ models and non-native English teachers and decolonise our approach to Englishes. However, we still observe and experience systems and processes which reinforce a hierarchy of Englishes in which English is owned and controlled by ‘native speakers’. The more distant a speaker is from this ‘inner circle’, the less valid, prestigious and desired their English is. This is reflected in recruitment processes, availability of opportunities, wages, teaching and learning materials, standards and assessments and in AI.  For instance, to get a cutting-edge answer to our question ‘what is a native speaker?’, we asked ChatGPT – the artificial intelligence chatbot: 

‘Native speakers typically possess an intuitive understanding of the language's grammar, vocabulary, idiomatic expressions, and pronunciation, as they have grown up using the language in everyday life. They are considered to have the highest level of proficiency and fluency in that language.’ 

Sadly, and predictably, its answer reflects a history that positions ‘native’ language as culturally, racially and linguistically superior, aspirational, standard-setting and the benchmark of acceptability. In positioning ‘native speakers’ as such, we inevitably create a ‘non-native’ opposite – inferior, deficient, non-authentic and non-standard. As defined by ChatGPT: ‘Non-native speakers often have a different accent or may make grammatical errors that are influenced by their native language. However, with sufficient practice and exposure, non-native speakers can achieve high levels of proficiency in a second language.

The aspirational quality of ‘nativeness’ and its cultural, linguistic dominance and perceived capital means that parents and learners demand native teachers, in the belief that they speak ‘proper English’ and are ‘better’ teachers. As teachers, we know that good English language teaching is about a teacher’s skills, knowledge, language proficiency, experience, cross-cultural understanding and the ability to understand and adapt to learners while continually developing themselves. You can be a native speaker but have very few of these attributes. 

The damaging binary concepts of ‘native’ and ‘non-native’ have blighted ELT for too long. In a multilingual and multicultural world, these labels do not reflect language identity, use and understanding. As teaching professionals, we represent just a fraction of the diversity of our ELT community – we are different colours, come from different cultures, socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds, are monolingual, bilingual and multilingual, have lived and worked in different contexts, speak variations of English - but none of us are comfortable labelling ourselves as ‘native’ or ‘non-native’ speakers of English. These categories are restrictive. In terms of use, English is our dominant language, yet some of us would be regarded as ‘more native’ than others. Like many others, we have experienced privilege and prejudice based on how we look, how we talk and our life experiences. If we’ve been able to, we have attempted to hide or minimise what might be labelled as ‘non-native’, and therefore disadvantage us in accessing opportunity, from employers, learners and parents. The labels have impacted on our credibility, worth and career as ELT professionals. In terms of our wider ELT community, the labels have created division, ‘othering’ and made us question our belonging and perceptions of self-efficacy. 

If these terms are so harmful, why does the English Language Teaching (ELT) community continue to use them? The simple answer is they are an easy, neat way of categorising and compartmentalising language identity, understanding and use. But language identity, understanding and use is far from neat and easy – it’s complex, complicated and fluid, based on a huge variety of factors. So, what do we use instead? There is a problem with replacing ‘native’ and ‘non-native’ with other binary absolutes. It may help to remove some of the stereotyping and stigmatising around these terms, but it does not help in accurately conceptualising language identity, understanding and use. Perhaps we have to accept the complexity and reflect this more accurately and equitably through more nuanced descriptions?   

None of these points and arguments are ground-breaking or new. But ‘native’ and ‘non-native’ as terms and concepts are so engrained and embedded within structures that change is neither quick nor easy. It requires sustained effort and a collective commitment to embrace diversity and inclusivity across multiple levels. We need to continue to raise awareness and encourage open discussions about language identity, understanding and use. We need to take a collective and collaborative approach as ELT professionals to build alliances and networks, valuing difference and similarity. We need to ensure that those with power and privilege in this area, such as the British Council, use their voice effectively and practise what they preach. We need to have courage and agency to call out and challenge prejudice in ELT marketing, recruitment, employment, resources, standards and assessment. We also need wider change – a better community understanding of what good ELT teaching is and pedagogical changes within the ELT classroom which encouraging multilingual approaches to teaching and learning and the use of full linguistic repertoires. We need systemic changes to teacher recruitment and reward, ensuring this is based on skill, knowledge and ability rather than ‘nativeness’– an area British Council has made considerable progress in over the last decades – and, if necessary, changes in how language is treated in law. 

You might also be interested in:

• In our rapidly changing world what is the future of the English language?
• The British and their secret language regrets
• Ten statements about the Future of ELT - the hidden messages from the ELTons finalists

View the discussion thread.

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What does “Native speaker” mean, anyway?

May 29, 2021 @ 4:17 pm · Filed by Mark Liberman under Language and culture , Language and politics

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Below is a guest post by Devin Grammon and Anna Babel .

Both linguists and non-linguists commonly use the term “native speaker” to describe someone who grew up speaking a particular language and who is fully proficient in that language. Often, we invest native speakers with authority regarding how someone should speak a language – for example, native speakers are often preferred as instructors in the second-language classroom, or sought after as linguistic informants for field methods classes or as research assistants for fieldwork or analysis of linguistic data. Indeed, the idea of being a native speaker is tied to ideas of authenticity, as in the commonly held dialectological wisdom that elderly, rural male speakers with all their teeth are the best informants. But where does the term come from, and what does it really mean?

The idea of the “native speaker” originated within the context of European nationalism and colonialism in the 19 th century. It proved useful both as a way of conceptualizing and labeling a particular linguistic identity tied to a nation and to differentiate between social groups within a colonial hierarchy. 1,2 The emergence of the native speaker in intellectual and public discourses linked it to notions of mother tongue, nation, and race, with first language acquisition constituting the basis of this link. By asserting their status as native speakers, Europeans justified their ownership of their national languages in the face of colonized subjects who also learned these languages but spoke them in ways that they deemed to be inferior as illegitimate offspring.

The native speaker label not only creates a conceptualization of a person as an “ideal” speaker of a language, but also moves in lockstep with the standardization and scientific study of languages as bounded linguistic objects that exist apart from speakers and contexts of language use.  Accordingly, the languages spoken by native speakers are understood to be comprised of essential lexical and grammatical features that can be objectively evaluated, separated, and codified in dictionaries and grammars. Given this essentialized understanding of languages, it appears logical that native speakers can be distinguished from non-native speakers of a language based on their linguistic knowledge and abilities. However, this expectation is challenged by the fact that all languages are social constructs; their boundaries and membership are not established on the basis of lexical and structural features, but by the ways in which people are recognized as speakers – or not. 3 This means that providing a categorical definition of the native speaker according to structural criteria tied to a specific language is at best circular and at worst hopelessly flawed.

The term native speaker gained particular prominence in linguistics following the emergence of the Chomskian approach to linguistic competence in the 1960s and 1970s. 4   However, the idealization of the native speaker began to be questioned within a few years, with some scholars asserting that an ideal native speaker has never existed 5 and that the topic be approached instead through the lens of more precise terms like expertise, inheritance and affiliation. 6 These critiques have been further elaborated within applied linguistics, where use of the term created impossible dilemmas. For example, scholars have argued that the term native speaker was coopted in the field of English language acquisition to conflate language and race – namely, white speakers are considered more authoritative than non-white speakers of English, and white or colonial national varieties are considered more legitimate than non-white national varieties. 7

Cases of “near-native speakers” and “exceptional second language learners” further complicate the idea that the competence of native speakers is clearly distinguishable from that of non-native, second-language speakers. The common observation that adult language learners almost always retain an identifiable foreign accent has long been used as evidence of a critical period in second language acquisition. However, a growing body of research casts doubt on the existence of a strict neurobiological window that closes around late adolescence and impedes native-like phonological development. Numerous studies report that some non-native adult learners develop accents in their second languages that native listeners judge to be native-like, and that some of these learners are able to more accurately discriminate varieties of their non-native languages in listening tasks than native speakers in control groups 8,9 . This research suggests that adult learners’ experiences and motivations are more significant than age of onset in developing native-like abilities in an additional language.

Beyond second language acquisition, there are many additional examples of the complications that the term “native speaker” creates in linguistic research as well as lived personal experience. For example, people may find themselves cut off from their speech communities of origin due to emigration and no longer speak their mother tongue on a regular basis. In these cases, their dominance in a language learned later in life may affect the phonetic realization of words in their first language and lead others to perceive them as non-native speakers with a foreign accent. 10 Likewise, many people experience language attrition due to stoke or neurodegenerative diseases. While these individuals may lack a high level of competence in all domains of their first language, they are rarely if ever described as non-native speakers.

The competence of adult emigrants who experience first language attrition has a parallel in the experience of many dual-culture bilinguals, or 1.5-generation immigrants, who are immersed in a new language and setting at a younger age. Their competence in their “native” language may be truncated in several domains, and they often report feeling like they speak poorly or like children.  Heritage speakers of Spanish in the U.S., for example, describe not being considered fully native speakers of Spanish due in part to their lack of formal education in the language and the low status of Spanish, particularly among racialized groups, in U.S. society. 11 In such cases, the “ideal” language and the “ideal language speaker” are understood to reside somewhere else, in a discursive move that erases bi- and multilingualism as part of the reality of language use and as part of the lived reality of language speakers. 12

Likewise, speakers of indigenous languages undergoing shift may find that they are compared unfavorably with idealized monolingual speakers, even if such speakers never existed.  In popular discourses, indigenous languages are considered to have been “corrupted” by contact with European and other colonial languages, but these discourses are seldom placed in the context of the fact that languages are always shaped by contact.  Because speakers may be labeled as semi-speakers or lacking in full native-like competence, their language skills are often devalued. 13 As in the case of Spanish as a heritage language, an ideal speaker of an indigenous language may be framed as monolingual and as distant in time and/or space – someone from a previous generation, or from a distant geographic region, in which the contaminating effects of contact are presumed not to have occurred.

Additionally, speakers of languages or dialects that are marginalized or undergoing shift are often told that they are not “good” or good enough speakers of a language. 14 This is because the languages or dialects that they speak are not recognized as legitimate varieties of language, as is often the case with creole languages 15 and minoritized language varieties like African American English 16,17 or Turkish German speakers. 18   These stigmatizing discourses are also aimed at speakers of indigenous minority languages, as in the case of Mexican indigenous languages which are termed dialectos despite having no relationship with Spanish. The label dialecto implies that they are less than fully-formed languages. A speaker of a dialecto may feel (or be made to feel) that they cannot claim status as a legitimate language speaker. 19

Ultimately, a closer examination reveals that the concept of the “native” speaker is tightly connected to discriminatory logics. Linguists and members of the public alike share a common-sense feeling for the concept of the “native speaker.”  However, it is clear that this concept is historically situated in nationalist discourses and colonial regimes of languages, nations, and peoples, and is often used to exclude or to police the boundaries of speakerhood and, ultimately, personhood. The concept of the “native speaker” draws on deep-rooted assumptions regarding who is worthy of being a speaker and which languages are worthy of being recognized as such.

References:

1 Hackert, S. (2012).  The emergence of the English native speaker: A chapter in nineteenth-century linguistic thought . Walter de Gruyter.

2 Mufwene, S. (1994). New Englishes and criteria for naming them.  World Englishes ,  13 (1), 21-31.

3 Otheguy, R., García, O., & Reid, W. (2015). Clarifying translanguaging and deconstructing named languages: A perspective from linguistics.  Applied Linguistics Review ,  6 (3), 281-307.

4 Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax Cambridge.  Multilingual Matters: MIT Press .

5 Paikeday, T. M. (1985). The native speaker is dead! An informal discussion of a linguistic myth with Noam Chomsky and other linguists, philosophers, psychologists, and lexicographers . Paikeday Publishing Inc.

6 Rampton, M. B. H. (1990). Displacing the ‘native speaker’: Expertise, affiliation, and inheritance. ELT Journal , 44 (2), 97-101.

7 Norton, B. (2013). Identity and Second Language Acquisition. The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics . Blackwell.

8 Ioup, G., Boustagi, E., El Tigi, M., and Moselle, M. (1994). Re-examining the critical period hypothesis: A case study of successful adult SLA in a naturalistic environment. Studies in Second Language Acquisition , 16 , 73 – 98.

9 Moyer, A. (2013) Accent and age. Foreign Accent: The Phenomenon of Non-native Speech . Cambridge University Press.

10 Major, R. (1993) Sociolinguistic factors in loss and acquisition of phonology. In K. Hyltenstam and A. Viberg (Eds.), Progression and regression in language: Sociocultural, neuropsychological and linguistic perspectives (463 – 78). Cambridge University Press.

11 García, O. (2019). Decolonizing foreign, second, heritage, and first languages. In D. Macedo (Ed.), Decolonizing foreign language education: The misteaching of English and other colonial languages , 152-168. Routledge.

12 Gómez Seibane, Sara (2021): “El bilingüismo desde la perspectiva social”,  Blog del grupo Español en Contacto . Recuperado de:  http://espanolcontacto.fe.uam.es/wordpress/el-bilinguismo-desde-la-perspectiva-social-nueva-entrada-de-blog-escrita-por-sara-gomez-seibane-parte-2/

13 Boltokova, D. (2017). “Will the Real Semi-Speaker Please Stand Up?” Language Vitality, Semi-Speakers, and Problems of Enumeration in the Canadian North.  Anthropologica ,  59 (1), 12-27.

14 Leonard, W. Y. (2008). When is an “extinct language” not extinct. In K Kendall et al. (Eds.), Sustaining linguistic diversity: Endangered and minority languages and language varieties , 23-33. Georgetown University Press.

15 DeGraff, M. (2005). Linguists' most dangerous myth: The fallacy of Creole Exceptionalism.  Language in society , 34(4), 533-591.

16 Rickford, R. J. (2000).  Spoken soul: The story of black English . John Wiley & Sons Inc.

17 Smitherman, G. (1986).  Talkin and testifyin: The language of Black America  (Vol. 51). Wayne State University Press.

18 Kern, F. (2015). Turkish German.  Language and Linguistics Compass ,  9 (5), 219-233.

19 Hill, J. H., & Hill, K. C. (1986).  Speaking Mexicano: Dynamics of syncretic language in central Mexico . University of Arizona Press.

Above is a guest post by Devin Grammon and Anna Babel .

132 Comments

Colin s mclarty said,.

May 29, 2021 @ 5:37 pm

Language instruction is very important to me, and not all because of doing it.  I do not teach languages.  I try to learn them, so that I can make polite small talk with people, and talk with desk clerks, ticket vendors, and taxi drivers and restaurant workers where I go.  My actual colleagues in these places speak English.  I do not need to learn the language for them (though I enjoy doing it).  And while I would love to master fluent conversational Italian, Bulgarian, and Mandarin, those are not feasible for me any time soon.  I just want simple conversation, comprehensible to the people I meet on my own.  This makes learning from native speakers important to me, but for nothing like the reasons in the first paragraph of  this contribution.  

The most glaring example is Mandarin.  A decade and more of experience tells me that when I use words (and sentence intonations) I learned from native speakers, then people understand me.  Otherwise, they very often do not.  To be fair, experience (listening to conversations in hotel lobbies) also tells me there is a tiny stream of Mandarin-as-Second-Language speakers from the US who probably could teach me as effectively as native speakers — if they do teach at all — and if they would agree to teach me only in Mandarin — anyway they do not teach at my University.   

And if you think that, afterall, I could improve somewhat by listening to anyone whose tones and intonation are better than mine, then you are wrong.  "Better than mine" is no very high standard in Mandarin pronunciation, and it will not help me.  I have tried, and while I learn some this way it also reinforces a lot of my Anglophone habits that obstruct communication in China.  As a specific example, Mark Henry Rowswell has been an inspiration to me as a language learner, with better and more fluent pronunciation that I will ever have, but his pronunciation lessons do not help me.

My concern is nothing about "authority regarding how someone should speak a language."  I care what I must do so that people do understand me.  And I suppose you will agree that learning Mandarin from "elderly, rural male speakers" is a bad idea unless you are going to that specific rural community.  Overall, the theoretical, linguistic, historical, and pedagogical discussion in this post seems terrific to me.  But, especially that first paragraph, really struck me as disjoint from my concern to get native speakers as teachers. 

May 29, 2021 @ 5:55 pm

It does not seem to me that the conclusion that 'the concept of the “native” speaker is tightly connected to discriminatory logics' or 'often used to exclude or to police the boundaries of speakerhood and, ultimately, personhood' is in fact demonstrated by the body of the article.

Charlotte Stinson said,

May 29, 2021 @ 7:18 pm

Must you really infect even the topic of language learning with identity politics and cultural ressentiment?

Bathrobe said,

May 29, 2021 @ 7:36 pm

There is an element of truth in many parts of this piece. Some observations have probably occurred to anyone who thinks about language; others are straining to make a point; others are trivial. In fact, the question of "native speaker" is tightly tied to the question "What is a language?", which is a similarly vexed issue. The novelty here is the attempt to tie this into a postcolonial, poststructural discourse, with all that that entails. (Sometimes I found the deployment of this kind of vocabulary puzzling. What for instance, do they mean by "the low status of Spanish, particularly among racialized groups"? This sense of "racialized" strikes me as an in-group usage, although I might be wrong.)

Returning to the concept of a "language", the idea of a "native speaker", while not unconnected to colonialist discourse, is equally tied to the ideas of "standard national language" and "educated speaker". It's long been the case that some people who are "native speakers" are not regarded as "good speakers" of the language because they have "nonstandard" usages or are not properly "educated". This is particularly important in the teaching of foreign languages, where discrimination of one type or another is rife. You are discriminated against for not being a "native speaker"; you might also be discriminated against for speaking the "wrong" variety natively (this has been applied to varieties that vary from RP or so-called General American), or for not having a proper education. There is nothing new here.

As for the concept of finding native speaker informants for linguistic studies, I don't think this is discriminatory. After all, the choice of the toothed elderly rural speaker is probably a good one if your objective is to capture a particular dialect without too much outside influence. It will at least help provide some kind of benchmark for tracking changes and outside influences in the language of younger speakers. The idea there is no such thing as an "untainted" native speaker is something of a truism. It's common knowledge that even the Queen of England has changed her pronunciation over time. (When I was studying works by the Chinese writer Laoshe, who is famous for depicting the language of "Old Beijing", every so often my teacher would say "No, that's not the language Beijing, that's something that Laoshe picked up when he lived in Sichuan". The point being that everybody is situated somewhere in linguistic space, whether due to their experience, education, social status, attitudes, etc.)

So I'm afraid that I'm not totally convinced by this attempt to tie the concept of "native speaker" into postcolonial, poststructural discourse. The piece simply herds familiar facts into a particular worldview. If you are deep into that world-view you might experience a "Eureka!" moment: "Wow! Even the concept of a native speaker is tied to Western colonialism!" But for anyone who has thought about language much at all, there is nothing terribly new here.

Noel Hunt said,

May 29, 2021 @ 8:43 pm

It is quite appalling how the disease of 'virtue-signalling' has infiltrated every academic domain (although one might expect it to be absent from nuclear physics, cosmology and like sciences).

Victor Mair said,

May 29, 2021 @ 8:48 pm

I just read the news that Princeton's Classics Dept. has done away with the requirement for Greek and Latin, but can scarcely believe that it's true.

Jenny Chu said,

May 29, 2021 @ 9:04 pm

What about the native speaker grammaticality judgement, an important tool for linguistics? In light of the above, I think the native speaker grammaticality judgement is a valid concept but it needs to be better defined.

This was pretty much glossed over as something obvious when I was a linguistics student ("If the native speaker says it's wrong, put a * in front of the sentence!").

But I can look at a textbook for elementary Hungarian, a language I currently know nothing of, and after a half hour I will be able to tell you that certain constructions are "wrong." That's not the same thing.

So, what's special about a native speaker GJ? I think it is a very specific, emotional sense of wrongness when confronted by a malformed sentence. The proficient 2L learner knows it's wrong, but the native speaker FEELS it's wrong, in their gut. (I note that this sense of wrongness shows up some time around kindergarten – you can tell a two-year-old in a monolingual environment, "Car toy your show Daddy" and they'll probably show Daddy the toy car, but a 6-year-old will laugh and ask you why you're saying it in a funny way.)

So, is it therefore true that the native speaker / non-native speaker split is truly binary? Probably not, any more than anything else natural in this world (humans are messy). I made my definition above on an extremely fuzzy basis. I also think it's true that some people end up without native speaker competency, for one reason or another.

But it doesn't mean that it is entirely a social construct, either. In fact, I think understanding the background behind the strength/confidence of grammaticality judgements is an interesting area for further study.

May 29, 2021 @ 9:08 pm

Also just noting – how marvelous to have a linguist named Babel! That's right up there with the fact checker famously named Paige Worthy.

Mark Liberman said,

May 29, 2021 @ 10:00 pm

It's certainly true that there's usually a clear difference between what someone who has spoken a language from childhood "knows" about their language, and what most adult learners know. But the concept of "native speaker of X" covers a lot of ground, and can become less useful or even problematic as soon as the discussion goes beyond simple things.

In my opinion, the real issue here is the idea of a " homogeneous speech community ", which can be a useful simplifying assumption, but is obviously false, and has to be abandoned in order to study geographical, social, and stylistic variation.

My impression, admittedly not founded on adequate historical research, is that the "native speaker" idea originated a few hundred years ago as a quasi-democratic replacement for feudal ideas like "the King's English", in association with the development of nation states.

See e.g. Thomas Bonfiglio, Mother tongues and nations: The invention of the native speaker , 2010.

Twill said,

May 29, 2021 @ 10:44 pm

The idea of the native speaker contrasts with more artificial notions of correctness, whether it's the formal diktats of a language board or less systematic attempts to ape an accepted standard body (Cicero, the Tanakh, etc.).

Why academe is obsessed with taking obviously imperfect but broadly correct and exceedlingly useful notions, like that of the native speaking community here, and attempting to deconstruct, problematize, and otherwise needlessly confound them with marginal cases, and especially attempt to draw rather far flung implications and associations that are neverthless sufficiently scandalous to warrant response is something that has eluded me yet.

Arthur Baker said,

May 29, 2021 @ 10:46 pm

It is quite appalling how the disease of trivialising opinions by applying the pejorative label 'virtue-signalling' has infiltrated every public discussion forum (although one might expect it to be absent from a linguistics blog).

May 29, 2021 @ 10:51 pm

I suspect their challenge goes deeper than "native speaker judgements". Grammatical judgements on "standard English" by "native speakers" are part of the tyranny. This mishmash of challenges to the privileged status of "native speakers of English" is virtually a challenge to the whole idea of "native spoken English". To rephrase words from an old song:

Let me in, native speaker man I won't toe your line today I can't see it anyway

(Based on Immigration Man by Graham Nash)

There is no doubt a need to reconsider old concepts, including the status of "native speaker English" (In an era when people who don't speak English natively outnumber those who do, does English really belong to native speakers?) and "English" itself (What English do you mean? Standard English? Colloquial English? Substandard English? International English?). If native speakers of standard English have a rule of subject-verb inversion after "scarcely" ("Scarcely had I done xxx when yyy happened"), why should we privilege this usage? I've read academic works by German speakers that ignore this rule. (Maybe the non-native speakers are right….)

There is also a need to challenge the preference among foreign learners for white English speakers (or even non-native speakers, as long as they are white!) to black native English speakers. Similarly, there is a need to reconsider the prejudice against even highly proficient non-native teachers of English in favour of untrained "native speakers". But most people want to learn the most prestigious variety of English, whatever that may be. And unless they are interested in a specific variety of English, such as Black English — and some people are interested in this — most people will opt for "standard English", as spoken by native speakers, as their preferred variety.

When I reached this paragraph, "Likewise, many people experience language attrition due to stoke or neurodegenerative diseases. While these individuals may lack a high level of competence in all domains of their first language, they are rarely if ever described as non-native speakers", my reaction was that they were scraping the bottom of the barrel. Bringing in edge cases like this just seems silly.

There are many aspects to this question that this article glosses over. One is the seeming implication that non-native speakers of English (English heavily influenced by other languages) are somehow equally valid as speakers of English. Yet research has shown that children brought up by parents who natively speak another language are not helped by the parents' efforts to speak exclusively in English. Fluency comes to the child from interacting with a wide range of "native speakers" in the community. The parents would be better concentrating their efforts on teaching the child their native language. This would make a greater contribution to the conservation of "cultural heritage" than the blurring of lines that this article seems to be attempting.

I apologise for the hodgepodge of ideas here. It arises from my feeling that the article cries out to be challenged on so many levels.

May 29, 2021 @ 11:34 pm

This is why “descriptivism” doesn’t work. Who is or is not a “native speaker” is not a neutral fact, and so we can’t merely describe what native speakers do. We must prescribe our set of speakers, which in turn prescribes our speech at the second remove.

Politically speaking, “descriptivism” seems like it’s more on the left and “prescriptivist” more on the right, but that’s only superficial. At the deeper level, descriptivism is centerist and prescriptivism has the possibility of radicalism.

May 30, 2021 @ 1:40 am

`…has infiltrated every public discussion forum'—surely this is a gross exaggeration? Would it not be closer to 97% of public discussion forums?

May 30, 2021 @ 1:47 am

I rashly bet my wife that your reply would contain the phrase "political correctness gone mad", so I just lost five dollars, dammit. Oh well, never mind, being woke does have inbuilt disadvantages but not nearly as many as being a virtue signaller.

May 30, 2021 @ 2:39 am

I am at a loss for words…except these: `sometimes orange water given bucket of plaster'.

David Marjanović said,

May 30, 2021 @ 4:24 am

I expected something about how language learning (especially in childhood) really works and to what extent it's possible to forget a – variously defined – native language…

The NORM (non-mobile older rural male… with all his teeth) is the ideal in dialectology specifically when dialectology is done as data-gathering for historical linguistics. (Most dialectology of German, and probably other languages in Europe, has been like that.) If your goal is instead Labovian sociolinguistics or whatever, talking only to NORMs will give you a very distorted and/or incomplete picture; that's not news.

("Male" is in the criteria because, in a patriarchal and patrilocal society, women are more likely to adapt their speech to that of the people around them. The actual extent of this varies, obviously – and, given women's generally longer life expectancy, I don't think dialectologists have ignored the speech of old toothed women very systematically.)

I also have to express some surprise at the claim that the concept of "native speaker" was developed with colonialism in mind. Nationalism, sure, but colonialism? In, like, 18th-century Germany?

And that supposed bias toward native speakers as language teachers of their native language… yes, anecdotally it seems lots of native speakers of English are employed as English teachers in China in particular and places without a long tradition of teaching English in general; but elsewhere, the preference is to have most of the instruction, and all of the early instruction, done by native speakers of the learners' language, and to invite a native speaker of the target language later for some occasional exposure to the real world. The obvious reason is that to understand the difficulties of learners, you need to know where the learners come from, so you need to know the language(s) they already know very well.

What for instance, do they mean by "the low status of Spanish, particularly among racialized groups"? This sense of "racialized" strikes me as an in-group usage, although I might be wrong.)

I'm pretty sure it's indeed an ingroup usage meaning "people who have been assigned a race (other than white) and are therefore seen in race terms first".

If native speakers of standard English have a rule of subject-verb inversion after "scarcely" ("Scarcely had I done xxx when yyy happened"), why should we privilege this usage? I've read academic works by German speakers that ignore this rule. (Maybe the non-native speakers are right….)

Ah, but, first, that's part of a more general rule: verb-second word order happens if something time-related is moved to the beginning of the sentence for emphasis.

I had scarcely done Scarcely had I done *Scarcely I had done

I have never done Never have I (ever!) done *Never I have done

I had always done it like that Always, always had I done it like that *Always I had done it

Second, German has V2 order anyway, so a native speaker of German can just take it for granted, may not even notice it, and may not need to be explicitly taught it. (I think I was, but very cursorily.)

May 30, 2021 @ 4:28 am

Yet research has shown that children brought up by parents who natively speak another language are not helped by the parents' efforts to speak exclusively in English.

I bet that depends on how good the parents' English really is. (But I also bet very few nonnative speakers' English really is good enough for that to work.)

Philip Taylor said,

May 30, 2021 @ 4:56 am

One overview, one potential point of interest, and one response to David M's second comment above.

Overview — the article appears to be based on a number of preconceptions which it then seeks to support.

Point of interest — older males with all their teeth would only be 50% of the battle in societies where female speech is markedly different from male (Anjin-san's use of a Japanese word [?sabishi?]— Shogun was shown a very long time ago …) was pointed out as an error by a Japanese native speaker in the film, as the word he chose to use is normally restricted to use by females).

Response : one swallow most definitely does not a summer make, but I know of one (American) family where a child was taught Finnish as a 2nd L1 by a parent who was not a native Finnish speaker (it was the only language in which he ever spoke to her), and I understand that the tuition was very successful.

May 30, 2021 @ 5:08 am

That's how I felt. And what about Spanish and French? Or newer national languages like Italian, Slovak, etc.? What about class factors? The work they cite for this is reviewed at The emergence of the English native speaker — a chapter in nineteenth century linguistic thought . It is concerned solely with English.

Also the abstract for Clarifying translanguaging and deconstructing named languages: A perspective from linguistics and Clarifying translanguaging and deconstructing named languages: A perspective from linguistics , which takes the view that "From the insider's perspective of the speaker, there is only his or her full idiolect or repertoire, which belongs only to the speaker, not to any named language." So the bilingual doesn't speak "English and Spanish" (or whatever), she has only her "full idiolect or repertoire, which belongs only to the speaker". All of these are firmly within the postmodern, postcolonialist, poststructuralist, paradigm that (in my humble opinion) seeks to "deconstruct" history and repackage it within a fixed ideological framework. Not political correctness run amok, but definitely a subtle way of bending facts into a particular viewpoint, resulting in the breathtaking telescoping/simplification/distortion of history in those first few paragraphs.

May 30, 2021 @ 5:11 am

Sorry, the last link was to New Englishes and criteria for naming them (not Clarifiying translanguaging and deconstructing named languages ), which argues for the extension of the term ‘new English’ to English creoles.

May 30, 2021 @ 5:17 am

My entire comment was dropped, probably because it contained too many links.

I shared DM's surprise at the implication that the concept of "native speaker" was developed with colonialism in mind in 18th-century Germany. And what of Spanish and French, or the newer national languages of eastern Europe? A review of their first citation can be found here: The emergence of the English native speaker: a chapter in nineteenth-century linguistic thought , which is, indeed, all about English.

May 30, 2021 @ 5:20 am

An abstract for the second can be found at Clarifying translanguaging and deconstructing named languages: A perspective from linguistics . One interesting sentence from the abstract is:

From the insider's perspective of the speaker, there is only his or her full idiolect or repertoire, which belongs only to the speaker, not to any named language.

So, a bilingual does not speak "English and Spanish" or whatever; he or she speaks only "his or her full idiolect or reportoire", which does not belong to any named language.

May 30, 2021 @ 5:25 am

The last link is to New Englishes and criteria for naming them .

All three links seem to be written from the peculiar perspective of postmodernism/poststructuralism/postcolonialism, which often seeks to "deconstruct" the narrative of the past and recast it within a particular ideological framework. I would not call this political correctness run amok, but it does result in some peculiar emphases, leading to the somewhat breathtaking telescoping/simplification/distortion of the first few paragraphs of the post.

May 30, 2021 @ 5:28 am

And indeed in the penultimate sentence of the final para. — "[T]his concept […] is often used to exclude or to police the boundaries of speakerhood and, ultimately, [of] personhood . "

Jonathan Smith said,

May 30, 2021 @ 5:29 am

"The idea of the 'native speaker' originated within the context of European nationalism and colonialism in the 19th century."

Rather to the contrary, in early discourses (many long predating the 19th century), "native speaker" and related terms evoke the local, vernacular, and basilectal, employed to contrast "our native tongue" with the languages of the Scriptures, with Latin, or with contemporaneous European languages which enjoyed relative prestige in particular eras and contexts (French, Italian…). More recent discussions (e.g., Marsh or Jespersen, cited in [1] ) might be characterized as "nationalist" not in the sense the post's authors suggest, but rather in the sense that focus is on the inherent value and interest of heretofore-lowly "Anglo-Saxon" vis-a-vis, again, Latin, etc.

The profound relevance and moral urgency of the authors' general ideological thrust makes it *more* important, not less so, to ensure individual assertions are well-founded (cf. 1619 Project, etc.) Falling short on this front amounts to begging assholes to asshole…

May 30, 2021 @ 5:34 am

My source for the statement about nonnative parents speaking to their children in the local language is this:

What Clinicians Need to Know about Bilingual Development

Needless to say, I'm sure there is more than one perspective on this.

May 30, 2021 @ 6:08 am

Thank you! The abstract is very interesting and emphasizes variation; I've downloaded the PDF (open access to the published form of the paper here ) and will read it ASAP (…which might take a while).

Tom Dawkes said,

May 30, 2021 @ 7:39 am

You can see the significance of native speaker use of a language from looking at a selection of items written by those who are NOT "native speakers", as for instance in the large LINCOM library of texts on linguistics. It is clear that there are sentences in many of these texts that no competent "native" English speaker would write: this is not to say that the sentences are unintelligible, merely that they are not quite English, as with use or omission of articles.

Jerry Packard said,

May 30, 2021 @ 8:09 am

'Native speaker' is defined on a sliding scale, so you can choose an arbitrary demarcation point on a scale of years of contact, age of acquisition, pronunciation precision, etc., but the distinction is just that — arbitrary.

May 30, 2021 @ 8:28 am

Is "age of acquisition" really arbitrary, Jerry ? I would have thought that there would be a fairly small acceptable range, from birth to (say) five years. "Pronunciation precision" I do not see featuring at all, provided that the NS's pronunciation is in accord with local, demographic or national norms. "Years of contact" — well … Clearly "age of acquisition: 0; years of contact: 1" is not going to yield a well-informed NS whose speech can be adduced as a model, but he or she is nonetheless a native speaker, and would remain so unless he or she were to move another linguistic environment during his/her formative years (0 .. 7).

Anna Babel said,

May 30, 2021 @ 8:48 am

Please note there are actually TWO linguists with the last name Babel currently active in linguistics… the other one is Molly Babel at the UBC. No relation.

May 30, 2021 @ 8:49 am

Philip, yes, but, you have made the point, because any point that you choose will be arbitrary — the points you have cited are clear (less arbitrary) because they are skewed to one side of the continuum.

May 30, 2021 @ 9:27 am

I'm glad to see this post has sparked so much discussion. I agree with what Mark has to say above –

"The concept of "native speaker of X" covers a lot of ground, and can become less useful or even problematic as soon as the discussion goes beyond simple things."

I'm not sure I agree, though, that it's the homogenous speech community where the issue lies; I think the two simplifications are related and equally difficult to uphold once one takes a look at empirical data. Variation within a community is real, and variation in how individuals identify themselves as speakers or are identified by others is real, and both of these things are affected by structures of power and privilege – particularly with regard to "standard" or "educated" forms of language.

Both Devin and I are Hispanic linguists who work on indigenous language contact with Spanish (Quechua, to be specific). We've seen the native speaker concept used in many contexts – classroom language learning, dialectology, indigenous language revitalization – where it is treated as if it were a transparent and logical designation, even when it was clearly a complex label full of unspoken assumptions, some of which we lay out here.

If you're interested on discussions about "native speakerism" in Spanish, a great place to start is with the debate over the term "heritage speaker." I think we cited Ofelia Garcia and a couple other scholars on this topic above.

Devin's got some good work on the racialization of Spanish (and Quechua!) in the second-language classroom, and I've published a couple of short public-facing pieces on related ideas –

https://www.ted.com/talks/anna_babel_who_counts_as_a_speaker_of_a_language_dec_2020

https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/u.osu.edu/dist/9/365/files/2014/12/2014-On-Being-a-Near-Native-Speaker-15tnebs.pdf

Thanks everyone for the comments and the suggestions, we're hoping to work this up into something longer soon!

John Swindle said,

May 30, 2021 @ 9:32 am

Bathrobe, David Marjanović: The Canadian government likes the term "racialized." I've seen it on the Web and thought it was just an inscrutable Canadian usage: some Canadians are "racialized" and others are not.

https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/esdc-edsc/migration/documents/eng/communities/reports/poverty_profile/snapshot.pdf

I think they do mean "perceived as racially Other," in contrast to specific groups (White, Aboriginal) taken to be the default in that country.

J.W. Brewer said,

May 30, 2021 @ 9:38 am

Google books found me two 19th-century examples that are broadly consistent with the critiques made upthread, i.e. they focus non-imperialistically on the difference between having acquired a language via informal osmosis in early childhood and having been taught it in a formal classroom setting at a more advanced age, with the second example more subtly focusing on the potential negative consequence of subsequent formalistic "book learning" on the linguistic competence of someone who already speaks the language natively:

#1 is from an 1858 lecture by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Perkins_Marsh entitled "An Apology for the Study of English," delivered to students in the "post-graduate course" of Columbia College.

"At the same time, there is [in German] enough of grammatical inflection to familiarize the native speaker with syntactical principles imperfectly exemplified in French and English, and a sufficiently complex arrangement of the period to call into constant exercise the logical faculties required for the comprehension of the rules of universal grammar. While, therefore, I by no means maintain that German has any superiority over English for the purposes of poetry, of miscellaneous literature, the intercourse of society, or the ordinary cares and duties of life, yet as, in itself, an intellectual and especially a linguistic discipline, it has great advantages over any of the tongues which embody the general literature of modern Europe."

(This is part of a discussion of the "remarkable, but … indisputable fact" of the "general inferiority of English and French to Scandinavian and Teutonic scholars, in philological and especially etymological research.")

#2 is from an 1835 appreciation in the Western Monthly Magazine (published in Cincinnati) of the Rev. Rowland Hill (1744-1833) who was not only a preacher but a prominent early advocate of vaccination against smallpox.

"[W]hy is it that an untaught speaker will generally command a much larger audience than one fashioned according to modern rules of rhetoric? On no other principle, we are persuaded after mature deliberation, can this be satisfactorily accounted for than by admitting, that, with all his wildness, irregularity and absurdity, the native speaker has more of genuine _nature_ in his manner — and consequently possesses more of that mysterious power that inevitably moves the feelings — than he whose instructions have impeded (if not destroyed) the warm flow of his emotions" etc etc etc.

May 30, 2021 @ 9:54 am

Re "racialized," the immediate context in the original post is the way in which "Hispanic" (or various synonyms) is treated in American political/bureaucratic/activist discourse as a quasi-racial category despite the fact that, as the Census Bureau says, "Hispanics can be of any race." What's not clear to me from the original post, however, is *who* it is who is supposedly denigrating the "native speaker of Spanish" status/competence of US-born heritage speakers of Spanish. People who by contrast tout their own native-speaker bona fides because they immigrated to the U.S. as adults from a Hispanophone country? Or non-Hispanic Americans who have learned "proper Spanish" in formal school instruction?

What is probably true is that US-born heritage speakers who learned Spanish by osmosis from their parents and neighbors but have also been exposed to English from very early childhood may often be native speakers of a *different* variety of Spanish than the variety someone is thinking of as normative and in particular of the normative variety that non-Hispanic Americans are likely to be taught as an L2 in school Spanish classes. This is perhaps consistent with myl's observation upthread about the problem with an assumption of a homogeneous speech community. You can't assess whether someone is a native speaker without having a clear answer upfront to the question "native speaker of what?" and it may be the case that e.g. "Spanish" is not necessarily a good answer to that question because it is stated at too high a level of generality.

May 30, 2021 @ 10:06 am

Additional point that should have gone in prior comment: the phenomenon about heritage speakers probably exists independently of any "racialization," as can be seen by considering other non-Anglophone heritage-language groups that are not considered "non-white" in American political/culture discourse. It is reasonably well-understood that the French traditionally and natively spoken (although less commonly now as formerly) by Louisiana Cajuns is quite different from the prestige/normative French you would learn if you took French in school, and it is likewise reasonably well-understood that the German traditionally and natively spoken by the Amish is quite different from the prestige/normative German you would learn if you took German in school. So if you want a "native speaker" for the specific purpose of teaching the prestige/normative variety as an L2 in an American school setting, your Cajun or Amish neighbor may not be the right candidate, despite being a native speaker of *something* that definitely isn't English.

May 30, 2021 @ 10:14 am

@ Philip Taylor

Perhaps those are reasonable cutoff points, but I think there is a very real sense in which the granting of recognition as a "native speaker" is arbitrary, based on linguistic and cultural perceptions and norms.

For instance, in China there are many people who speak a dialect other than Mandarin but learn Mandarin at school. The pronunciation and grammar of such people when speaking Mandarin might be strongly influenced by their native dialect. According to ordinary criteria for native-speakerdom, such a person might not be considered a "native speaker" of Mandarin. And yet in China, I'm not sure the idea that they are not a "native speaker" would even come up. Depending on their level of education, they might be regarded as speaking "poor Mandarin", or "southern Mandarin", but I doubt that any Chinese would turn around and tell them, "You're not a native speaker of Mandarin". (On the other hand, I'm sure there are Beijingers who are convinced that they are wonderful speakers of Mandarin simply because of who they are.)

But perceptions are possibly different in English. Would a person who was born into, say, a German-speaking household but received his schooling in English be identified as "not a native speaker", or depending on his proficiency, told that he "speaks just like a native"? One has to wonder, first of all, where the cutoff point is, and secondly, why it is so important to be categorised as a "native speaker" or otherwise. It is the labelling that becomes significant here. Especially with regard to getting jobs as a "native speaker" teaching English in a foreign country.

As I pointed out above, I don't think "native speaker" has ever been the only criterion for judging a person's linguistic competence in English. Poorly educated people may be "native speakers" of some kind of English, but their language might be regarded as poor, substandard, or socially undesirable. There will necessarily be a big difference between such a "native speaker" and a native speaker who has received a good education, to the detriment of the uneducated person. A "native speaker" is generally assumed to be someone who has been properly educated, given that a person's linguistic development continues well after their formative years. And since the advent of universal education, it's probably a reasonable expectation that most people in English-speaking countries have had some kind of "quality control" applied to their native tongue.

Similarly, a person may speak an impenetrable dialect of English, in which case any insistence on their part that they are "native speakers" is likely to be viewed with considerable scepticism, or at least heavy qualifications ("native speaker, right, but a native speaker of what?").

In this sense I would agree that "native speaker" is a kind of social construct. As such, recognition as a "native speaker" could be awarded on the basis of many factors other than "what was your linguistic environment for the first five years of your life?"

David C. said,

May 30, 2021 @ 10:28 am

I found it difficult to understand the central idea being put forth in this piece. Is it that there is no such thing as a "native speaker"? Or is that the term "native speaker" should be expanded to include all the various examples cited of people not considered native speakers, so to rid itself of discriminatory logics.

Some people may describe feeling this way or that way, but there are indeed speakers who "grew up speaking a particular language and who is proficient in that language". I am curious to know what is proposed to describe such a body of speakers if not the word "native", a word that the authors also use throughout the piece.

I attended Spanish courses in college with students who are termed heritage speakers of Spanish. While their parents and grandparents were L1 Spanish speakers, many of them spoke English as a first and dominant language, and were clearly not proficient in Spanish. They can be speakers of Spanish, but I am truly puzzled as to how there is any erasing of the reality of their language use by acknowledging that they are not "fully native speakers of Spanish" – precisely because they are not proficient in the language.

May 30, 2021 @ 11:00 am

How does the notion of "native fluency" factor into the above discussion on "native speaker"?

May 30, 2021 @ 11:28 am

To Bathrobe's point, maybe we need to link the "native speaker of what?" question to a related-yet-possibly-distinct "who is making the assessment in what context for what purpose?" question. I think it would be totally bonkers to treat the typical person born and raised in rural West Virginia without a lot of formal education as *not* a native speaker of English for the purpose of e.g. ensuring that any descriptive-linguistics model of English accurately accounts for how they speak. Maybe it wouldn't necessarily make sense to hire them to be an ESL teacher in East Asia. But having never been responsible for hiring ESL teachers for a school in East Asia, I have no personal interest in or investment in whatever criteria you might use in that context.

Of course in the event of conflict it seems obvious to me that the meaning of "native speaker" I would personally use in talking about topics that interest me should prevail over any inconsistent meaning that someone else might use for different purposes in a different context. But I would think that, wouldn't I?

For the ESL-teacher-hiring context I might say that being a native speaker is a necessary, or at least desirable, trait but not a sufficient trait without more, and smuggling other desirable-and-necessary traits for that position (such as a certain level of formal education and cultural comfort with functioning in a formal classroom environment) into the "native speaker" definition is unhelpful. Unless maybe you have a specific context where being a "native speaker" of a particular prestige/normative variety/register of the language in question correlates so strongly with those other traits that you don't need to evaluate them separately? So, e.g., I am part of the minority of native speakers of AmEng who don't really natively say "ain't" in our idiolects – if I say it, even in an extremely informal context, it's a bit of a self-conscious affectation. That fact about my idiolect probably is a reasonably good predictor of other socioeconomic facts about me that might make me more desirable for an East Asian ESL-teacher slot than lots of other Americans who are native speakers of the (majority) ain't-inclusive variety of AmEng.

Stephen said,

May 30, 2021 @ 12:44 pm

Is there any difference between "being a native speaker of X" and "having X as your mother tongue"?

I think not.

But the second version dates back, in English, to the fifteenth century. Dragging colonialism and other such bugaboos into the fifteenth century might be quite an effort.

May 30, 2021 @ 1:03 pm

@bathrobe I agree that the term is used very differently in the sinosphere to how it’s used in Europe. When talking about Chinese in Chinese, you can specify mandarin by saying putonghua/guoyu but usually people use Zhongwen as a catchall term that includes all dialects of Chinese, but in some contexts is clearly meant to refer to modern standard mandarin, as is the official form of Zhongwen in both PRC and ROC. When I was studying in Shanghai, my teacher would say that all Chinese were native speakers of zhongwen whether or not they were han, just by virtue of being from China. An older teacher I had also said that Chinese was the native language of Chinese Americans even if they hadn’t learnt Chinese yet, and she strongly implied that she sees some kind of inherent link between race and ability to learn a language. On the other hand, in Taiwan now people often tell me that they don’t natively speak Zhongwen because they grew up speaking a topolect, and my boyfriends older family members who mostly use Taiwanese insist that they can’t speak Zhongwen, which I find incredible considering how the term is used in China.

I’m under the impression that the link between race and native speaker status also exists in japan. I know a half swedish half American who grew up in japan and speaks better japanese than either English or Swedish, but he says he is generally not able to call himself a native speaker in japan, just as he’s not considered Japanese despite never having lived anywhere else.

May 30, 2021 @ 1:44 pm

I think that in the case of your half-Swedish, half-American friend, if his parents spoke to him only in Swedish and American then that would explain why not only can he not call himself a native Japanese speaker but in practice he is not a native Japanese speaker, since the Japanese that he learned came primarily from school rather than from home.

May 30, 2021 @ 1:56 pm

After posting the above, I started examining the ramifications of what I had written, and at first my inclination was to add a rider to the effect that, even if his parents had communicated with him solely in Japanese since birth, then that too would not have made him a native speaker because he was taught by non-native speakers. And then I began to think of the educated 2nd-generation Indian immigrants to whose speech I have been exposed. And in many cases, despite the fact that their parents spoke Gujariti (or whatever) at home, and their exposure to English was primarily through school, television, friends and so on, those 2nd-generation immigration immigrants speak perfect English without a touch of an Indian accent. And purely by listening to one, I would not be able to tell that he or she was not a native speaker. So perhaps my comment above was wrong — perhaps one can become a native speaker even if one's parents do not speak to one in the language in which one is claiming native speakership. I just don't know.

May 30, 2021 @ 2:26 pm

Right. Strictly speaking it’s not his mother tongue. But he speaks it more confidently than either of his native languages.

Vanya said,

May 30, 2021 @ 2:51 pm

My sense is that there is a stronger bias towards “educated speakers” than native speakers. A German with a master’s degree will have a better chance of getting a gig teaching English in Japan than an American with only a high school degree. Conversely I met an American once in Graz, Austria who told me that people in Graz were “stupid” and couldn’t speak German as well as he did (because they were all speaking their native mesolect and he was speaking textbook Hochdeutsch). Americans have a similar bias against native speakers of Dominican or Puerto Rican Spanish, or native speakers of Québec French, demonstrating that this is not purely a racial issue.

May 30, 2021 @ 3:02 pm

So, e.g., I am part of the minority of native speakers of AmEng who don't really natively say "ain't" in our idiolects – if I say it, even in an extremely informal context, it's a bit of a self-conscious affectation.

JW, I don’t say “ain’t” natively either, and despite my Ivy League education I still suspect we are now in the majority in 21st century America. The use of “ain’t” has been stigmatized to such an extent by teachers and the media over the past 50 years that it is on the verge of becoming archaic on the East and West coasts. Certainly my children would no sooner use “ain’t “ than they would say “’tis” or “fixin to”, or “no sooner”.

Jarek Weckwerth said,

May 30, 2021 @ 4:58 pm

As has been pointed out upthread, many of the things discussed in the OP are relevant for imperial(istic) languages such as English, Spanish or Mandarin, especially if they are recipients of immigration. In many medium-power languages, the question of "native speaker" is much, much more clear-cut. Think Korean, Polish, Mongolian, Greek, or even Japanese.

So, to throw a gentle curveball, the ideology of anti-native-speakerism risks becoming discriminatory towards language communities of that monolingual type, especially seeing how they are in the minority.

WRT to people being denied the native speaker label: I would think that, in many contexts, the distinction that is actually made is between high-competence speakers and low-competence speakers, usually of high-prestige varieties. (And this has also been mentioned above.) The question to ask here is, is there value in being a high-competence speaker of a high-prestige variety? As a parallel: Is there value in being a high-competence member of a high-presige profession? One that has evident social and historical barriers to participation?

Anthony said,

May 30, 2021 @ 5:52 pm

A noted case of forgetting one's first language was Franz Liszt. He was born in the Hungarian region of Austro-Hungary of parents who spoke German, and he grew up speaking only German. Sent for schooling to France, he acquired French and forgot his German. Liszt never re-learnt his German well, and had others translate his French into German for the occasional letter or essay in musical publications. Liszt knew almost no Hungarian, and at official functions where he was honored in Hungary he spoke in French.

wanda said,

May 30, 2021 @ 6:53 pm

I guess there's a lot of things that are going on in this piece, and perhaps that's what this piece is trying to point out- that we conflate a lot of different concepts together when we say "native speaker." People above have covered the descriptive aspects (did this person grow up in a, say, English-speaking household and only speak English?) vs. the prescriptive aspects (should this person's speech be held up as a model for how others should speak)? (Should we be holding up certain people's speech as a model for how everyone should speak?) There's another thing in the piece, though, which is that currently, some people are *not* considered "native speakers" of the language or languages they grew up learning. There were a lot of immigrant parents in the (American) town where I grew up, and I would often hear conversations between parents and children where the parent spoke in another language and the child would reply entirely in fluent English. Are those children native speakers of nothing, then? Would linguists consider them broken?

Side notes: "I understand that the tuition was very successful." I had to read this sentence twice before I understood it. I thought the writer were being sarcastic- that the "tuition" was $0 and thus that not much learning actually occurred because "you get what you pay for." I think this is the first time I've ever seen the word "tuition" used to mean "teaching" or "tutoring," and I've been reading in English since I was 4 years old.

"(On the other hand, I'm sure there are Beijingers who are convinced that they are wonderful speakers of Mandarin simply because of who they are.)" I was on a tour of the Mogao Caves with a group from Taiwan, and some random person joined us. The first thing she told us that she was from Beijing and the second thing was, "That's why my Mandarin is so good!"

May 30, 2021 @ 6:54 pm

@ Anna Babel

I think one of the reasons your paper has stirred up such comment is the lead-in, with its potted description of the genesis of standard national languages. That is a huge topic that requires more than references to two or three rather superficial and slanted articles or books to cover. That simplistic lead-in almost destroyed your credibility from the start. I would advise you to either spend a year intensively researching the history of the genesis of standard national languages, or narrow your focus considerably.

The "native-speakerism" debate in TESOL was kicked off by Holland in about 2005. It is relevant to your topic (and your particular anti-colonialist viewpoint) but not essential. It also blurs the larger picture of what "native speaker competence" really is. The fact that some Chinese might have a preference for being taught English by a blue-eyed Ukrainian over a black American, and that many people take advantage of this to make money, doesn't directly support your challenge to the concept of "native speaker" in linguistics. I think that more reference to your own research would add credibility.

Your statement that "the languages spoken by native speakers are understood to be comprised of essential lexical and grammatical features that can be objectively evaluated, separated, and codified in dictionaries and grammars" is also off the mark. This is a not a feature of "native speakers"; it is a feature of standardisation and prescriptiveness in language. "Native speakers" use nonstandard language all the time, some more than others, which becomes a problem if linguists insist on describing a "standard language" (which, incidentally, is the approach adopted by the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language ). This narrows the range of native speakers down to "educated (native) speakers", which is something else again. There are many other points in your piece that rely on criticism of concepts of standard national language.

There are truly many interesting nuances in invoking concepts of "mother tongue" or "native language". You have a list of examples that you have put together, but I feel you need less breadth and more depth. What do you make of the phenomenon of people who lament that they can't speak their native language? (I understand this kind of thing happens in Russia, where what is identified as the "mother tongue" may be the ancestral language but isn't the language that the person natively speaks). Such cultural attitudes are not merely products of imperialist native-speakerism; they are inextricably linked to cultural identities.

In the end, I wasn't sure exactly what the point of the paper was, with its scatter-gun attacks on standard national languages, the use of native speakers in language instruction, language and ethnic identity, idealised native speakers in linguistics, etc., etc. It's a worthy topic but it seems to me that it needs a clearer focus.

May 30, 2021 @ 7:45 pm

For me, "tuition" primarily means "tutoring" or "teaching", although it can also be used as abbreviation of "tuition fees". Perhaps "tuition" in this sense is a North Americanism?

May 30, 2021 @ 8:54 pm

What I am seeing here is most accurately summed up by JW Brewer – the use of the term "native speaker" as a linguistics research tool (I wanted to know whether X construction existed in Quechua, so I asked a native speaker) vs its use as a job qualification for language instructors or a judgment of worth, and the assumptions of competence (or otherwise) that come with these.

May 31, 2021 @ 2:57 am

Just as add to Bathrobe's comment, Wanda, absolutely no sarcasm was intended — I hold the person who speaks to his daughter only in Finnish in the highest esteem, both professionally and personally. And yes, "tuition" was used to mean "teaching" or "tutoring", but "tuition" was the word that instinctively sprang to mind when composing the comment (and still feels like the best choice).

May 31, 2021 @ 5:13 am

@Noel Hunt "sometimes orange water given bucket of plaster".

I have not the faintest idea what that means, nor what your intention is in writing it. Let's get right to the point. If you disagree with some of the points the authors of this article have made, why not address those points instead of trivialising their argument by attempting to divert readers' attention to what you see as their efforts to signal their own virtue?

May 31, 2021 @ 6:03 am

I think that Arthur raises a valid point — if the author(s) of an article intend it primarily as a means of virtue-signalling, then is it better to refute the arguments that they adduce, or to challenge them over their perceived virtue-signalling ? I confess that I do not know the answer to this question, as to seek to refute their arguments may elevate the article to a higher level than it deserves, while to challenge them over their perceived virtue-signalling may leave other readers less clear as to whether the arguments that they adduce are sound or otherwise.

Michael Watts said,

May 31, 2021 @ 6:18 am

Certainly my children would no sooner use “ain’t “ than they would say “’tis” or “fixin to”, or “no sooner”.

My brother and sister speak with a future tense form of to be which suffixes the vowel /ə/ to the finite present form. This is an interesting innovation in that English verbs don't have future tenses.

I've heard them use it in the first person singular and plural, and the second person singular. I don't recall hearing it in the third person.

Omahksiksisskstaki said,

May 31, 2021 @ 9:18 am

Some may have a fundamental problem with this the way that "languages" are properties of individuals (following Chomsky 1965). Rather, the logical starting point could be with communities and the discourses that go on within them.

omahksiksisskstaki said,

May 31, 2021 @ 9:25 am

My comment above could be understood. By "community" I don't mean geographically constructed entities but rather social networks (seen as processes). Without a social network of users there can be no "language".

May 31, 2021 @ 9:37 am

All the discussion around early uses of "native speaker" is really interesting and useful. From a Hispanicist viewpoint, we usually trace the roots of the nation to the late 15th century, with the Reconquista, the unification of Spain, publication of Nebrija's Gramática, and the invasion of the Americas, though it's not until a few centuries later that modern European nations really consistently solidify. It's true that the use of the term "native" and even "native speaker" predates all of this, but it takes on a specific and specifically colonial referent as a result of the expansion of the Iberian empire, and later the French and British empires, in the Americas. One thing I'd like to do (and that we haven't done yet) is to trace the emergence of this particular usage of the term in Spanish and Portuguese as well as English. It seems pretty obvious to me that the use of the term "native" to reference colonized groups is related to the emergence of "native speaker" as a designation that can be used to separate people into racial or quasi-racial groups (race also being a concept that was emerging during this time).

Chomsky's intervention erased – or perhaps only masked – this history. In the Paikeday volume referenced in our original post, Chomsky argues that "native speaker" essentially means anyone who has a fully developed linguistic system, and it doesn't really matter what they're a native speaker of because languages are fundamentally social constructs (and therefore can be ignored). As is often the case, it's the borderline cases that really test the definition, and where the inconsistencies come to light – in particular, the way that uses of the term can be inflected with race, class, and ethnocentric biases.

One interesting observation that is coming out of this discussion is that it is different to be a native speaker of a colonial language than it is to be a native speaker of a minoritized language (thanks to @wanda for bringing this out in your comment – "some people are not considered native speakers of their native language"). While (canonical) native speakers of colonial languages are able to use their language skills as "linguistic capital" in Bourdieu's sense, speakers of minoritized languages and dialects find that their language skills are minimized and challenged, attitudes that they then often internalize. This is why the part about indigenous languages and language speakers is so important – who counts as a "native speaker" and which languages are considered worthy of the term is an intensely political topic (and often pretty depressing, let's be honest).

I also appreciate @Jarek's point about "medium-power languages," though these are all cases in which heritage and/or bilingual speakers face challenges to their legitimacy as speakers. But it is interesting here that it's the power of the LANGUAGE that is shaping the way that we recognize speakers, isn't it?

Re @David C's question about heritage speakers, it's too much to get into here, but I do recommend some of the work that we referenced above. It's a term that's used to designate an incredibly wide range of linguistic abilities, but it's also often interpreted via racial or biological logics , as some of the comments above indicate – while it seems most useful for "people who learned a language outside of the classroom setting," heritage language programs (in Spanish, which is what is most common in the US and what I'm most familiar with) are generally geared towards children of migrants from Spanish-speaking countries, as opposed to, say, non-Latino kids who grew up speaking Spanish in their neighborhoods and have similar linguistic abilities. There are also some pretty legitimate questions about why we don't simply call US Spanish speakers native speakers, period. One of my grad students was recently talking about having her Spanish linguistic abilities questioned because she used common loans like "yarda" (yard) and "troca" (truck), despite the fact that she's a perfectly fluent speaker – good enough to be in a Spanish graduate program! And this isn't just an anecdote, it's been widely documented in other cases.

Thanks again for all of your helpful comments and thoughts!

Rodger C said,

May 31, 2021 @ 9:59 am

I'm from West Virginia, and no sooner had I read Vanya's comment than I wondered: What's nonstandard about "no sooner"?

May 31, 2021 @ 10:00 am

Afterthought: Is "no sooner" one of those archaisms that I don't recognize as not being part of contemporary American because I meet it so often in old books?

Neil Kubler said,

May 31, 2021 @ 10:14 am

From the perspective of running language training programs for English-speaking learners in truly foreign languages such as Chinese or Japanese, experience shows the best approach is with a team of instructors consisting of educated native speakers of the target language who are members of the target language culture AND educated native speakers of English who are natives of American culture but have learned the target language well. In both cases, the instructors need to be well trained and have several years of successful teaching experience. I think in the posts above, one thing that is being left out is the importance of having grown up in and lived as an adult for some years in the target language CULTURE (it's not just language). With the exception of the final paragraph, the original post is useful in reminding us of the complexity of the term "native speaker". Nevertheless, while it sometimes turns out being "messy" and "fuzzy" in practice, the concept of the EDUCATED (let's say 4 years of college) native speaker who is a member of the target language CULTURE and who speaks the STANDARD variety of the target language is a useful one in the teaching of foreign languages — especially languages and cultures that are very different from American English.

May 31, 2021 @ 11:56 am

I also appreciate @Jarek's point about "medium-power languages," though these are all cases in which heritage and/or bilingual speakers face challenges to their legitimacy as speakers.

Appreciated. I should have pointed out that I was thinking specifically of "Korean as spoken in Korea", etc. The question of heritage, and even bilingual speakers, is much more relevant in [i|e]mmigration contexts such as the US. Not in the "motherlands" ;)

In particular for those languages that do have a funtioning educational / administrative / economic / social system, heritage speakers who have not had an extensive experience of that system are evidently differerent from "non-heritage" speakers who have. Consequently, the latter will have an advantage in jobs where that kind of experience counts. A job seeker who offers experience will often get the job. Hence native-speakerism.

And, tangentially: Look at the translation force of the EU. It's a relentlessly multilingual organization. Yet, the general rule is that you are supposed to translate, and in particular interpret, into your native language… Hopefully because the job needs to be done competently but quickly.

Alexander Pruss said,

May 31, 2021 @ 12:03 pm

I notice that the vast majority of first-page Google search results for "no sooner" are to dictionaries, grammar sites and discussions of usage, rather than to actual use of the phrase. That seems to me to be some evidence of its being at least a little archaic.

Haamu said,

May 31, 2021 @ 1:02 pm

@Philip Taylor (and, by extension, @Noel Hunt):

… if the author(s) of an article intend it primarily as a means of virtue-signalling, then is it better to refute the arguments that they adduce, or to challenge them over their perceived virtue-signalling ?

Unfortunately, you've left out a viable third option. If, as you admit, their virtue-signaling is "perceived," then how about challenging your own perceptions?

To dismiss someone's position as virtue-signaling is to imply that one knows their true intent. But does one, really? I could with equal validity observe that an accusation of virtue-signaling, without evidence of knowledge of intent, is itself a form of virtue-signaling, only with a different definition of "virtue."

I once had a neighbor casually tell me I was virtue-signaling by driving an electric car. I was a bit taken aback by this, because it was our very first conversation. So I asked him why he thought I parked the car in a closed garage. Wouldn't I signal more efficiently by leaving it on display in my driveway? He had to stop to think, into which opening I dropped a list of substantive reasons why I preferred electric, some of which were downright selfish, like fewer repairs and reduced cost of ownership. Now we greet each other warmly when we pass.

May 31, 2021 @ 1:43 pm

I do not dispute for one second that you are correct, Haamu. But if I were to challenge my own perceptions, then I would also have to challenge my refutations of their arguments. In the end I would have to decide (a) are my perceptions reasonable ? and (b) are my refutations of their arguments valid ? If I find that the answer to both is "yes", then no sooner have I reached this conclusion than I am back whence I started, am I not ?

Peter Grubtal said,

May 31, 2021 @ 1:47 pm

From the OP : "a growing body of research casts doubt on the existence of a strict neurobiological window that closes around late adolescence and impedes native-like phonological development"

Without yet having checked the sources, I find this a very surprising statement, if "native-like phonological development" means being indistinguishable from native speakers in speech. Or are we redefining "native speakers"?

"This research suggests that adult learners’ experiences and motivations are more significant than age of onset in developing native-like abilities in an additional language".

Certainly motivation is highly important, and can lead to a high level of competence in a learned language, but once again, acquiring indistinguishability especially in speech as an adult, is in my not-so-inconsiderable experience, only possible for the very gifted. In fact, after a professional lifetime working with people who have to be highly competent in foreign languages, I'm not sure I've come across a single case. And far from using this to "…exclude or to police the boundaries of speakerhood and, ultimately, personhood…", I soon learned that the contribution each had to make in the substance bore no relationship to how closely native their English was.

Barbara Phillips Long said,

May 31, 2021 @ 2:10 pm

@Bathrobe and @wanda — I recognized “tuition” as meaning instruction, but the more common use of tuition I encounter is when people are talking about the cost of instruction for education, which can range from pre-school through post-college, continuing education, and technical educational institutions. I blinked a bit at “tuition fees” because it is common for U.S. colleges and universities to charge tuition and fees. A student has to pay the fees in addition to the tuition, but some scholarships or employee benefits that pay tuition may exclude fees.

@Rodger C and @Alexander Prussia — I grew up in upstate New York and do not recall ever having been corrected or otherwise stigmatized for “no sooner.” I do think I hear it most often in storytelling, when someone is recounting an event, as in “no sooner had I hit the brakes than the car slid…” The other times I hear it used is with meeting times, as in “I will be there no sooner than quarter of and no later than noon to pick you up.” I do not think I often use it when writing formally, which may help explain the search results, but I think of it as casual (informal) rather than archaic.

May 31, 2021 @ 2:12 pm

@Alexander Pruss— Spellcheck strikes again. My apologies for the surname change.

May 31, 2021 @ 2:53 pm

@Anna Babel (if you're still monitoring):

As a non-linguist onlooker, I found the reactions to your post fascinating. A number of the comments were truly confusing, which seems uncharacteristic here. I'm unable to tell whether your post was written in such a way as to engender confusion (or perhaps defensiveness), or whether there's just subtext that I'm not aware of. I may simply be the wrong audience. Nevertheless, I'll jump in, perhaps unwisely.

I think you get into trouble in your 2nd paragraph, both because "originated" is too inflammatory of a verb to put in front of this group — something more precise is in order — and because colonialism is a fraught concept that drives many people into their political corners. It's too bad, because you have a more legitimate reason for citing colonialism than many writers do. I would just suggest postponing the reliance on that concept until you've laid a bit more groundwork — which, in turn, suggests changing the thesis from "where does the term come from, and what does it really mean?" to something like "how is the term used, and why is that a problem?" so you don't have to lead right away in Paragraph 2 with the history.

After reading your post and all the comments, my sense is that the term is a problem because (1) it's fundamentally confused and misleading, and (2) it's harmful (because it marginalizes). This gives you an opening to postpone most of the potentially distracting politics, including much of the details of the colonial history, to the 2nd part of the discussion, where you can try to cash in some credibility from Part 1.

And Part 1 can be pretty meaty. To summarize and reinterpret the comments above, the term is confusing and misleading because (1) it suggests a binary choice when the actual concept is fuzzy, yet fairly serviceable, and (2) it is descriptivist by nature but is commonly deployed for a prescriptivist purpose. Both sections of this part of the discussion can be pretty robust without recourse to politics. Linguists, in particular, ought to be open to a fuzziness argument — many are making it here — because they seem to spend much of their time studying the limitations of trying to apply discrete categorization systems to continua like meaning and sound. Falling back on a concept that implies a rigid categorization of part of their world seems out of step with that, if I'm reading things right.

Lastly, I suggest you deal more explicitly with the different reasons people have for using the concept. Its practical use in business contexts (e.g., running language schools) suggests that many there already view it as fuzzy and employ it somewhat successfully as such. If they are to abandon or adapt their use of the term to limit its harmful impacts, they'll appreciate some guidance on what to use instead. Its casual use among scholars, on the other hand, might be holding back progress in the field. Most culpable, of course, are those who use the term deliberately to exclude and marginalize. Offering that you clearly recognize this spectrum gives your argument a better chance to land.

I imagine I'm revealing a fair bit of ignorance with this comment. I'm only offering it because IRL I spend so much of my time trying to get disagreeing people to stop talking past each other, whether in business (as a vocation, getting teams and organizations to agree on strategies, plans, and process descriptions) or in politics (as an avocation, getting activists to figure out how to talk to voters without alienating them). So much of it is about getting people to reveal and share their metaphors, mental models, and values — but I also find that often it's about getting them to loosen their grip on systems of categorization, which ultimately alienate, and move towards narrative, which connects.

May 31, 2021 @ 3:05 pm

@Philip Taylor — Yes, I agree, but I think you're just saying that once you eliminate my option (c) you're left with your options (a) and (b). So the point still stands. The essential issue is that perceptions of somebody else's motives are only valid when they're based on evidence, not preconceptions about what anybody who espouses Position X must be thinking.

Apologies to all for taking the thread a bit off track.

May 31, 2021 @ 3:09 pm

"The essential issue is that perceptions of somebody else's motives are only valid when they're based on evidence, not preconceptions about what anybody who espouses Position X must be thinking". Agreed. And I liked your response to Anna Babel. But what did you mean by " I'm only offering it because IRL" [the "IRL" part] ?

May 31, 2021 @ 3:14 pm

IRL = Internet slang for "in real life" (as opposed to online life).

May 31, 2021 @ 3:21 pm

Ah, thank you, understood. But post the onset of Covid-19, is not online life becoming an ever more fundamental part of real life ?

May 31, 2021 @ 3:24 pm

What's nonstandard about "no sooner"?

Nothing at all. It's just that as soon I wrote that phrase it struck me as something my children would not say. (And I should have specified "would no sooner", certainly "I will arrive no sooner than 4 pm" is fine). Not archaic for you and me but perhaps heading that direction.

May 31, 2021 @ 5:34 pm

The two most useful and perceptive comments I found here were those of wanda and Haamu.

wanda's comment sums the problem up succinctly and diplomatically:

I guess there's a lot of things that are going on in this piece, and perhaps that's what this piece is trying to point out- that we conflate a lot of different concepts together when we say "native speaker."

Haamu is more specific:

I would just suggest postponing the reliance on that concept until you've laid a bit more groundwork — which, in turn, suggests changing the thesis from "where does the term come from, and what does it really mean?" to something like "how is the term used, and why is that a problem?" so you don't have to lead right away in Paragraph 2 with the history.

In your fieldwork you appear to have identified twin evils that marginalise and deny the competence of speakers in contact situations: "national standardised languages", which reject anything that falls outside that category, and the concept that people must be "native speakers" of such a language to have their linguistic competence recognised. Both of these are valid and valuable observations. The problem arises when you try to assemble a grand theory of "national languages" and "native speakerism" based on a thin and simplified reading of what are already controversial concepts (postmodernism, postcolonialism, woke culture, identity politics, etc., call them what you will), which are like a red flag to a bull to many people. Hence the adverse reactions.

As Haamu suggested, it might be a good idea to postpone composing a grand theory until you've laid a bit more groundwork. I am sure that you could make a very valuable contribution to discussion of these issues from your own fieldwork and experiences.

As an aside, Jarek Weckwerth mentioned medium-power languages, where the question of "native speaker" is more clear-cut (e.g., Korean, Polish, Mongolian, Greek, or Japanese). This was a good counterpoint to your concentration on major colonial languages, which you accepted with interest. However, if you look more closely you'll find that each of these languages/countries has much a more tangled history.

In the premodern era (which your postcolonial theory doesn't necessarily fit very well), Poland was a major power in eastern Europe (Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth). After that it gradually disappeared as a country and was only reconstituted after WWII.

In terms of linguistic policy, pre-modern Japan and modern Japan are totally different. At the end of the 19th century Japan adopted a national standard language on the Western model, followed quickly by the annexation/control of territories in Korea, Taiwan, and Manchukuo. In all of these the Japanese language was imposed on the population and the Japanese were the real masters — classic colonialism. It was only in the postwar era that Japan renounced its imperial past and developed a sort of amnesia about these attempts to spread the Japanese language.

Mongolia is a different case again. The Mongolian empire (another premodern empire) did not try to impose the Mongolian language on its subjects. In the modern era, however, the language has been forced on the defensive. In Mongolia itself a standard language was imposed (based on Khalkha dialect) that strongly devalued other dialects spoken in Mongolia itself (Buryat, Dorvod, etc). Mongolians also aggressively reject varieties of Mongolian spoken in what might be loosely termed "lost Mongolian-speaking territories" in Russia and China. Not such a simple situation.

The histories of Greek and Korean are, from my understanding, equally contested.

May 31, 2021 @ 6:12 pm

I think I mistakenly highlighted just one part of Haamu's comment. In fact the entirety of Haamu's is pretty much spot on. I concur wholeheartedly with what he wrote.

Devin Grammon said,

May 31, 2021 @ 8:22 pm

Like Anna, I am so glad to see that this blog post has generated so much vigorous discussion (80 comments and counting!). I’d like to respond to a few of the comments here, and convey my gratitude to all who have posted. This piece stems from an evolving conversation that Anna and I have had over the past few years, and I am very thankful to all of you who have weighed in.

First, in response to some of the earlier comments about our use of the word “racialized,” our use of the term is tied to the notion of racialization – the act of giving a racial character to someone or something (e.g. a group) and process of categorizing, marginalizing, or regarding according to race. I thank @J.W. Brewer for pointing out the ways in which those of Hispanic/Spanish speaking origin are racialized within the context of the U.S. Regarding the question of the denigration of U.S. Spanish speakers (and native Spanish speakers), there is a large body of scholarship that discusses this. For example, I recommend the work of Jennifer Leeman on the racialization of Spanish in the U.S. census and of course the work of Nelson Flores and Jonathan Rosa on raciolingusitic ideologies in U.S. educational contexts.

Second, I also have found reactions to the second paragraph of this post very insightful. We look forward to laying more groundwork in this area in a future peer reviewed article.

Regarding our mention of those who experience language attrition due to medical conditions, our point was to unsettle definitions of “native speaker” that equate nativeness with high levels of linguistic competence in straight forward ways. Such cases raise intriguing questions. For example, can someone stop being a native speaker of a language (as in the case of Franz Liszt mentioned by @Anthony)? At what level might a loss of linguistic competency preclude someone from being considered a native speaker?

Last, I had hoped to see some additional discussion regarding the recruitment of linguistic informants in fields methods classes and language documentation work in relation to their status as native speakers. I hope that someone will weigh in on this, too.

Thanks again for all your insightful comments and thoughts!

Lameen said,

June 1, 2021 @ 4:41 am

While I appreciate the way this post reminds us that "common-sense" notions are ideologically charged, it strikes me – ironically – as very Eurocentric and even Anglocentric. The English term "native speaker" may well have "originated within the context of European nationalism and colonialism in the 19th century", but the use of similar if not perfectly identical "discriminatory logics" to "exclude or to police the boundaries of speakerhood and, ultimately, personhood" certainly goes back way further, and appears nearly universal. The early medieval Arabic grammarians would have considered "native speaker" to be necessary but far from sufficient – only Bedouin speakers isolated from the multilingual towns were good enough to be linguistic informants. And, famously , in northern Australia only a person with the right ancestors can count as a legitimate speaker-owner of a language. I certainly don't claim that every community polices "the boundaries of speakerhood" using the exact same criteria as English speakers, but in a discussion of the origins of the modern English concept of "native speaker", it seems important to devote some space to how, if at all, it differs from comparable concepts in other times and places; what was new about the concept when it emerged?

R. Fenwick said,

June 1, 2021 @ 7:41 am

@Devin Grammon: I had hoped to see some additional discussion regarding the recruitment of linguistic informants in fields methods classes and language documentation work in relation to their status as native speakers. I hope that someone will weigh in on this, too.

Perhaps I can provide something along these lines. :) I work mainly with the recently-extinct Ubykh language, and though this language is now very well-documented, important aspects of its study have been affected by the recorders' opinions of what comprises a "native" or "fluent" or "competent" or "ideal" speaker. (Apologies in advance for what's going to be something of a tome.)

By far the most substantive such impact is that of Georges Dumézil, who is responsible for the bulk of the Ubykh recording that's been done. His work is a prototypical example of what you phrased as the field-linguistic wisdom that "elderly, rural male speakers with all their teeth are the best informants": his primary informant, the celebrated Tevfik Esenç, was indeed an elderly male speaker from a rural village, with good dentition during their early work (and pretty good dentures in his old age). Much as I respect the colossal amount of work and recording that Dumézil did do, work more than sufficiently detailed to revive the language one day, clear biases are evident throughout the corpus.

To begin with, of the many dozens of published Ubykh texts, I don't believe a single published text is directly recorded from a woman. In fairness, this isn't uncommon in field linguistics and isn't specifically a Eurocentric bias, but certainly in earlier work (and Dumézil's work began in 1931) there was a strong tendency for male linguists to end up working predominantly if not exclusively with male speakers, at least where they existed. (And when this doesn't happen, things can get interesting. John Bradley, an Australian anthropologist and initiated Yanyuwa who is one of just a handful of fluent speakers, tells a story about learning to speak Yanyuwa from the few old women who were the only living speakers of the language at that time, and eventually having the old women say to him one day, "Okay, you can speak Yanyuwa, now we've got to teach you to speak Yanyuwa like a man!" Yanyuwa is one of those rare languages where men's and women's speech differs on a morphological level, predominantly manifested through differing systems of noun class prefixation.)

As well, Dumézil was primarily interested in languages as a vehicle for culture and mythology, and as such his recordings, where they aren't purely concerned with grammar, are very heavily skewed to elicited stories. Not a single example of a genuine conversation between two Ubykh speakers has been published, so we know essentially nothing of Ubykh speech performance. In addition, and far more problematically, in the early 1960s Dumézil began to engage in active linguistic prescriptivism in his recordings of the language by taking texts recorded from other speakers and literally having Tevfik Esenç "revise" and "correct" them into his own idiolect for publication. (Not entirely surprising given that Dumézil later became an immortel of the Académie Française, perhaps the world's most famous (or infamous?) prescriptivist linguistic body.) As such, texts from after about 1960 – regardless of their origin – generally reflect Esenç's idiolect, unilaterally decided by Dumézil as a de facto "standard language". Very occasionally Dumézil gave the original forms in footnotes to the texts, but how much idiolectic variation was obliterated in this way is unknown. As such, the differences between Esenç's speech and the individual varieties spoken by other first-language and natively-competent speakers – of whom two dozen or more still lived when Dumézil began working with Tevfik Esenç – are not all that well understood, even though the sparse evidence that does survive from these other speakers does clearly show minor but significant variation in some grammatical features.

Another, less impactful, issue surrounding what constitutes a "native" or "fluent" speaker lies at the core of the question of exactly how many phonemic consonants Ubykh has. The count generally accepted is 80 (I count 84, which includes the four consonants /g k k’ v/ found only in loanwords), but in 1992 John Colarusso published a paper arguing that the phoneme treated by others as a labialised voiceless alveolopalatal fricative /ɕʷ/ actually reflected two phonemes: the genuine /ɕʷ/, and an acoustically similar but distinct labialised voiceless velar fricative /xʷ/. He's subsequently repeated his claim multiple times in print, attempting to fortify it by asserting that the phonemic distinction appears in the speech of Meral Çare (of the Çızemığue clan), the niece of Tevfik Esenç and one of a few living Ubykh speakers.

This claim runs into a major problem, however, in that Meral hanım's acquisition of the language appears to have occurred under unusual circumstances and the extent of her actual capabilities in the language is unclear. Colarusso has recently asserted with no further elaboration (2016) that she is "fluent in Ubykh, having learned it from Tevfik Esenç", but Viacheslav Chirikba, who has also met and spoken with Meral hanım, has told me that she herself admits her abilities are limited, that she cannot carry on a sustained conversation and rather acquired Ubykh from Esenç as a 'second language' of sorts while acting to assist linguists during their intensive work with her uncle. An argument could hypothetically be made that she acquired her Ubykh in a semi-natural fashion through contextual exposure, but is it really the same thing? Can she really be considered as a "native speaker" for the purposes of linguistic documentation?

(Tangentially, even assuming that Colarusso has indeed successfully identified a phoneme /xʷ/ in Meral hanım's speech, could it have other origins? Notably, could it have arisen recently via influence from Kabardian, which preserves the Proto-North-West Caucasian */xʷ/ that Colarusso claims is reflected as such in Ubykh? I do wish Colarusso's claim could be fleshed out with a public acoustic analysis of Meral hanım's pronunciation and more detailed formal analysis showing it corresponds regularly to the same contrast in earlier audio recordings of Esenç. I can't detect such a contrast in any of the audio recordings of Esenç I have access to, dating to 1963 and 1974; nor could Ian Catford, from his first-hand recordings of Esenç in 1986. Right now, Colarusso is the only Caucasologist who confidently accepts that his /xʷ/ exists. I don't believe there's any current basis – phonetic, etymological, or historical – on which it can be accepted as a reality, and indeed I think there are good grounds on which it should be actively rejected.)

June 1, 2021 @ 7:53 am

@Lameen: And, famously, in northern Australia only a person with the right ancestors can count as a legitimate speaker-owner of a language

More specifically, this relates to language owners . Others might well be able to speak the language, having learned it in order to communicate with the language owners as part of an area's multicultural and multilingual milieu, but language ownership is about inherited rights to culture moreso than linguistic competence. One can be a language owner but not a speaker (especially given the devastation that's been and is being wrought by colonialist attitudes ever since the British invasion), and vice versa.

June 1, 2021 @ 8:47 am

@R. Fenwick

You initially identify one of a few living Ubykh speakers as Meral Çare (of the Çızemığue clan), the niece of Tevfik Esenç. Upon subsequent mention of this individual, you refer to her as "Meral hanım". What does "hanım" mean, and why does it begin with a lower case "h"?

June 1, 2021 @ 10:17 am

@ Devin Grammon

As one of the more prolific and consistently critical commenters at this thread I may as well comment further.

You have identified "standard national languages" as "tightly connected to discriminatory logics". In fact, I would like to suggest that related phenomena resulting from the concept of standard national languages are actually more important.

The first is the expectation of "monolingualism". This is not a necessary corollary of adopting a standard national language, but it often seems to be related. Since the nation-state is a jealous entity, it prefers its citizens to all speak the same language. The existence of speakers of other languages potentially detracts from loyalty to the State. Switzerland, with its universal use of the local dialect combined with the use of Standard German, would seem to be an exception to this, but my feeling is that speakers of minority languages are often regarded as somehow "suspect" or maybe just "unreasonably different" by the State and the larger community. The State and a majority of citizens appear to require national conformity. This kind of mentality appears to be very common in English-speaking societies, where stories often circulate of outright prejudice against people speaking foreign languages in public (except, perhaps speakers of the cosmopolitan type who speak other prestige languages). This mentality appears to be at least partly behind the current efforts of the Chinese government to stamp out Tibetan, Uyghur, Mongolian, etc. in favour of Mandarin Chinese.

The second phenomenon is the expectation that any self-respecting top-level language will be capable of expressing itself in any domain, from politics to bureaucracy, sport, mathematics, science and technology, etc. Most of the national languages of Europe have attained that level through intensive and intentional vocabulary development, so you can theoretically discuss, say, quantum physics in Slovenian or Slovak, or philosophical topics in Bulgarian or Romanian (not to mention Danish, Swedish, Dutch, or Italian). Any language that fails to live up to that standard is regarded as a kind of langue manquée , a patois , with negative implications for its prestige. Languages that are mostly spoken in the home, have no official status, involve heavy borrowing from the dominant language to fill gaps in their vocabulary, and are not protected or cultivated by the State, are likely to be looked down upon as somehow inferior.

A third point is the way that States enforce adherence to national languages through the education system, while discriminating against people who are poorly educated. While there is a large difference between the uneducated classes in a Western country and speakers of indigenous languages in colonial situations, the basis of discrimination (ability to speak "the proper language") is similar.

As to your question about fieldwork, I have no expertise at all in this. I suspect that any kind of speaker could reasonably be chosen for fieldwork, depending, of course, on its aims. Even a speaker suffering language attrition due to medical conditions might be a good subject for a neurolinguistic survey — a bilingual speaker even more so.

June 1, 2021 @ 10:36 am

With regard to my comment about langue manquée , I suspect that this attitude might be extended to speakers whose command of their native language is heavily infiltrated by the dominant surrounding language. In the same way that their language is regarded as "lacking" or "second-rate", such speakers might be regarded as "defective speakers" of their own language.

June 1, 2021 @ 12:44 pm

Bathrobe, two point if I may ? When you write "A third point is the way that States enforce adherence to national languages through the education system, while discriminating against people who are poorly educated", I assume that by "States" you mean "nation states" rather than (e.g., one of the 50 or so states that comprise the United States of America. If my assumption is correct, then may I ask why you use the word "enforce" rather than "encourage" ? Surely one of the main purposes of an education system is to encourage those who partake of it to "speak properly", is it not ? If so, then I cannot see on what basis you speak of "enforce". I would also ask in what way nation states discriminate against those who are poorly educated — it is (in general) the nation states that provide the basic educational system, so rather than "discriminating against" those are poorly educated, the nation states are offering that group the opportunity to become better educated.

And totally OT, but intrigued by your use of manquée , a word that I have not encountered for some decades, do you happen to know if it is the etymon of <Br.E> "manky" ?

June 1, 2021 @ 6:18 pm

A third point is the way that States enforce adherence to national languages through the education system, while discriminating against people who are poorly educated

Yes, I was writing late at night when I was very tired. I should have waited till morning.

The nation-state (which is what I meant by "State") does enforce the teaching of the national language to all its citizens as part of "compulsory education", designed to turn out citizens in a standard mould. Perhaps this can be interpreted as "encouraging" people to leave behind their "substandard ways" and become competent speakers of the "standard language" (which was originally developed by the literate elite), but it also further stigmatises "non-standard" use of language.

But you are right, it is not the nation-state that discriminates against people who don't measure up; it's society that does that through its acceptance of the "standard language" as correct and anything else as "substandard". You can see this in the interminable carping directed by certain arbiters of language at some common usages. For example, the "split infinitive" rule, which refuses to die long past its expiry date. Another is the stigma attached to colloquial expressions like "Him and me are best friends" or "Could you give me one of them green fluffy things?" There is no doubt that progress has been made in exterminating "substandard" usages, which is apparent if you read English grammars from the 19th century, such as William Pinnock's A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language , which advises against various "substandard" usages that now sound quite antiquated.

However, implicit in your comment is unquestioning acceptance of a Standard Language as "better", the deleterious effects of which are exactly what the authors of this article are pointing out with regard to linguistic fieldwork. A linguist who took the attitude "We're not going to interview her for our survey of English (or Navaho) usage because she uses non-standard English (corrupted Navaho)" is also determining in advance what they want to find. How far do you go with this cut-and-dried attitude to language before you start distorting the whole exercise?

June 1, 2021 @ 6:23 pm

Google has this to say about manky : 1950s: probably from obsolete mank ‘mutilated, defective’, from Old French manque , from Latin mancus ‘maimed’.

Thomas Rees said,

June 1, 2021 @ 8:15 pm

@VHM: “Meral hanım” is just “Ms (Miss/Mrs) Meral; “hanım” is the Turkish version of “Khanum”.

June 1, 2021 @ 10:45 pm

@Victor Mair: You initially identify one of a few living Ubykh speakers as Meral Çare (of the Çızemığue clan), the niece of Tevfik Esenç. Upon subsequent mention of this individual, you refer to her as "Meral hanım". What does "hanım" mean, and why does it begin with a lower case "h"?

Ah, apologies. Hanım is a Turkish courtesy title for women who don't bear another professional honorific such as hoca "teacher, professor". It's equivalent, as Thomas says, to "Ms"; like other Turkish titles, it's customarily used in lower case, and with the first name rather than the surname. Etymologically it means "my lord/lady", and ultimately is cognate with the Mongol title qan "khan", which I believe has been extensively treated here on LL in the past.

June 1, 2021 @ 11:52 pm

"A third point is the way that States enforce adherence to national languages through the education system, while discriminating against people who are poorly educated" I don't understand how anyone can dispute this. Pupils come into classrooms. Some have the prestige skin color and speak the prestige dialect. Their families have bought for them all the standard childhood books, and so they know all the standard knowledge for their grade. Their mothers don't work and can come volunteer in the classroom and get chummy with the teacher. Other pupils speak a non-prestigious dialect. Their upbringing is not the same as the teacher's, and so the teacher doesn't recognize their knowledge. Their mothers work and the teacher interprets this as the family "not caring." Which of these children will receive teacher praise and recommendations for honors classes and advanced study? Which of these children will instead be punished for the slightest deviation, for things other children are given slack, and told that they don't have a future?

My third grade teacher, in the middle of a rant, once told our whole class that a particular kid in our class was going to grow up to flip burgers at McDonald's. This kid was not actually one of the troublemakers who was causing the grief she was ranting about. He was a quiet, well-behaved child who just happened to be a Haitian immigrant who was still learning standard English. Yes, my third grade teacher was certainly discriminating against the "poorly educated," and also the immigrant, the black, and the poor. No, teachers should not be like this, but teachers grow up in the same racist and prejudiced systems as the rest of us. The statistics also testify to how many schools and school systems exacerbate inequality instead of mitigating it.

A lot of people are saying for some languages, a "native speaker" needs to be *educated* in that language too and speak the way other educated people do. But some children will face more barriers obtaining that education than others. (And by the way, my third grade teacher is still teaching in the public schools.)

Levantine said,

June 2, 2021 @ 2:00 am

R. Fenwick, in my experience, Turkish courtesy titles are capitalised (Ahmet Bey, Fatma Hanım, etc.). I often send and receive emails in Turkish and do not recall ever seeing these titles with lowercase initials.

June 2, 2021 @ 3:18 am

My attention has been drawn to this article by Leonard Bloomfield:

Literate and Illiterate Speech

David Morris said,

June 2, 2021 @ 3:37 am

Two slightly tangential comments. 1) I read a description of a person that he spoke 'exemplary English' and blogged that we don't usually talk about native speakers speaking fluent/good/excellent/perfect/exemplary English, though one of the examples I found of 'exemplary English' referred to Jeb Bush. 2) I stumbled across a video in which 2 Koreans were challenged to pick the native speaker(s) from five speakers of Korean as a second language and one Korean. The two had their backs turned, listened to the six introduce themselves non-identifyingly, and asked questions. Both unhesitatingly picked one of the non-natives as Korean, and picked the native as a second language speaker.

June 2, 2021 @ 3:41 am

Wanda wrote :

Pupils come into classrooms. Some have the prestige skin color and speak the prestige dialect. […] Other pupils speak a non-prestigious dialect. […] Which of these children will receive teacher praise and recommendations for honors classes and advanced study? Which of these children will instead be punished for the slightest deviation, for things other children are given slack, and told that they don't have a future?

I have no idea. But I am certain that in general it is not (nation) state policy that the former group be advantaged and the latter group be disadvantaged. If such a situation does anywhere obtain, then that reflects very badly on the teacher(s), the school(s), and the board(s) of governors, not on the (nation) state, which in general does its best to ensure that equal opportunities are afforded to all. Of course there are rogue (nation) states, rogue schools, rogue teachers and so on, but I do not accept that it is widespread (nation) state policy that your former group be given preferential treatment while your latter group are cast to one side. If that were the case, then why would remedial classes even exist ?

June 2, 2021 @ 4:27 am

In fairness I should add this book Mother Tongues and Nations: The invention of the native speaker by Thomas Bonfiglio. The link is to Amazon, which handily allows a "Look Inside". Bonfiglio studies the concept of "native speaker" and "mother tongue" historically, finding it absent in ancient Greece and ancient Rome, and tracing it to European ethno-nationalism. The blurb at Amazon:

This monograph examines the ideological legacy of the the apparently innocent kinship metaphors of “mother tongue” and “native speaker” by historicizing their linguistic development. It shows how the early nation states constructed the ideology of ethnolinguistic nationalism, a composite of national language, identity, geography, and race. This ideology invented myths of congenital communities that configured the national language in a symbiotic matrix between body and physical environment and as the ethnic and corporeal ownership of national identity and local organic nature. These ethno-nationalist gestures informed the philology of the early modern era and generated arboreal and genealogical models of language, culminating most divisively in the race conscious discourse of the Indo-European hypothesis of the 19th century. The philosophical theories of organicism also contributed to these ideologies. The fundamentally nationalist conflation of race and language was and is the catalyst for subsequent permutations of ethnolinguistic discrimination, which continue today. Scholarship should scrutinize the tendency to overextend biological metaphors in the study of language, as these can encourage, however surreptitiously, genetic and racial impressions of language.

Bonfiglio also makes reference to a number of earlier studies of the concept of "native speaker". By the way, the term itself dates only to 1859.

June 2, 2021 @ 5:26 am

And to Bathrobe —

"Another is the stigma attached to colloquial expressions like "Him and me are best friends" or "Could you give me one of them green fluffy things?" There is no doubt that progress has been made in exterminating "substandard" usages, which is apparent if you read English grammars from the 19th century, such as William Pinnock's A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, which advises against various "substandard" usages that now sound quite antiquated".

Do you not feel, as I do, that such stigmatization is fully justified ? Where a colloquial expression such as the two that you have cited is non-grammatical, then to my mind it is simply wrong and children should be taught to avoid them like the plague. But I would, of course, make an exception where those colloquial expressions are a long-established part of a local or regional dialect — in Britain at least, teachers throughout the country are no longer expected to teach a standard dialect to the detriment and exclusion of all others : it is in becoming ever more accepted that local teachers, familiar with the local dialect, are best placed to teach local children, and those teachers, seeking to inculcate a knowledge of the standard dialect, will not automatically "correct" a child who uses a dialectal expression in speech. In compositions/essays, perhaps.

"However, implicit in your comment is unquestioning acceptance of a Standard Language as 'better', the deleterious effects of which are exactly what the authors of this article are pointing out with regard to linguistic fieldwork".

Well, to my mind, "better" can be used only in context. I do unquestioningly accept a Standard Language as 'better' in the context of education, for example, where the purpose is to raise the literacy skills of the students; but I unquestioningly reject a Standard Language as 'better' in the context of linguistic fieldwork, where the researcher is setting out to establish how language is used in the population of interest. Generally speaking it is better to be clean rather than smelly, well-educated rather than illiterate, sated rather than starving, but there are counter-examples to each of these.

June 2, 2021 @ 5:31 am

"By the way, the term ['native speaker] itself dates only to 1859".

Google ngrams shew a non-zero usage for 1791++, but I have not been able to identify the text in question in order to ascertain whether it was a true phrase or merely a collocation.

June 2, 2021 @ 5:32 am

Do you not feel, as I do, that such stigmatization is fully justified ?

No, I don't. In formal writing, yes. In speech, no. Why should people be expected to talk like a book?

June 2, 2021 @ 5:50 am

Please amend that to "casual speech".

June 2, 2021 @ 7:37 am

@Bathrobe: In formal writing, yes. In speech, no. Why should people be expected to talk like a book?

This is one of the things about language ideologies that I find frustrating. Why is it OK to require adherence to norms in formal writing but not in speech?

(Disclosure: One of my fields is accent attitudes, also in the context of teaching, which is quite a difficult mix. There seems to be consensus these days that modifyng your "natural accent" is a big no-no and no-one should be discriminated against based on accent. But to require modification of your "natural dialect" for formal writing is fine. Hmmm.)

Adrian said,

June 2, 2021 @ 7:51 am

My few pennies' worth…

1. I went to Hungary in 1997 to teach English. I soon discovered that there were many things I didn't know about my own language, such that it really wasn't appropriate to employ me as an English teacher. At the same time, it could be said that it really wasn't appropriate to employ a Hungarian to teach English either; they did know the workings of my language better than I did but there were many imperfections in the way they used the language. In reality they were more able to effect a reasonable education in the language, but if students spent time with both their Hungarian teachers and their "native speaker" teacher they would (the more intelligent ones at least) gain greater understanding and accuracy.

2. Although as "outsiders", non-native speakers can often gain/provide interesting insights into a language, I was/am wary of their attempts at academic studies of the language. Clearly there are great exceptions to this – I intend no criticism of László Budai or Professor Mair (!) – but when I taught college I often found the dissertations presented by students to "miss the point" in a way that would be much less likely if they lived the language.

June 2, 2021 @ 8:11 am

"Why should people be expected to talk like a book?" — I am certain that they should not. Long ago I cam to realise that an academic paper intended for printed publication is totally unsuitable for oral delivery — the styles required for each are completely different. But both should be grammatical, both should be "correct" within the Universe of Discourse. So while (for example) "Let's" at the start of a sentence may be both natural and "correct" for an orally-delivered paper, it would be patently wrong in a printed paper, where "Let us" would be required.

So the question is 'are there any contexts in which colloquial expressions such as "Him and me are best friends" or "Could you give me one of them green fluffy things?" ' are "correct" ? I would say "no, there are no such contexts" whilst being perfectly willing to accept that there are contexts in which such expressions can be used without any expectation of being corrected, such as within a peer group where such constructs are regarded as the norm. But if a teacher were to hear one or the other, I would expect him/her to correct the student on the spot.

June 2, 2021 @ 8:22 am

Jarek — "no-one should be discriminated against based on accent". What about a Glaswegian aircraft pilot ? If he or she were attempting to communicate with air traffic control in an unmodified broad Glaswegian accent, then the probability of successful communication would tend to zero. Thus I would argue that there are situations where it is essential to deliberately modify one's natural accent, since to do otherwise might put lives at risk. No, of course the Glaswegian pilot should not be "discriminated against" at interview, but I would also expect the interviewing panel to test the would-be pilot's ability to communicate coherently with (e.g., a native speaker of high RP) in moments of stress.

June 2, 2021 @ 9:19 am

It's partly a matter of formality, not just the medium.

When writing formally, certain public standards of "grammaticality" (standard English) are generally required. Writing by its nature tends to be more careful, structured, and designed for a wider audience that the writer might not even get to meet. Writers can generally be expected to use more carefully constructed sentences because writing is a more planned activity. Writing is also more likely to be published in some form or preserved for later reference. On the other hand, when, say, writing a letter to friends it's certainly ok to use informal and, in Philip Taylor's judgement, "incorrect" English. The choice is up to the writer.

When reading from the printed page I suppose that most people do maintain their native accent, but I'm also pretty sure that many people have a "reading accent", especially in more formal situations, that is slightly different from their ordinary pronunciation.

In speaking, on the whole , there may be a tendency to be more casual because the medium is ephemeral and the setting is frequently more informal. It is understood that speakers may be thinking as they speak and make changes in mid-sentence. However, there are certainly occasions when it is more proper to use formal or "correct" English (e.g., delivering reports or making speeches — although there are people who might prefer a chattier approach when speaking at a best mate's wedding, for instance). When talking with friends or mates, an informal, "incorrect" style of speaking might be preferred as a sign of solidarity or a deliberate rejection of formality.

June 2, 2021 @ 9:43 am

I would say "no, there are no such contexts" whilst being perfectly willing to accept that there are contexts in which such expressions can be used without any expectation of being corrected, such as within a peer group where such constructs are regarded as the norm.

What a strange conception of language. So people are allowed to use "incorrect" English if there is no one there to pull them up. "Incorrect English" is almost like an elephant in the room. It's used right across the English-speaking world, but all you can say is, "Oh, it's wrong".

Perhaps it's your conception of "correctness" that is the problem. Instead of the arbitrary imposition of one style for all occasions, it might be better to admit that there are different styles of language for different occasions, the same way that you wear black shoes to work, running shoes when doing physical activity, sandals at the beach, slippers in the house, and socks (or bare feet) in bed, etc. What is the use of "rules for correct language" the only purpose of which is to beat people into submission? It's like a disciplinarian at a party standing on the sidelines with a big stick to ensure that people are prim and proper at all times. What is the good of that?

Jerry Friedman said,

June 2, 2021 @ 10:07 am

The competence of adult emigrants who experience first language attrition has a parallel in the experience of many dual-culture bilinguals, or 1.5-generation immigrants, who are immersed in a new language and setting at a younger age. Their competence in their “native” language may be truncated in several domains, and they often report feeling like they speak poorly or like children. Heritage speakers of Spanish in the U.S., for example, describe not being considered fully native speakers of Spanish due in part to their lack of formal education in the language and the low status of Spanish, particularly among racialized groups, in U.S. society.11 In such cases, the “ideal” language and the “ideal language speaker” are understood to reside somewhere else, in a discursive move that erases bi- and multilingualism as part of the reality of language use and as part of the lived reality of language speakers.12

When *some* heritage speakers of Spanish in the U.S. describe not being considered fully native speakers, isn't it sometimes also due in part to their "truncated" competence in several domains? Such people don't need anybody else's discursive moves to cause them to feel as if "they speak poorly or like children". They just need to notice how they manage in Spanish-speaking contexts compare it to how they manage in English-speaking contexts. That might be an example of understanding better language and speakers to be somewhere else, whether in another country or in an Internet forum or at the dishwashing station of a restaurant (an experience that one of my students told me improved his Spanish a lot), but it's about the practical, not the ideal. And I don't see how it erases bi- and multilingualism—instead it valorizes (if that's the right trendy word) bilingualism.

By the way, "heritage speaker" strikes me as just as useful and just as fuzzy as "native speaker".

I join others in recommending that the authors attach less importance to edge cases [*], partly because I've been participating for decades in a forum on English, and I participated for years in one on Spanish, without anyone expressing any real doubt about who was a native speaker. Nevertheless, if it's not too late, I'd like to talk about an edge case: Spanish in northern New Mexico, where I live. I took a class here called Spanish for Native Speakers, which was the same as what's called Heritage Spanish, because the Spanish class aimed at us non-native speakers didn't fit my schedule. (As far as power relations are concerned, I'm not sure whether I would have been allowed in if I hadn't had the privilege of teaching at that college and often eating lunch with the teacher.) I heard no discussion of who was or wasn't a native speaker of Spanish, and the students' competence in Spanish varied widely. I didn't feel and none of my fellow students showed any concern for the term's legacy of colonialism or possible policing of personhood. Did we miss something?

The teacher was a fluent native speaker of northern New Mexican Spanish who also taught standard Spanish (at which his competence was far beyond my ability to evaluate, of course). Did I just say something colonialistic?

An example of the stigmatizing of truncated competence in one's ancestral language, as the authors mentioned, was that one student mentioned that he and his friends made fun of his younger brother for being mocho ('amputated, mutilated', but in Mexican and Southwest US slang, "broken" Spanish mixed with English). Yet this man himself was dissatisfied with his competence.

Like many northern New Mexican hispanic people, he said "muncho" rather than "mucho". I told him outside class that that wouldn't go over well in most of the Spanish-speaking world. Did I stigmatize a minoritized dialect? And if it was OK for me to point it out, what would have been a tactful way?

Some of my physics students talk to their partners in Spanish in labs, and I often hear them including technical terms in English. Sometimes I suggest that it would be a good opportunity for them to learn the equivalent terms in Spanish, a suggestion that they've received with interest, though I haven't noticed whether anyone has taken it. Am I erasing bilingualism?

[*] I also hope the authors will discriminate carefully among the meanings and uses of "native speaker" in different cultures and contexts, and discriminate between the privileging of native speakers and the privileging of speakers of standard or nearly standard varieties.

June 2, 2021 @ 10:52 am

Philip Taylor, I’m curious as to why you always leave spaces before your question marks.

June 2, 2021 @ 10:57 am

If he or she were attempting to communicate with air traffic control in an unmodified broad Glaswegian accent, then the probability of successful communication would tend to zero.

I think all you've done is demonstrate that broad Glaswegian isn't an "accent" but a dialect of a different language than English.

June 2, 2021 @ 11:35 am

Levantine, "I’m curious as to why you always leave spaces before your question marks" — my typographical/typesetting background, I suppose. Back in the 1930's, a thin space before tall punctuation (!, ?, :, ;) was the norm in British English typography, and remains the norm in France to this day. To my eye it looks better than tight-spaced (just as I prefer a wider space after a sentence-final period), but of course there are no easily accessible thin spaces that can be used in fora such as this, so I fall back on the full space of the line. I cannot say when the custom fell out of use in British typography, but I suspect that it was probably the 1960's/1970's. I will look at a book hand-set by Vivian Ridler during that period when I get home and see if he was still using a thin space at that time.

Rodger, I do not accept that 'broad Glaswegian isn't an "accent" but a dialect of a different language than English' — yes,Lallans Scots is a different language to English, but (a) it is not the language that is the barrier to communication, since pilots are required to communicate in English (at least when communicating with British air traffic control, and probably the ATCs of most other countries) and (b) broad Glaswegian is not a dialect of Lallans Scots but an accent, a very strong accent that can be impenetrable even to fellow Scots.

June 2, 2021 @ 12:03 pm

"What is the use of "rules for correct language" the only purpose of which is to beat people into submission? It's like a disciplinarian at a party standing on the sidelines with a big stick to ensure that people are prim and proper at all times. What is the good of that?". No use, and no good, in that order. If we stick to the domain of language, the purpose is not "to beat people into submission" at all — the purpose is to educate people to speak properly, just as we educate them to drive properly, to eat properly, to behave properly and so on.

June 2, 2021 @ 6:48 pm

the purpose is to educate people to speak properly, just as we educate them to drive properly, to eat properly, to behave properly and so on.

Just a quick question: What is the source of your authority to decide what "speaking properly" is?

June 3, 2021 @ 4:10 am

I have no authority whatsoever to decide what "speaking properly" is. In all such matters, I defer to my betters — Fowler, Gowers, Sweet, Weseen, Onions, Quirk et al. , grammarians who dedicated and devoted their lives to researching and documenting the grammar of the English language. If they agree that a particular construct is correct, then I take it as a given that the statement is true; if they find fault with a construction, or state that it is ungrammatical, then I accept that judgement without question. As far as I can tell, my teachers adopted the same philosophy — I was never taught to say "Him and me are best friends" or "Could you give me one of them green fluffy things?"; had I done so, I would have been corrected and taught that the correct forms are "He and I are best friends" or "Could you [please] give me one of those green fluffy things?". At grammar school my teachers would have gone further, and explained why "Him and me" (as subject) or "one of them things" were wrong, and why "He and I" and "one of those things" were correct. In so doing, my teachers were clearly acting in my best interests — they were preparing me for entry into a world where slovenly speech is looked down on, and where correct speech is associated with positive traits in the speaker.

Now it is clear, Bathrobe, that you and I do not agree on what has gone before, but do you not agree that we have that same duty of care to the children of today ? Should we not be teaching them to speak properly , so that they can reap the benefits that will thereby automatically accrue, rather than tacitly ignoring their errors of grammar and allowing them to be discarded as the dregs of society solely on the basis of their lack of knowledge of the rules of English grammar ?

June 3, 2021 @ 4:23 am

Oh, and to Levantine — yes, as I suspected, Vivan Ridler was still using a thin space (albeit a very thin space) before tall punctuation when he typeset A Matter of Life and Death at the Perpetua Press in 1975, and also in H Carter's A History of the Oxford University Press , which he typeset at the Oxford University Press in the same year. Earlier examples can be found in James Moran's Stanley Morrison — His typographic achievement (1971), Elizabeth Armstrong's Robert Estienne, Royal Printer (1954) and the Hon. J W Fortescue's The Story of a Red-Deer (1938) among many many others.

June 3, 2021 @ 9:37 am

At grammar school my teachers would have gone further, and explained why "Him and me" (as subject) or "one of them things" were wrong, and why "He and I" and "one of those things" were correct.

Anyone who explains why "him and me" (as subject) is wrong is indulging in a wilful misrepresentation of the truth. There is no objective or logical reason for saying that it is wrong. The rule for this particular usage is clearcut and can be stated linguistically. The only grounds for declaring it wrong are the fact that it is not "standard English".

do you not agree that we have that same duty of care to the children of today ? Should we not be teaching them to speak properly, so that they can reap the benefits that will thereby automatically accrue.

I agree that children should be taught standard English. It is the duty of the educational system to do so. But this should not be at the cost of stigmatising other varieties of English. Children must be taught that standard English is de rigueur in many circumstances, and that they need to master this language and how to deploy an effective style in written English.

But rather than a blanket condemnation of casual or familiar style of English, children need to be taught that there are different styles of English, each with its own place. If (to use a rather old example) Bob Dylan sings "Lay, lady, lay, across my big brass bed", they should not be taught that this is WRONG WRONG WRONG. Instead they should be taught that the lyrics of songs (in certain genres, at least) depend for their effectiveness on the use of non-standard English. If (to use another old example) Pink Floyd sing "Hey teacher, leave them kids alone", teachers should not simplistically condemn this as "bad English"; the reason for their using this kind of expression should be explained.

Similarly, students should be told that "me and him" is perfectly natural in casual conversations with friends, but should NOT be used in writing exercises for school classes. The purpose of classes is to learn standard English because society expects them to be able to write this style of English, and all work done for the class should be in this style.

You and I both believe that children should be taught to write "standard English". The difference between us is that you believe that this means branding anything else as wrong, while I believe that children should be taught that all varieties, "standard" and "non-standard", have their place.

Since I am not a teacher, I have no idea how easy it would be to impart these nuances to children. Yours is the traditional approach ("Don't beat around the bush, just tell 'em it's WRONG"). My approach would be to teach effective speaking and writing for particular situations. There are times you need to be able to write like a stuffed shirt; there are others where you should be free to use demotic language.

June 3, 2021 @ 9:38 am

Please pardon the grammatical errors in the preceding, which became apparent to me after I posted.

June 3, 2021 @ 10:04 am

Absolutely no apology needed, Bathrobe, since I am certain that I do the same (oh for a post-submit "edit" feature on this forum). And I am delighted that we more-or-less agree — any differences are far outweighed by the points of agreement. As to « Anyone who explains why "him and me" (as subject) is wrong is indulging in a wilful misrepresentation of the truth. », there I fear that we must agree to disagree — I am certain that you know better than I that neither "him" nor "me" are the grammatically correct inflexions when appearing in subject position — you (I think) nonetheless believe that they are valid in certain registers, and I do not. On this we will never agree, so let us leave it at that if you are happy to do so. But Mr Zimmerman and I are as one when it comes to lay v. lie — I regularly use the former where the latter is required in contexts where there is the slightest chance that "lie" could be misinterpreted as meaning "utter an untruth".

And I suppose that I ought to confirm your worst fears — I regularly say "It is I" on the telephone, when speaking to someone whom I know will recognise my voice.

June 3, 2021 @ 10:37 am

The rule for "colloquial English" can be stated as:

"If there are conjoint subjects, the case of both subjects shifts from nominative to oblique". It's a linguistic rule because it can be stated simply and captures a regularity, like any other rule. It disallows expressions like "him and I", since both parts of the conjoint subject must be in the oblique case (i.e., "him and me").

Whether you agree with this "rule" is a completely different matter. But explaining "logically" why it must be "he and I" simply doesn't fly.

To illustrate: my favourite rule of standard English that doesn't work "logically" is expressions like "I don't think he knows". Logically speaking this should be "I think that he doesn't know". But appeals to logic are futile; "I don't think + positive clause" is acceptable in English purely because standard English decrees it to be so.

June 3, 2021 @ 10:43 am

"Lay" and "lie": for some reason I have never found the slightest reason to confuse these two. My mother, on the other hand, confuses them regularly. Since I supposedly learnt my English from my parents this is a bit of a mystery. There is obviously some kind of gap between us that has arisen SOMEHOW — I just don't know how.

June 3, 2021 @ 3:11 pm

@Philip Taylor "If such a situation does anywhere obtain, then that reflects very badly on the teacher(s), the school(s), and the board(s) of governors, not on the (nation) state, which in general does its best to ensure that equal opportunities are afforded to all." The leaders of the nation state are people with certain experiences, backgrounds, and unconscious and conscious prejudices. Their legislative and governing priorities will reflect their own native priorities and the priorities of the people who vote for and fund them. If someone doesn't go out of their way to govern "for all," you will get a nation state with policies that, on their face, are neutral with respect to minoritized status but that in effect make life more difficult for people in minoritized groups. And it is NOT true that "the state" does its best to ensure equal opportunities to all. I am a USian, so that is the history I know most well. The US government has promoted enslavement and used military force to brutally kill and displace many populations. In the 20th century, deliberate policies by federal agencies promoted homeownership in white neighborhoods but not non-white neighborhoods ("redlining"), which has caused massive inequities in home ownership and wealth in white vs. black households that persisted to this day. When you get down to state and local level policies, it gets even worse: school segregation is an obvious example. I don't know English history well enough, but I'm sure you've heard of what was done in India and Kenya, and I'm sure that you could dig stuff up domestically.

June 3, 2021 @ 4:35 pm

@wanda If anyone’s interested in what’s been going on in Britain, just search for “Windrush” and “hostile environment”. Or better, the BBC made a fine short film called “Sitting in Limbo” that’s available on Netflix in the USA.

ohwilleke said,

June 3, 2021 @ 7:08 pm

The OP doesn't ring remotely true.

Sure, there are edge cases where determining how to define "native speaker" might be ambiguous. But, as a practical matter, is is usually trivially easy in the vast majority of cases to determine that someone either a "native speaker" or that one is not. Arguably, "completely fluent" might be a better, less loaded term. But describing it as about "authenticity" isn't really the point.

The point is to distinguish between people who have a comprehensive and unconscious understanding of the unwritten rules of a language's grammar and usage, of the nuance of word meaning and subtle shadings of pronunciation, and of the way that people who rely on a language who are not biased from having another first language that they are unconsciously trying to emulate naturally choose to use the language. Much of what a "native speaker" knows about a language is stuff that even the "native speaker" doesn't know that they know. But this generally isn't true of the vast majority of people who acquire a second language.

There is nothing culturally discriminatory about distinguishing between a first language or languages acquired without instruction as a child in an immersive context, from people who are intentionally taught a language later in life. Someone learning German in an Iowa high school classroom from someone who learned German as an adult in college, is not equally authoritative to someone who grew up in Berlin, regarding what constitutes the German language.

The OP confounds the idea that a language may have multiple dialects which a linguist should see as equal in dignity, in which someone can be a "native speaker" with the idea the someone who is still learning a language and hasn't mastered it should be on a par with someone who is fully fluent in one or more dialects of a language.

A child in a multilingual household in Mumbai who speaks a South Asian dialect of English may be a "native speaker" of that dialect of English in a way that someone who grows up speaking the dialects of English predominant in Denver or London could never be. But they would both be "native speakers" of some dialect of English which is a very different thing from saying that the concept "is at best circular and at worst hopelessly flawed."

June 3, 2021 @ 8:52 pm

@Philip Taylor: I defer to my betters — Fowler, Gowers, Sweet, Weseen, Onions, Quirk et al., grammarians who dedicated and devoted their lives to researching and documenting the grammar of the English language

Dedicating and devoting their lives, while honourable, doesn't necessarily mean that their work always remains both correct and up-to-date; the 1985 grammar of Quirk et al. is the only one with even a reasonable claim on the latter, not a single one of the others having been published within the last fifty years (and three of them are a century old). You also omit the most recent major entry, Huddleston and Pullum's CGEL of 2002.

June 3, 2021 @ 9:06 pm

I must say I was amused that such a staunch advocate of "correct English" would admit to the use of incorrect, nonstandard English. You gave yourself the excuse that "lie" could be misinterpreted as meaning "utter an untruth", but this is extremely unlikely, both because context will usually help disambiguate the meaning and because the "lie" is often used in collocations like "lie down", where there is no risk of ambiguity.

At any rate, the "prescriptivism" vs "descriptivism" debate gets very old very fast, and I'm almost sorry I brought it in. The point is that "native speaker" and "standard language" have a complicated relationship (see also ohwilleke's comment), such that building any kind of theory based on a simplistic equation of the two viewed through the unidimensional prism of postcolonial studies is not going to go anywhere.

June 3, 2021 @ 10:55 pm

This is my last comment. Honest (I hope).

I am entirely sympathetic to the issues raised by the OP. I can imagine that, in doing fieldwork on Quechua, the concepts of "national language" and "native speaker" jointly work to destroy the validity of speakers of Quechua. In this colonialist attitudes play a dominant role.

Perhaps it goes something like this (I am guessing): "The overwhelming prestige of standard Spanish means that Quechua speakers are marginalised and looked down upon. Someone just off the boat from (say) Spain will have more linguistic credibility than a person whose ancestors have lived in Peru for many generations."

"At the same time, the almost total loss of prestige of Quechua in favour of Spanish under sustained attack from colonialist policies and the pressure of "standard Spanish" (or perhaps Peruvian Spanish, the local instantiation of Spanish), and the almost total lack of state support and backing for the Quechua language has resulted in the fragmentation of Quechua as a wide-area community language and the extensive erosion of Quechua speaking skills, with heavy inroads from Spanish into the way Quechuan is spoken."

The results of this are particularly severe for linguistic fieldwork, because much of the original speaker base has been decimated, both from the loss of speakers, the loss of speaking skills on the part of "native speakers" of Quechua, and the low prestige of Quechua both inside and outside the Quechua-speaking community.

This completely marginalises people who speak Quechua. While they are as linguistically competent as anyone else, their linguistic knowledge does not mirror the usual idea of a "native speaker in a monolingual nation with a standard language". Instead, they have a knowledge of both Quechua and of Spanish, richly intertwined within a single person's linguistic repertoire in a way that cannot be captured by the concept of "a monolingual native speaker".

This leads the authors to question concepts like "national language" (state-mandated, unified linguistic space) and "native speaker" (which tends to imply native speaker of a single language ), and to embrace a well-justified desire to lay the blame for these people's linguistic disenfranchisement at the feet of "national language" and "native speaker". These concepts ignore, nay, negate the kind of bilingualism / multilingualism that has been common in human communities throughout history. The modern "national language" and the privileged status of "native speakers" of the national language are twin evils that have totally marginalised speakers of Quechua.

I have no doubt that the interrelation among these concepts has had a devastating and highly distorting effect on speakers' knowledge of Quechua, as well as fieldwork on the Quechuan language (bilingualism and heavy influence from Spanish have completely eroded the concept of a "Quechuan native speaker").

While I am totally sympathetic to the OP's point of view, I would suggest that the real problem is not "national languages" and "native-speakerism"; it is colonialism pure and simple. The expansion of a handful of major languages in the past half-millennium (and the "nationalisation" of languages) has been a holocaust for linguistic communities and for multilingualism around the world. Europeans have remade the world in their image, resulting in the marginalisation and destruction of other ways of viewing linguistic repertoires.

June 4, 2021 @ 3:25 am

@bathrobe: Thank you for this! I think your contributions have been the best in this thread.

My take at this point would be as follows: The OP is preoccupied with the term "native speaker". That's just a terminological quibble. The real problems lie elsewhere: competition (of which colonialism is just one manifestation), and variability.

Firstly, humans and human groups compete. Groups with superior organization, notably in economic and military terms, outcompete less organized groups. Standardization improves organizational efficiency. Standardized language is part of that. Hence the general winning power of standardized languages.

If you see that as a problem, and would like to eradicate that, competition would have to be eradicated (or perhaps the ways it works would have to be drastically changed). Since competition, in the most basic form of competition for mates, is probably part of human nature, this may be a rather difficult project.

Secondly, humans vary wrt millions of features. That's what makes competition and selection possible to start with. One of those features is "language aptitude". In other words, there will be speakers, even among evident native speakers of "the same language" who differ in their linguistic ability. (And note that some of this will be inherited along with wealth, just like education is.)

Thus, if state services, for example, or social prestige, depend on the use of standardized language, those less proficient "native speakers", and of course "non-native" speakers, will be at a disadvantage. Even without active linguistic discrimination along the ways seen in e.g. the boarding schools of Canada.

I think (and I do admit this will be very risky metaphor) that solutions offered to people with disabilities are a useful parallel. In many countries these days it is mandatory to offer solutions for people with limited mobility, hearing and sight, for example. It didn't use to be the case. In the same way, solutions can be offered to people with limited skills in the standard language.

Note, importantly, that not all minority groups are offered solutions. Presumably because (1) they are not numerous enough and (2) their limited abilities are not perceived to be limiting enough. Also because (3) the resources available are limited.

Many would argue that the typical education system is one such solution because it offers/promises access to standard language ability. Whether it delivers on this promise, and how, is a separate question.

Another solution is using computer-assisted techniques e.g. to offer availability in non-standard languages. Here, of course, the resources are again limited. (As an example, my native language ;) of about 40 million speakers is one of the better served ones. But it is nowhere near the major languages in terms of e.g. speech recognition because it has a lower purchasing power than some smaller languages…)

And a third solution would of course be to attempt to change the social prestige of languages. Quite a lot can be achieved here, but in general, good luck with that; remember competition?

And notice that some of the problems that the OP mentions may stem from the fact that there are contexts, let us take Peru as a random example, where the system is set up on the model of systems functioning in different realities. As a parallel: In most contexts, visually impaired people are a minority and services for them can be seen as an "add-on". What would you to in a context, country let us say, where most people have limited vision?

Anyway, I don't think any of this pertains to the idea of the "native speaker" itself. The idea has other problems, granted. But I don't think the discrimination aspect is the most important one.

June 4, 2021 @ 7:31 am

(Purely for Bathrobe) — In the lay/lie context, I have a Czech friend who speaks excellent English, and who enjoys making English linguistic jokes. Were I to say to him, by way of introduction, "I was lying on the bed last night …", he would almost certainly respond "To whom were you lying ?". Thus I prefer to say (incorrectly, of course) "I was laying …".

And to Dr Fenwick — I omitted Huddleston and Pullum's Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (2002) simply because I do not own a copy, unlike those that I did list ! Anyhow, Geoff Pullum and I are so far apart on our opinions of Strunk & White that I fear I would not derive much pleasure from reading one of his magna opera …

June 6, 2021 @ 10:43 pm

There is an interesting article comparing the Spanish conquest of Cuzco and the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, From Cuzco to Constantinople: Rethinking postcolonialism by Gregory Jusdanis in the collection Postcolonialism Cross-Examined: Multidirectional Perspectives on Imperial and Colonial Pasts and the Neocolonial Present Ed. Monika Albrecht (Routledge 2020), downloadable from A Open (Open Access) .

Jusdanis makes a number of comparisons between the two conquests, one a mediaeval, the other a modern empire. One was:

"The Ottoman Empire represented the sprawling, multi-ethnic polities of antiquity and the medieval period, whereas the Spanish Empire pointed to a new system, linked to capitalist modes of production and the concept of race".

"The modern definition of empire as a “relationship of domination and subordination between one polity (metropole) and one or more territories (colonies) that lie outside of its boundaries yet claimed as its legal procession” does not completely apply to the Ottoman or Holy Roman Empires. Nor did these empires make a clear distinction between core and periphery populations and core and periphery elites. The Ottoman Empire consisted of multiple, overlapping forms of control, such as the millet system, the Ottoman bureaucracy, and the administration, which gave rise to varied forms of identity. It managed its multiethnic diversity through cooption of elites, indirect system of rule, and through a policy of toleration which should not be celebrated as an early example of liberal multiculturalism since the Empire strived for neither equality nor democracy. Modern empires, then, pursue domination. Unwilling to make cultural concessions to its colonies, they expect subject peoples to acculturate. Quite often they have a missionary zeal, either to civilize or proselytize. The Ottoman Empire, by contrast, did not regard its colonies as territorially distinct. We can’t really speak of colonies per se. When Greeks formed their state in 1832, most of the Greek population was in the Ottoman Empire, and even by 1922 a sizable portion remained in Asia Minor. The Empire benefited from control over its territories, but this occupation was too loose to be described as colonial."

"Moreover, it had few ambitions beyond the Mediterranean. When the English and French arrived in the area, however, they connected it to wider world of commercial exchange. Their empires, like Spain’s settlements in the new world, required advanced systems of bureaucratic organization on a grand scale for which there was no medieval precedent. They extracted resources and maintained civilizational differences between metropolis and native peoples."

June 7, 2021 @ 3:25 am

On the theme of native speakers and their distinguishability , we have of course a very early example from the bible: the shibboleth story. Those who didn't pass the test were certainly denied their personhood, if being slain is included in that expression.

Localization Reads & Events #13 (May 31-June 6) said,

June 7, 2021 @ 5:56 pm

[…] What does “Native speaker” mean, anyway? […]

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Definition of native

 (Entry 1 of 2)

Definition of native  (Entry 2 of 2)

• autochthonous
• towny
• year-rounder

native , indigenous , endemic , aboriginal mean belonging to a locality.

native implies birth or origin in a place or region and may suggest compatibility with it.

indigenous applies to that which is not only native but which, as far as can be determined, has never been introduced or brought from elsewhere.

endemic implies being peculiar to a region.

aboriginal implies having no known others preceding in occupancy of a particular region.

Examples of native in a Sentence

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'native.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Adjective and Noun

Middle English natif , from Middle French, from Latin nativus , from natus , past participle of nasci to be born — more at nation

15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

1535, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Phrases Containing native

• native - born
• native land
• native soil
• native speaker
• non - native

Dictionary Entries Near native

Native American

Cite this Entry

“Native.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/native. Accessed 30 May. 2024.

Kids Definition

Kids definition of native.

Kids Definition of native  (Entry 2 of 2)

Middle English natif "native," from early French natif (same meaning), from Latin nativus (same meaning), from natus, past participle of nasci "to be born" — related to innate , naive , nature

Medical Definition

Medical definition of native, more from merriam-webster on native.

Nglish: Translation of native for Spanish Speakers

Britannica English: Translation of native for Arabic Speakers

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Celebrating Native Cultures Through Words: Storytelling and Oral Traditions

Indigenous peoples have strong storytelling traditions. Histories, stories, and religious rites were/are passed from the memories of one generation to the next through the spoken word. The worldview of Native people is intricately woven into the fabric of language and ways of speaking. The oral tradition connects past, present, and future and tightens tribal and familial bonds. These oral traditions can provide moral lessons for children on how to behave; they can communicate creation stories, cultural beliefs, and personal, family, or tribal history and experiences. Creation stories are often sacred and only told through the oral tradition.

Oral traditions are a form of shared history in specific Native communities and are a source of historical knowledge. American Indians employed a variety of methods to record and preserve their histories. Native Americans of the Northern Great Plains region recorded their histories through pictographic paintings on bison hides called winter counts. Winter counts were preserved by keepers, who painted the images and served as storytellers. Winter counts are only one example of how Indigenous knowledge is sustained and shared. Storytelling is an integral part of traditional Native education systems. Stories develop listening skills, memory, and imagination, and they support social and emotional learning to develop the whole child.

Language loss was part of the systemic destruction or assimilation of Native peoples. Some languages have vanished completely, while many others are weakened. Elders believe if the language is lost, the people will be, too. Teachers, elders, and linguists have been working to capture Native speech in written form, through online classes, and in language-school "nests" as ways to pass on the languages—and cultures—to younger generations.

Today, many Native artists, illustrators, authors, and poets use books and prose to share contemporary experiences with the world. We encourage the use of storytelling in your classroom through invited presenters, videos of Native stories from the community itself, or through books by Native authors.

• Look – A great way to develop observation skills is to examine an object closely and sketch it. The importance of close observation is essential to learning about any object or work of art.
• Notice – Ask students to consider what materials it's made from, how it's constructed, and what images are represented.
• Connect – Have students make connections to objects in their own lives. Is this familiar or dissimilar to them?
• Wonder – What lingering questions do students have about this object that remain unanswered by observing it? How might they learn more?

Definition and Examples of Native Languages

Glossary of Grammatical and Rhetorical Terms

• An Introduction to Punctuation
• Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
• M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
• B.A., English, State University of New York

In most cases, the term native language refers to the language that a person acquires in early childhood because it is spoken in the family and/or it is the language of the region where the child lives. Also known as a mother tongue , first language , or arterial language .

A person who has more than one native language is regarded as bilingual or multilingual .

Contemporary linguists and educators commonly use the term L1 to refer to a first or native language, and the term L2 to refer to a second language or a foreign language that's being studied.

As David Crystal has observed, the term native language (like native speaker ) "has become a sensitive one in those parts of the world where native has developed demeaning connotations " ( Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics ). The term is avoided by some specialists in World English and New Englishes .

Examples and Observations

"[Leonard] Bloomfield (1933) defines a native language as one learned on one's mother's knee, and claims that no one is perfectly sure in a language that is acquired later. 'The first language a human being learns to speak is his native language; he is a native speaker of this language' (1933: 43). This definition equates a native speaker with a mother tongue speaker. Bloomfield's definition also assumes that age is the critical factor in language learning and that native speakers provide the best models, although he does say that, in rare instances, it is possible for a foreigner to speak as well as a native. . . . "The assumptions behind all these terms are that a person will speak the language they learn first better than languages they learn later, and that a person who learns a language later cannot speak it as well as a person who has learned the language as their first language. But it is clearly not necessarily true that the language a person learns first is the one they will always be best at . . .." (Andy Kirkpatrick, World Englishes: Implications for International Communication and English Language Teaching . Cambridge University Press, 2007)​

Native Language Acquisition

"A native language is generally the first one a child is exposed to. Some early studies referred to the process of learning one's first or native language as First Language Acquisition or FLA , but because many, perhaps most, children in the world are exposed to more than one language almost from birth, a child may have more than one native language. As a consequence, specialists now prefer the term native language acquisition (NLA); it is more accurate and includes all sorts of childhood situations." (Fredric Field, Bilingualism in the USA: The Case of the Chicano-Latino Community . John Benjamins, 2011)

Language Acquisition and Language Change

"Our native language is like a second skin, so much a part of us we resist the idea that it is constantly changing, constantly being renewed. Though we know intellectually that the English we speak today and the English of Shakespeare's time are very different, we tend to think of them as the same--static rather than dynamic." (Casey Miller and Kate Swift, The Handbook of Nonsexist Writing , 2nd ed. iUniverse, 2000) "Languages change because they are used by human beings, not machines. Human beings share common physiological and cognitive characteristics, but members of a speech community differ slightly in their knowledge and use of their shared language. Speakers of different regions, social classes, and generations use language differently in different situations ( register variation). As children acquire their native language , they are exposed to this synchronic variation within their language. For example, speakers of any generation use more and less formal language depending on the situation. Parents (and other adults) tend to use more informal language to children. Children may acquire some informal features of the language in preference to their formal alternatives, and incremental changes in the language (tending toward greater informality) accumulate over generations. (This may help explain why each generation seems to feel that following generations are ruder and less eloquent , and are corrupting the language!) When a later generation acquires an innovation in the language introduced by a previous generation, the language changes." (Shaligram Shukla and Jeff Connor-Linton, "Language Change." An Introduction to Language And Linguistics , ed. by Ralph W. Fasold and Jeff Connor-Linton. Cambridge University Press, 2006)

Margaret Cho on Her Native Language

"It was hard for me to do the show [ All-American Girl ] because a lot of people didn't even understand the concept of Asian-American. I was on a morning show, and the host said, 'Awright, Margaret, we're changing over to an ABC affiliate! So why don't you tell our viewers in your native language that we're making that transition?' So I looked at the camera and said, 'Um, they're changing over to an ABC affiliate.'" (Margaret Cho, I Have Chosen to Stay and Fight . Penguin, 2006)

Joanna Czechowska on Reclaiming a Native Language

"As a child growing up in Derby [England] in the 60s I spoke Polish beautifully, thanks to my grandmother. While my mother went out to work, my grandmother, who spoke no English, looked after me, teaching me to speak her native tongue . Babcia, as we called her, dressed in black with stout brown shoes, wore her grey hair in a bun, and carried a walking stick.

"But my love affair with Polish culture began to fade when I was five--the year Babcia died. "My sisters and I continued to go to Polish school, but the language would not return. Despite the efforts of my father, even a family trip to Poland in 1965 could not bring it back. When six years later my father died too, at just 53, our Polish connection almost ceased to exist. I left Derby and went to university in London. I never spoke Polish, never ate Polish food nor visited Poland. My childhood was gone and almost forgotten. "Then in 2004, more than 30 years later, things changed again. A new wave of Polish immigrants had arrived and I began to hear the language of my childhood all around me--every time I got on a bus. I saw Polish newspapers in the capital and Polish food for sale in the shops. The language sounded so familiar yet somehow distant--as if it were something I tried to grab but was always out of reach.

"I began to write a novel [ The Black Madonna of Derby ] about a fictional Polish family and, at the same time, decided to enroll at a Polish language school.

"Each week I went through half-remembered phrases, getting bogged down in the intricate grammar and impossible inflections . When my book was published, it put me back in touch with school friends who like me were second-generation Polish. And strangely, in my language classes, I still had my accent and I found words and phrases would sometimes come unbidden, long lost speech patterns making a sudden reappearance. I had found my childhood again."

Joanna Czechowska, "After My Polish Grandmother Died, I Did Not Speak Her Native Language for 40 Years." The Guardian , July 15, 2009

Margaret Cho,  I Have Chosen to Stay and Fight . Penguin, 2006

Shaligram Shukla and Jeff Connor-Linton, "Language Change."  An Introduction to Language And Linguistics , ed. by Ralph W. Fasold and Jeff Connor-Linton. Cambridge University Press, 2006

Casey Miller and Kate Swift,  The Handbook of Nonsexist Writing , 2nd ed. iUniverse, 2000

Fredric Field,  Bilingualism in the USA: The Case of the Chicano-Latino Community . John Benjamins, 2011

Andy Kirkpatrick,  World Englishes: Implications for International Communication and English Language Teaching . Cambridge University Press, 2007

• Native Speaker - Definition and Examples in English
• Overgeneralization Definition and Examples
• What Is a Second Language (L2)?
• What Does it Mean to Have English as a Native Language?
• What Is a Pidgin?
• Cooperative Overlap in Conversation
• English as a Lingua Franca (ELF)
• Diglossia in Sociolinguistics
• Nigerian English
• Get the Definition of Mother Tongue Plus a Look at Top Languages
• What Does Language Planning Mean?
• Definition and Examples of Language Contact
• What Is Semantic Change in English Grammar?
• The "Inner Circle" of the English Language
• Language Acquisition in Children
• Majority Language

‘Native Speakers’ and Native-speakerism

• First Online: 03 July 2020

Cite this chapter

• Robert J. Lowe   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2411-0330 19  

Part of the book series: English Language Education ((ELED,volume 19))

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This chapter discusses some of the major literature surrounding the concept of the ‘native speaker’, and investigates the ways in which the ‘native speaker’ has been conceptualized historically in both theoretical linguistics and applied linguistics. Following this, the chapter explores the concept of ‘native-speakerism’, focusing on the role the ideology plays in global ELT and describing some of the professional issues it causes. Particularly, its effects on the lives of language teachers, the design and development of materials, the privileging of Western models of English and of Western-developed English language teaching methodologies, and the Othering of students. This chapter also looks at recent approaches to the concept of native-speakerism, and examines how cultural resistance has been enacted against the ideology by those involved in English language learning and teaching.

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While I refer to native-speakerism as an ideology in this critical sense, in Chap. 3 when describing the relationship between frames and ideology in general I intend a broader reading of the term.

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Lowe, R.J. (2020). ‘Native Speakers’ and Native-speakerism. In: Uncovering Ideology in English Language Teaching. English Language Education, vol 19. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46231-4_2

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Hate Speech

Hate speech is a concept that many people find intuitively easy to grasp, while at the same time many others deny it is even a coherent concept. A majority of developed, democratic nations have enacted hate speech legislation—with the contemporary United States being a notable outlier—and so implicitly maintain that it is coherent, and that its conceptual lines can be drawn distinctly enough. Nonetheless, the concept of hate speech does indeed raise many difficult questions: What does the ‘hate’ in hate speech refer to? Can hate speech be directed at dominant groups, or is it by definition targeted at oppressed or marginalized communities? Is hate speech always ‘speech’? What is the harm or harms of hate speech? And, perhaps most challenging of all, what can or should be done to counteract hate speech?

In part because of these complexities, hate speech has spawned a vast and interdisciplinary literature. Legal scholars, philosophers, sociologists, anthropologists, political theorists, historians, and other academics have each approached the topic with exceeding interest. In this current article, however, we cannot hope to cover how these many disciplines have engaged with the concept of hate speech. Here, we will focus most explicitly on how hate speech has been taken up within philosophy, with particular emphasis on issues such as: how to define hate speech; what are the plausible harms of hate speech; how an account of hate speech might include both overt expressions of hate (e.g., the vitriolic use of slurs) as well as more covert, implicit utterances (e.g., dogwhistles); the relationship between hate speech and silencing; and what might we do to counteract hate speech.

1.1 The Harms of Hate Speech

2. religious hatred and anti-semitism, 3.2 dogwhistles and coded language, 4. pornography, hate speech, and silencing, 5.1 the case for bans, 5.2 objections to bans, and some responses, 5.3 the supported counterspeech alternative, other internet resources, related entries, 1. what is hate speech.

The term ‘hate speech’ is more than a descriptive concept used to identify a specific class of expressions. It also functions as an evaluative term judging its referent negatively and as a candidate for censure. Thus, defining this category carries serious implications. What is it that designates hate speech as a distinctive class of speech? Some claim the term ‘hate speech’ itself is misleading because it wrongly suggests “virulent dislike of a person for any reason” as a defining feature (Gelber 2017, 619). That is not, however, the way in which the term is understood among most legal theorists and philosophers. Perhaps it would be useful to start with some examples.

Bhikhu Parekh (2012) lists the following instances as examples different countries have either punished or sought to punish as hate speech:

• Shouting “[N-words] go home,” making monkey noises, and chanting racist slogans at soccer matches.
• “Islam out of Britain. Protect the British people.”
• “Arabs out of France.”
• “Serve your country, burn down a mosque.”
• “Blacks are inherently inferior, lecherous, predisposed to criminal activities, and should not be allowed to move into respectable areas.”
• “Jews are conspiratorial, devious, treacherous, sadistic, child killers, and subversive; want to take over the country; and should be carefully watched.”
• Distribution by a political party of leaflets addressed to “white fellow citizens” saying that, if it came to power, it would remove all Surinamese, Turks, and other “undesired aliens” from the Netherlands.
• A poster of a woman in a burka with text that reads: “Who knows what they have under their sinister and ugly looking clothes: stolen goods, guns, bombs even?”
• Speech that either denies or trivializes the holocaust or other crimes against humanity.

Robert Post’s four bases for defining hate speech might help us organize the features of Parekh’s list:

In law, we have to define hate speech carefully to designate the forms of the speech that will receive distinctive legal treatment. This is no easy task. Roughly speaking, we can define hate speech in terms of the harms it will cause—physical contingent harms like violence or discrimination; or we can define hate speech in terms of its intrinsic properties—the kinds of words it uses; or we can define hate speech in terms of its connection to principles of dignity; or we can define hate speech in terms of the ideas it conveys. Each of these definitions has advantages and disadvantages. Each intersects with the first amendment theory in a different way. In the end, any definition that we adopt must be justified on the ground that it will achieve the results we wish to achieve. (Herz and Molnar 2012, 31)

The four definitional bases are in terms of: (1) harm, (2) content, (3) intrinsic properties, i.e., the type of words used, and (4) dignity. One could also attempt a hybrid definition by combining the ways mentioned. But, as is made clear in Post’s remarks, definitions of this sort are relative to the interests of the definer; “We must evaluate the status of ‘hate speech’ so defined in order to determine whether it achieves what we wish to accomplish and whether the harms of the definition will outweigh its advantages” (Herz and Molnar 2012, 31). The upshot is a rejection of a univocal definition that captures “the essence” of hate speech as a phenomenon.

It is important to note that many definitions of hate speech will not fall squarely within the categories Post outlines. For instance, the UN’s International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination identifies hate speech both in terms of its content and its harmful consequences. Most definitions tend to characterize hate speech in multiple ways.

Harm-based definitions conceive of hate speech in terms of the harms to which targets are subjected. Things like discrimination or linguistic violence are candidates, though some (Gelber, 2017) argue that hate speech can harm one’s ability to participate in democratic deliberation. Susan Brison (1998a) offers a disjunctive definition that centers on a kind of abuse to targets. She defines hate speech as “speech that vilifies individuals or groups on the basis of such characteristics as race, sex, ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation, which (1) constitutes face-to-face vilification, (2) creates a hostile or intimidating environment, or (3) is a kind of group libel” (313). ‘Harm’ as used by Brison refers to what Joel Feinberg describes “as a wrongful setback to (or invasion of) someone’s interests” (Brison, 1998b, 42).

Perhaps an immediate reaction to disjunctive definitions of the sort Brison offers is skepticism about the definitiveness of the purported list. When we go to test the definition’s application, we invariably find contestable inclusions and exclusions. Recall the examples from Parekh at the start of this section. Something like “Arabs out of France” might be included as an instance of hate speech on Brison’s account on the grounds that it creates a hostile or intimidating environment. Should statements that communicate a similar message in a less abrasive manner also be included? Suppose “Only French Nationals should occupy France” is roughly equivalent content-wise to “Arabs out of France.” If the former is indeed a less abrasive presentation though communicating the same content as the latter, what are we to make of its status? Many will find the statement odious; many will not. And since it is certainly not a face-to-face vilification or form of group libel, classifying it as hate speech will depend on how likely it is to create an intimidating or hostile environment.

The previous objection might entice one to opt for a content-based view. Content-based views define hate speech as that which “expresses, encourages, stirs up, or incites hatred against a group of individuals distinguished by a particular feature or set of features such as race, ethnicity, gender, religion, nationality, and sexual orientation” (Parekh, 2012, 40). This version makes it easier to conceive of semantically equivalent statements that differ in manner of presentation as instances of hate speech.

Content-based accounts face the challenge of determining which contents meet this standard. If the content that distinguishes hate speech from other types of speech must express, encourage, or incite hatred towards groups or individuals based on certain features, then the proponent of this view will need an account of expression. Is the speech in view that which signals the presence of a particular mental state in the speaker (i.e., hate) or that which is likely to prime feelings of animosity in a specific audience?

Another issue facing content-based approaches concerns distinguishing between speech that “respects ‘the decencies of controversy’” and that “which is outrageous and therefore hate inducing” (Post, 2009, 128). The ability to express a wide range of views, even contentious ones, is a cherished aspect of democratic societies. Failure to observe this distinction would broaden the scope of what counts as hate speech perhaps too much. In order to make this distinction, one could follow Post in tying it to “ambient social norms” that distinguish outrageous and respectful behavior. One challenge though is in determining the content of those social norms. For instance, a minority group whose opinions have little impact on the makeup of norms are unjustifiably excluded from influencing the shape of their society’s civility norms.

Definitions of hate speech based on intrinsic properties generally refer to those that emphasize the type of the speech uttered. What is at issue is the use of speech widely known to instigate offense or insult among a majority of society. Explicitly derogatory expressions like slurs are paradigmatic examples of this type of view. In general, the type of speech identified on this account is inherently derogatory, discriminatory, or vilifying.

Though attractive at first glance, classifying hate speech along these lines might prove to fall short in two ways. First, defining hate speech in this way might be too constricting. Some of the examples in our initial list would seem not to count as hate speech since they arguably lack the intrinsic features. “Arabs out of France,” for example, does not contain explicitly slurring terms. And second, this definition might prove too expansive. In cases where slurs are reappropriated by members of the target group or where artists incorporate them into a creative work, it would appear odd to count these as instances of hate speech. The concern is tied specifically to locating the issue in the terms themselves, as opposed to the use to which the terms are put.

Perhaps a final challenge to intrinsic property views can be derived from the work of Judith Butler (1997). On Butler’s account, hate speech is a kind of performative that is “always delivered twice-removed, that is, through a theory of the speech act that has its own performative power” (96). More specifically, “[w]hat hate speech does … is to constitute the subject in a subordinate position” (19). Butler locates the trouble with hate speech in its perlocutionary effects, a concept introduced by J.L. Austin that refers to the effects a speech act can have on its audience. An example of a perlocutionary effect is feeling amused at a joke or frightened from the telling of a ghost story. Unlike with intrinsic property definitions, Butler shifts focus to the nature of the acts performed rather than the terms in use. (For a critical look at Butler’s account, see Schwartzman (2002).)

Lastly, dignity-based conceptions focus primarily on the role of harms to the dignity of targets of hate speech. For instance, both Steven Heyman (2008) and Jeremy Waldron (2014) appeal to dignity in their accounts. Broadly speaking, hate speech on this kind of conception amounts to speech that undermines its target’s “basic social standing, the basis of [their] recognition as social equals and as bearers of human rights and constitutional entitlements” (Waldron, 2014, 59). This conception of hate speech will also include characterizations in terms of group defamation or group libel. Section 130 of Germany’s penal code is an example of legislation that incorporates a dignity-based conception of hate speech, prohibiting “attacks on human dignity by insulting, maliciously maligning, or defaming part of the population” (see Waldron, 2014, 8).

Worries about application follow dignity-based conceptions as well. Firstly, there may be questions about how we, in particular instances, are to distinguish between false statements about a group as a whole and those about a particular member of a group (Brown, 2017a). Presumably, only the former is consistent with an understanding of hate speech as a group-based phenomenon. Secondly, an implication of the view appears to be that it expands the range of things that would count as hate speech. Any speech that calls into question the basic standing of certain groups falls under this notion, which may make it more difficult to distinguish between contentious political speech and hate speech.

Perhaps a lesson to draw from the profusion of disjunctive definitions is a general skepticism about a definitive description of hate speech. We might concur with Alexander Brown that ‘hate speech’ is an equivocal term denoting a family of meanings (Brown 2017b, 562). According to Brown, ‘hate speech’ isn’t just a term with contested meanings, but rather, it is “systematically ambiguous; which is to say, it carries a multiplicity of different meanings” (2017b, 564). Because the expression is what is typically referred to as an essentially contested term, the hunt for a univocal or universal definition is futile.

The harms that have been attributed to hate speech comprise a long and varied list, ranging from the immediate psychological harms experienced in the moment by the person(s) targeted by an instance of hate speech, to much more long-term impacts that affect not only those targeted but whole communities, and even the strength of an entire nation.

A distinction between “assaultive hate speech” and “propagandistic hate speech” is helpful when discussing these harms (Langton 2012; 2018a; see also Gelber and McNamara (2016) who discuss “face-to-face encounters” and “incidences of general circulation”). Hate speech yelled at an individual on the street, or from a passing car, is a face-to-face encounter, and an assaultive speech act. This is, moreover, most often inter-group hate speech, where the speaker(s) are, for example, white, and the targets are non-white. On the other hand, propagandistic hate speech is often intra-group speech, spoken by members of one group to fellow ingroup members (e.g., a white person to other white people). The newsletter of the KKK, therefore, would fit into this category.

While this distinction is helpful to keep in mind, it should also not be overstated. Summarizing the results of their study which surveyed the experiences of the victims of hate speech, Katharine Gelber and Luke McNamara conclude that “the distinction between face-to-face encounters and general circulation hate speech is not always clear in the everyday experiences of racism endured by targets” (2016, 326). Any one instance of hate speech might fall into both categories. For example, it may occur in its first instance as an assaultive speech act, and then reports of the event may then take on a propagandistic aspect, as it is spread among the community. Similarly, even if an instance of hate speech is intended as a piece of propaganda, it may, when encountered by a member of the community it disparages, be akin to assaultive speech.

Still, this distinction helps reveal the wide range of the types of speech acts that are plausibly harmful, and also offers insight into how they harm. For example, Waldron (2014) focuses mainly on hate speech in its propagandistic mode, which he argues undermines the public assurance of equal social standing that members of non-dominant communities are entitled to—in his terms, their assurance of dignity. On this view, public hate speech—e.g., flyers that read ‘Muslims Out!’—is “an environmental threat to social peace, a sort of slow-acting poison, accumulating here and there, word by word” (2014, 4). Its harm is therefore one that attacks the broader society, and not just individuals targeted by hate speech.

On the other hand, the essays in the classic Words that Wound tend to focus more on what its authors term “assaultive speech,” that is, “words that are used as weapons to ambush, terrorize, wound, humiliate, and degrade” (Matsuda et al. 1993, 1). This leads them to focus more on hate speech’s ability to produce “direct, immediate, and substantial injury” (Lawrence, 1993, 57), such as “immediate mental or emotional distress” (Delgado, 1993, 93–94). On this approach, the most evident harms of hate speech are psychological. These psychological injuries scale up, however, when hate speech is endemic, and so result in the types of community or social harms highlighted by authors like Waldron. For this reason, the distinction between these approaches may be thought of as more a matter of emphasis.

This relationship between individual harms and broader social harms is also evident once we acknowledge the long-term effects of hate speech on victims, in addition to its more immediate impacts (Delgado and Stefancic, 2004, 14). Victims of hate speech may first experience “psychological symptoms and emotional distress” like heightened stress and fear in the immediate aftermath of assaultive hate speech, but they may also experience far-ranging consequences if they “modify their behavior and demeanor” to avoid receiving further hate messages, limiting their ability to participate fully in society (Matsuda, 1993, 24). Gelber and McNamara’s interview subjects confirm this complex web of effects that hate speech may cause, highlighting how “harms are often enduring and not ephemeral” (2016, 336). In this way, hate speech is both an immediate attack on one’s health and dignity, along with a threat to their community’s position in society. The cumulative effect of hate speech events, therefore, is a collection of harms located both in individuals and communities, which blurs the distinction between assaultive and propagandistic hate speech events.

Constitutive and Consequential Harms

Another distinction which is similarly helpful, but also fraught, is the distinction between constitutive and consequential harms—that is, harms that occur in the saying of some utterance of hate speech, and those that are its downstream results (see Maitra and McGowan, 2012, 6). This distinction draws on the speech act theory of J.L. Austin (1962) and has served an important role in the examination of hate speech from feminist philosophers of language (see, e.g., Langton, 1993; 2012; Maitra and McGowan, 2012; Maitra, 2012; McGowan, 2004; 2009; 2012; 2019; and others). Constitutive harms are those that correspond to what Austin called the illocutionary act , the act performed in saying X , while consequential harms correspond to perlocutionary effects , the results brought about by saying X . Most (though not all) of the harms surveyed above comprise consequential harms, as items such as psychological injury, feelings of fear, and societal withdrawal all most naturally fall into the perlocutionary effects category.

However, philosophers have also drawn attention to how hate speech can injure in a different way by indirectly affecting the positions of the social groups targeted by hate in a social hierarchy. That is, “by fixing facts about the distribution of social power, including facts about who has this power, and who lacks it” hate speech harms in a way not captured in the above account of individual injuries and their cumulative effects (Maitra and McGowan, 2012, 7). This is an immediate harm that occurs in the saying of the speech act, which (given appropriate circumstances and uptake) produces a shift in the normative landscape. It is in this way that an instance of hate speech may not only cause the injuries surveyed above but may also, for example, rank Indigenous Peoples as inferior, legitimate discriminatory behavior towards them (perhaps via incitement), or potentially silence them. (We return to the notion of silencing as an illocutionary harm of hate speech in Section 4 below.)

One reason to direct our attention towards the constitutive harms of hate speech is its potential to productively advance the debate over the legitimacy of potential restrictions. Mary Kate McGowan (2009) has made this case most explicitly. “Rather than focus on what a certain category of speech causes,” she writes, we ought to be “interested in what such speech actually does, in and of itself” (2009, 389–90). The idea here is that by focusing only on the harms caused by hate speech, we are inevitably drawn into a debate about balancing the costs and benefits of permitting or regulating speech, which often leads to an impasse. Alternatively, turning our attention to the acts hate speech constitutes can reveal features that help us avoid question of balancing harms, and opens the door to regulation. On this approach, some instances of hate speech can be seen to constitute acts of (verbal) discrimination, and should be considered analogous to other acts of discrimination—like posting a ‘Whites Only’ sign up at a hotel—that US law recognizes as illegal. As a speech act, hate speech can enact discriminatory rules in much the same way the physical sign does, and so ought to similarly be restricted (McGowan, 2012). This argument proceeds by a development of Austin’s notion of “exercitives,” which are speech acts that enact rules in a given domain, and is one example of the fruitful use of speech act theory to the philosophy of hate speech.

At the same time, however, it’s worth acknowledging that the distinction that this analysis relies on—between illocutionary acts and perlocutionary effects—is one that some argue is untenable (for one example, see Kukla, 2014). As illocutionary acts are indeterminate or incomplete without some form of audience uptake, it is difficult to articulate precisely how we ought to distinguish a speech act’s effects from its inherent qualities. Furthermore, the testimonials of victims of hate speech “suggests that there is a close and complex relationship between constitutive and consequential harms, and the harms are experienced cumulatively” (Gelber and McNamara 2016, 336–37). As such, any attempt to draw too neat of a distinction between these two types of harm risks misrepresenting victims’ experiences, and might tie the attempt to restrict hate speech unhelpfully to a philosophically contested distinction.

As a result, some caution must be applied when marking too stark of a contrast between these harms. Much like the distinction between assaultive and propagandistic hate speech, then, we can consider the distinction between consequential and constitutive harms to be analytically helpful in exploring the variety of harms attributable to hate speech, while recognizing that it is at the same time an abstraction from the on-the-ground realities of hate speech.

Religious belief is sometimes the source of putative cases of hate speech, and sometimes its target. In both cases, assessing the conceptual addition of religion to hate speech is a difficult task. Speech rooted in religious conviction is sometimes subjected to scrutiny to determine whether instances should count as hate speech or not. For instance, the Westboro Baptist Church’s demonstrations often make use of slurs and other explicitly defamatory language. This is an extreme case, which can be accommodated by extant hate speech legislation. Other cases, however, involve religious leaders making contentious statements—for instance, questioning the legitimacy or recognition of LGBT+ individuals, while claiming these are statements of love, not hate. Questions about religious speech of this sort concern whether it is simply contentious speech liberal democratic societies must tolerate or speech that runs afoul of deeply held norms that ought to be proscribed.

Some wonder whether religious sensibilities should be afforded special protection from offense. Amnon Reichman (2009), for instance, notes that some Israeli scholars have argued that providing special protection for religious beliefs is a good idea “so as not to push [religious] believers into having to choose between the authority of the state and the authority of their religion (namely, the authority of God)” (338). This relies on an assumption that religion is an institutionalized normative regime in competition with a legal regime where clashes over religious beliefs threaten the social fabric of society. It is in turn prudent to mitigate such clashes in order to avoid situations of unrest like the incidents involving comedic cartoons of Mohammed in the Dutch newspaper Jyllands-Posten and the French publication Charlie Hebdo .

It is not clear, however, that religious beliefs warrant special protection over other forms of belief that may be just as strongly held. Clashes over deeply held political beliefs can pose a similar threat to the social fabric as religious beliefs. Thus, there is no reason to think the same concern should not apply quite broadly. Providing certain types of speech special protection on these grounds would threaten to introduce quite repressive legislation on speech in general.

Holocaust denial, denial of the Armenian Genocide, and the denial of other crimes against humanity have also been the subject of special legislation, especially in Europe. As Michael Whine (2009) notes, 16 European states, as well as Israel, have criminalized Holocaust denial (543). In these contexts, at least one rationale for banning speech that denies or trivializes the Holocaust concerns its role in inciting hatred (Altman, 2012). One possible justification for such legislation rests on claims about what denial speech is. According to Martin Imbleau (2011), denial speech poses as an historical endeavor but is really propaganda. The denier’s aim is to “eradicate the awareness of the truth that prevents the resurgence of past criminal ideologies” (2011, 238). But if this is the rationale, it potentially opens up justifications for much broader application since similar claims might be made of other forms of propaganda. (For a general overview on Holocaust denial, see Robert Wistrich (2012) and Behrens et. al (2017).)

3. Slurs, Code Words, and Dogwhistles

As Parekh, Brison, and others have noted, hate speech can be expressed both explicitly and subtly. We can identify a few different expression-types that map onto the explicit and subtle instances, i.e., slurs , code words , and dogwhistles . The subtler forms may fall outside the scope of narrower conceptions of hate speech.

Perhaps the type of expression most often cited as the paradigm case of hate speech is slurs. Slurs are typically characterized as a type of insult that targets race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, ability, politics, immigrant status, geographic region, and other categories. Much of the literature on slurs focuses primarily on the semantic and pragmatic properties of this linguistic class, with the expectation that such analyses also provide an account of how they in fact derogate their targets. There are, of course, competing accounts, some of which may be better suited than others for the purposes of legal and ordinary concepts of hate speech.

Before delving into competing accounts, it is good to put a working definition of ‘slur’ on the table. Typically, slurs are understood as conventionalized ways of demeaning and derogating individuals or groups of individuals and are contrasted with a co-referring neutral counterpart (Jeshion, 2013a; 2013b; Camp, 2013; Cepollaro, 2015). For instance, the following differ in regard to offense but are otherwise taken to make similar claims,

For many, (3.1) is regarded as offensive whereas (3.2) is simply a descriptive statement. The expression ‘cracker’ in (3.1) is a slur, while ‘white people’ in (3.2) is its purported neutral counterpart.

Though there seems to be widespread consensus that slurs have or could have neutral counterparts, not everyone shares this sentiment. Lauren Ashwell (2016), for example, denies that neutral counterparts (which she refers to as ‘neutral correlates’) play an essential role in identifying slurs. Ashwell claims that gendered slurs like ‘bitch,’ ‘slut,’ and ‘sissy’ derogate in ways similar to racial and ethnic slurs like ‘n***er,’ ‘k*ke,’ ‘cracker,’ and ‘sp*c,’ yet lack neutral counterparts. As a result, a definition need not include reference to neutral counterparts. In fact, making neutral counterparts central to defining slurs renders one incapable of accounting for terms that function similarly to slurs yet lack this purportedly central feature.

Ashwell makes a compelling case for the claim that gendered slurs lack neutral counterparts. Her larger claim that counterparts’ inessentiality for defining slurs has implications for pragmatic and semantic accounts that are also worth taking seriously. According to Ashwell, both sorts of accounts depend on the existence of neutral counterparts in their explanations of slurs.

Existing pragmatic accounts of slurs’ derogating capabilities are in particular trouble, for they tend to hold that a slur’s semantic contribution to a sentence is identical to the contribution that its neutral correlate would have had if it were used instead. This kind of account also leaves open the possibility that the slur could be sanitized—cleansed of its derogatory aspect—without semantic meaning change. … Existing semantic accounts, however, are not much better off—they are also structured to require the existence of a neutral correlate. (2016, 229)

For Ashwell, pragmatic and semantic accounts of slurs structurally require neutral counterparts, and so simply cannot jettison them. One response proponents of these kinds of accounts could give is that the gendered insults Ashwell highlights might exhibit properties that call their status as slurs into question. It could be open to these theorists to suggest that the terms they have identified as a matter of fact do carry neutral counterparts, that this is part of what distinguishes them as a class. And while the expressions Ashwell identifies seem to pattern in some ways like slurs, they also exhibit features that make them dissimilar. Thus, there is no need to wedge all insulting expressions into one class; there is room to expand our classifications in a way that preserves clarity.

Another important issue about slurs is their power to offend. Part of what makes them prime candidates for paradigmatic instances of hate speech is a widespread belief in their offensive potency. Indeed, much of the literature on slurs simply assumes they are offensive without offering much (if any) defense of that claim. It is not always clear whether the reader is supposed to understand offense as the provocation of a disliked mental state or as the violation of widely-accepted public norms.

Renée Bolinger (2017) discusses three ways to understand the claim that slurs are offensive:

• An audience actually took offense at a slurring utterance;
• The utterance warranted offense;
• Whether or not offense was warranted, it was rational for the audience to take offense.

The sense of ‘offense’ in (1) tracks how audiences actually respond at the moment of utterance. This could not be the sense in which offense is understood for at least two reasons. First, doing so would make the claim ‘slurs are offensive’ too strong. Since we would be tracking cases of actual offense, we would be focusing on particular uses of slurs, explaining what makes those utterances offensive rather than explicating the offensiveness of a linguistic class. As a result, the most natural interpretation of the claim would be that slurring utterances are invariably offensive, i.e., the use of slurs always provokes disliked mental states.

This, of course, raises a couple of questions. To begin with, does the strong claim deny the existence of non-offensive slur uses? Given things like linguistic reappropriation, some instances of indirect reports, and even instances of direct reports—especially by members of the slur’s targeted group—in which it is possible to utter slurs without provoking a disliked mental state in the speaker’s audience, the claim is obviously false. Further, there are also questions about who constitutes the audience . Is the relevant audience the one intended by the speaker? Everyone who witnesses the utterance? Only those who are present in the utterance situation? Because the claim must now be understood to be about particular slur utterances rather than the linguistic type, the claim must reflect the diversity of reactions provoked by different tokenings of slurs. A second reason is related to the questions about the audience: does everyone in the audience have to be offended, or is it sufficient if one, some, or a few are? What is the scope of the claim with respect to offended reactions? The answers to these questions will likely render the strong version of the claim untenable and weaker versions suspect. Thus, it is probably not the sense of ‘offense’ one should start with.

The sense expressed in (2) concerns moral justification for taking offense. Bolinger identifies three grounds for warranted offense at an utterance: intention, inappropriateness, and associations. A speaker may intend to offend, often doing so with expressions that are taboo, and thus considered inappropriate. Vulgar expletives like ‘fuck,’ ‘dick,’ or ‘shithead’ are typically viewed as inappropriate terms, at least in certain “polite” settings. Some expressions, like slurs, are not only inappropriate, but also carry associated attitudes and/or practices that amplify their offense. The swastika and confederate flag, for example, are both deeply associated with oppressive and genocidal practices towards Jewish people and African Americans, respectively.

This sense of offense still concerns one’s response to something, though it is not simply about how one reacts but one’s warrant to do so: “An utterance may warrant, but fail to actually generate offense merely because either there is no hearer, or the hearer fails to find the utterance offensive (perhaps because she shares the offensive attitude, fails to take it seriously, or misinterprets the utterance)” (Bolinger, 2017, 441). Bolinger notes that the associational offense category in particular is the one that is often the subject of hate crime legislation (ibid., 442). Such terms are often backed by formal social institutions, “adequately visible practices,” or a combination of both.

In (3), Bolinger uses ‘rational’ or ‘license’ to refer to the epistemic justification an audience has in taking offense at a slurring utterance. Here a gap opens up between what an audience member may be warranted in taking offense at as opposed to when it may be rational to do so. For instance, if a non-native speaker used a slur to refer to someone and we come to find out they were ignorant of the expression’s status as a slur, the target would still have been rational to take offense even if unwarranted. Undoubtedly, any of the three senses discussed may factor into an explanation of a given slur’s offense. However, theories of slurs are more appropriately aimed at capturing warranted and rational offense.

Consider again the following pair of statements:

The most straightforward explanation of the difference between (3.1) and (3.2) is that ‘cracker’ differs in some semantic respect from ‘white people’. Two of the most well-known versions of this approach are from Chris Hom (2008) and Elisabeth Camp (2013). On Hom’s account, ‘cracker’ as opposed to ‘white people,’ contains derogatory content. Slurs’ derogatory content is determined by the social institutions that undergird them, which consists of two components: an ideology and a set of practices . Hom defines an ideology as “a set of (usually) negative beliefs about a particular group of people” (431). As for the set of practices, these are racist practices that “can range from impolite social treatment to genocide” (ibid.). The two components combine to produce slurs’ semantic content, which contains a normative claim about the way individuals ought to be treated, because of possessing certain characteristics in virtue of being a member of an identifiable social group. (For alternative accounts of the relationship between slurs and ideology, see Kukla (2018) and Swanson (2015, Other Internet Resources).)

The pair of sentences in the example used here is illustrative of an observation many will have noticed when considering different examples. The slur in (3.1) is typically experienced as less offensive than ones that target members of marginalized groups. Language users recognize variation in offensive potency among slurs, some being more offensive than others. Hom refers to this as derogatory variation . Difference in the virulence of those backing racist institutions explains variation in offense on Hom’s account. Thus, ‘cracker’ is less offensive than slurs like ‘n***er,’ ‘sp*c,’ and ‘f*g’ because the racist and homophobic institutions backing them are much more virulent. (One might also wonder if there is any racist institution backing slurs for members of dominant groups at all.)

One objection raised against Hom’s view is that the semantic content he proposes of slurs is overwrought (Jeshion, 2013b). Robin Jeshion argues that Hom’s view “attributes highly specific sets of ideologies and modes of treating the group, yet it is doubtful that anything so semantically rich and well defined is semantically encoded in the slur” (318). That is, it is doubtful the racist means anything this racialized. Jeshion denies that slurs express anything as robust as Hom claims.

Camp offers an alternative semantic account in which slurs bear a close relationship to a perspective , which are “open-ended ways of thinking, feeling, and more generally engaging with the world and certain parts thereof” (2013, 335–336). According to Camp, a speaker’s slur use “signals a commitment to an overarching perspective on the targeted group as a whole” (ibid., 337). The perspective is a negative one that highlights certain characteristics or properties specifically associated with particular groups, ones that are presumed to warrant certain affective and evaluative responses.

What makes slurring perspectives a semantic feature for Camp is that they do not “merely signal … allegiance to a certain perspective,” but do so “in an overt and nondefeasible way, precisely in virtue of employing that expression” (ibid., 340). The use of a slur inserts a willful and noncancelable way of thinking about the target into a conversation. This is codified in the expression itself, and not something audiences “figure out” through the use of pragmatic mechanisms. This appears to be bolstered by the fact that one typically cannot erase a slur’s derogation by following up with a statement intending to do so, e.g.,

The tension of the contrast is one an audience might generally think finds its source in the meaning of the slur itself, rather than from features that emerge from the way language is used in a particular context. Further, as we saw in Jeshion’s objection to Hom’s view, the information slurs manage to convey isn’t very specific. This point is consistent with the open-ended nature of the perspectives Camp associates with slurs.

Though Camp’s account represents a marked improvement, critics still see shortcomings they believe should give us pause. Geoff Nunberg (2018), for instance, argues that Camp’s characterization of perspectives is too vague to capture the more specific colorings of slurs for specific groups: “Whatever distinguishes redskin from injun or nigger from coon , it’s more precise and richer than simply a disposition to think about the referents in certain ways” (Nunberg, 2018, 260–261). According to Nunberg, what is central for how slurs work is not the perspective the user employs to think about their target, but the allegiance it signals to a group or community disposed to think negatively of the target.

To take an obvious case, when you call a woman a shiksa you’re not just allying yourself with a disposition to think about gentile women in certain ways, but with the people who have that disposition. That group affiliation is primary and prior to the perspective it evokes: you can use shiksa appropriately without having any specific views of gentile women at all, but not without identifying with Jews. (ibid., 261)

For some theorists, the accounts offered by Hom and Camp leave out what they regard as an important aspect of slurring, namely, the role attitudinal expression plays in their derogatory power. These views agree that the difference between slurs and their purported counterparts is located in the realm of semantics; the previous accounts just leave out an important aspect. Jeshion (2013a) identifies three components of slurs’ semantics: (i) a truth-conditional component, (ii) an expressivist component, and (iii) an identifying component. The truth-conditional component of slurs corresponds to the same group referenced by its purported neutral counterpart. The expressivist component captures slurs’ ability to express contempt towards members of socially relevant groups in virtue of their group membership. Finally, the identifying component ascribes a property to the group that is seen as central to its identity. Mark Richard (2010) also proposes a view in which negative attitudes are included in the explanation of what slurs express. Jeshion and Richard’s accounts are typically referred to as expressivist views.

One issue expressivist views have been thought to have trouble with is derogatory variation . Derogatory variation refers to the sociolinguistic datum that slurs vary in their offensive potency. If we represent degrees of offense on a scale, slurs like ‘n***er’ and ‘k*ke’ are higher up on the scale than slurs like ‘cracker’ and ‘wop.’ Expressivist views have typically attributed one sort of attitude to slurs— contempt —which seems inadequate to capture the complexity of their offense profiles. For instance, consider co-referring slurs that vary in offense. Expressivist accounts appear to lack the resources to account for this variation. Thus, expressivism fails as an account of slurs for this reason.

Jeshion (2013a) attempts to answer this objection by arguing that her expressivist view “is only incompatible with versions of derogatory variation that stipulate that the variation derives from the semantics” (243). Jeshion maintains that focusing on slurring terms rather than particular utterances of those terms causes us to reflect on various factors at play that contribute to their power to offend. In effect, such focusing obscures the various factors brought to bear on judgments of offensiveness. Thus, Jeshion claims we ought to think our intuitive judgments about varying offense support the following thesis:

Derogatory Variation-Utterance : Utterances of different slurring terms engender different degrees of intensity of offensiveness. (2013a, 244)

Jeshion argues that this thesis is compatible with her account because weaponized uses of slurs are offensive for several reasons: semantic, pragmatic, sociocultural, and historical. As a result, there should be no expectation that a semantic view like hers need explain derogatory variation semantically.

Inferentialism describes slurs in terms of the kinds of inferences they license. Proponents of this kind of view include Robert Brandom (1994), Michael Dummett (1993), Lynne Tirrell (1999) and Daniel Whiting (2008). Tirrell, for instance, remarks that the “meaning of a word or expression is a matter of its various actual and possible sentential roles” (1999, 46). In characterizing the meaning of the now-outdated slur ‘boche,’ Dummett remarks,

The condition for applying the term to someone is that he is of German nationality; the consequences of its application are that he is barbarous and more prone to cruelty than other Europeans. We should envisage the connections in both directions as sufficiently tight as to be involved in the very meaning of the word: neither could be severed without altering its meaning. (1993, 454)

On Dummett’s account, to know the meaning of ‘boche’ is to make the inference from the referent being German to his being barbarous and more prone to cruelty than other Europeans.

Inferentialism also has its challenges. Timothy Williamson (2009), for example, opposes inferentialism by charging that it has difficulty explaining how non-bigots, who are not disposed to draw negative inferences, still understand their use. “We find racist and xenophobic abuse offensive because we understand it, not because we fail to do so” (257). We should note the inferentialist is not without resources to respond to Williamson’s charge. For example, Brandom’s (1994) inferentialism determines understanding in terms of grasping the broad network of inferential connections in which an expression is situated. An important implication is thought to be that different speakers will understand the expression similarly while associating it with different inferential roles, escaping Williamson’s charge that one must be disposed to draw slurring inferences to understand the term (see Steinberger and Murzi, 2017). However, Brandom’s view is itself controversial (For further objections to inferentialism, see Anderson and Lepore (2013b); Hornsby (2001).)

The last view we mention here is a stark alternative to the previous accounts, opting for a socioculturally-driven explanation. According to Luvell Anderson and Ernie Lepore, slurs are prohibited expressions whose tokenings provoke offense from those who value and respect their prohibitions: “What’s clear is that no matter what its history, no matter what it means or communicates, no matter who introduces it, regardless of its past associations, once relevant individuals declare a word a slur, it becomes one ” (2013a, 39). The prohibition is meant to apply not only to uses but mentions of expressions as well, including direct and indirect reports.

One objection raised against prohibitionism comes from Camp (2018). Camp asserts that though the view is simple and powerful, “it threatens to work too well” by failing to account for some complexities. In particular, Camp claims “slur’s truth-assessibility and projective behavior are more variable than [prohibitionism] predicts” (2018, 33). She believes, for instance, that it is sometimes easy to “quarantine” a slur’s offensiveness within a report like,

John thinks that the s**cs will have taken over the whole neighborhood in another couple years. But of course, I think it’s great that we’re developing such a vibrant Latino community.

The offense of the slur in this statement is judged to be relativized to John rather than the person reporting it.

Which view of slurs one adopts has implications for how one conceives of their harm. For instance, adopting a content-based view of slurs may encourage one to adopt a content-based definition of hate speech, which suggests that the harm produced is in the message being communicated. Adopting an expressivist view, on the other hand, could lead one to lean more towards an intrinsic property account. (For further alternative accounts to the ones mentioned in this section, see Popa-Wyatt & Wyatt (2017), Bach (2018), Croom (2011), Kirk-Giannini (2019), and Neufeld (2019).)

In addition to slurs, which are explicitly derogatory, researchers have also focused on more implicit forms of derogatory communication. Tali Mendelberg (2001), Ian Haney Lopez (2015), Jennifer Saul (2018) and Justin Khoo (2017) detail the use of racially coded language— dogwhistles— to access existing racial resentment while making surreptitious racial appeals. Saul provides a useful set of distinctions for thinking about dogwhistles: they can be explicit or implicit , and further, intentional or unintentional . Saul uses the work of linguist Kimberly Witten to define an overt intentional dogwhistle as,

a speech act designed, with intent, to allow two plausible interpretations, with one interpretation being a private, coded message targeted for a subset of the general audience, and concealed in such a way that this general audience is unaware of the existence of the second, coded interpretation. (2018, 362)

Saul illustrates this kind of dogwhistle with an example from George W. Bush’s 2003 State of the Union speech:

The phrase ‘wonder-working power’ is meant as an overt intentional dogwhistle for Evangelical Christians. According to Saul, there are two possible messages Evangelicals can take away from Bush’s utterance. The first message is simply a translation:

Yes there’s power, the power of Christ, in the goodness and idealism and faith of the American people. (362)

The second message is that Bush identifies with them, that he speaks their language. Saul thinks both are instances of overt intentional dogwhistles.

A covert dogwhistle, according to Saul, is “a dogwhistle that people fail to consciously recognize” (2018, 365). She is particularly interested in how covert intentional dogwhistles work in tandem with what psychologists have referred to as racial resentment , a belief system that is measured by the degree to which participants agree to the following four claims:

• Blacks no longer face much discrimination;
• Their disadvantage mainly reflects their poor work ethic;
• They are demanding too much too fast;
• They have gotten more than they deserve. (2018, 364 quoting Tesler & Sears 2010, 18)

According to Mendelberg, racial resentment remains widespread among white Americans even though explicitly racist appeals have come to be viewed as outside the bounds of acceptable political speech. (At least, that seemed to be the case up until the 2016 presidential election cycle.) White voters, on this model, tend to shy away from accepting explicitly racist proposals because they do not want to think of themselves as racist. The existence of racial resentment allows for the skilled intentional use of utterances that are unrelated to race on the surface yet access negative racial attitudes in a targeted audience, nudging them towards a particular course of action--e.g., voting for a preferred candidate.

An example of a covert intentional dogwhistle is the infamous Willie Horton ad used by the George H. W. Bush campaign in 1988. The ad targeted a prison furlough program in place during Michael Dukakis’s term as governor of Massachusetts. It presented a picture of Horton, an African American man, who while out on furlough raped a white woman and stabbed her husband. Though there was no explicit mention of race, it was clear to many that the ad drew on racial tropes about Blackness and criminality to stoke fear in white voters. In support of the interpretation that this was a covert dogwhistle, Saul notes that once the specter of race was raised about the ad, its effectiveness started to wane (2018, 366). The implication is that while the explicit appeal to racial resentment was a losing strategy, implicit appeal in the form of covert dogwhistles could be put to powerful use.

The unintentional dogwhistle is defined as an “unwitting use of words and/or images that, used intentionally, constitute an intentional dogwhistle, where this use has the same effect as an intentional dogwhistle” (2018, 368). Dogwhistles of this sort are passed on by unwitting others while achieving similar effects of the original intentional one. A special case of unintentional dogwhistles, what Saul calls amplifier dogwhistles , occurred when reporters and TV producers played the Willie Horton ad repeatedly. Presumably, the repeated presentations continued to make the associations between Blackness and criminality and, thus, continued to stoke fear and racial anxiety in significant portions of the white viewing public. For Saul, dogwhistles are therefore best understood functionally, and the difference in speaker-intentions between intentional and unintentional dogwhistles matters only insofar as we define them—their effects, in other words, are often identical.

The use of implicit means like dogwhistling—in both its covert and overt forms—can make the conceptualization and detection of hate speech more difficult. Undoubtedly, this poses a challenge for defining hate speech since dogwhistles are often designed to be innocuous. But what is it that explains the effects often attributed to dogwhistles? That is, how is it possible for language to work in this way?

Perhaps there is good reason to think something about dogwhistles’ meaning explains their effects. Consider, first, an ambiguity thesis that states code words have at least two meanings, a racial and a non-racial meaning. The expression ‘inner city’ in

purportedly expresses two meanings: (i) densely populated, high crime, urban areas, or (ii) poor African American (Khoo, 2017, 40). An ambiguous expression can be used in an utterance to produce a statement that leaves undetermined which interpretation is intended by the speaker.

One worry, however, is that terms like ‘inner city’ are not actually ambiguous. Khoo argues these terms do not behave like genuinely ambiguous expressions. Compare the following two sentences,

A reading of (3.6) is supposed to sound coherent given that ‘funny’ can mean ‘humorous’ or ‘strange’ whereas (3.7) is supposed to sound odd, even contradictory. If ‘inner-city’ were genuinely ambiguous in the way described above, we should be able to use it to mean ‘African American’ and get a coherent reading of (3.7).

A second view posits two dimensions of meaning for code words, at-issue and not-at-issue content. At-issue content is the main point of a speaker’s utterance, the directly asserted content that is foregrounded whereas not-at-issue content is projective , meaning it is able to survive embedding under operators like negation and modals (Tonhauser, 2012). Consider,

The at-issue content of (3.8) is represented by (a) and the not-at-issue by (b):

• John does not smoke.
• John used to smoke.

Note the difficulty in directly denying the not-at-issue content. If one were to follow an utterance of (3.8) with,

you would presumably find this odd and incoherent. A much more elaborate statement is needed to deny the not-at-issue content.

Applying this to view to ‘inner-city’ in (3.5), we end up with:

• At-issue : A poor, densely populated, high-crime, urban area.
• Not-at-issue : Those living in such areas are mostly African American.

Because the racial component of (3.5) is not-at-issue, we have a reasonable explanation for why the following pair of sentences clash,

An objection to this view is that code words do not display non-cancelability the way not-at-issue content typically does; “someone cannot disavow commitment to the not-at-issue content of a sentence S that she utters merely by following up her utterance by asserting the negation of that content” (Khoo, 45). Consider,

The juxtaposition of sentences in (3.11) is supposed to strike the reader as contradictory while those in (3.12) should not.

According to a third view, code words are neither ambiguous nor multidimensional, but possess only nonracial meaning. What explains the phenomenon associated with terms like ‘inner city’ is the presence of an antecedent belief in the audience member that then allows them to infer the racial component. For example, an audience member may already believe

Pre-existing Belief (PB): The inner city is mostly populated by poor African Americans,

so that when hearing a politician proclaim (3.5), the audience member comes to infer

Racial Inference (RI): The food stamp program will primarily benefit poor African Americans.

A contrasting view that draws on the same simple semantics is what Khoo calls the association-driven theory of code words. On this view, there is “an association between ‘inner city’ (or the concept INNER CITY) and the concept AFRICAN AMERICAN (or maybe just RACE) which then primes racist beliefs and prejudices” (2017, 50).

Khoo’s account is simple and compelling, but we may still wonder whether it is too liberal. For instance, expressions like ‘thug,’ ‘illegal alien,’ ‘welfare queen,’ and ‘terrorist’ seem to behave like the terms Khoo identifies as code words, yet they are generally understood to be explicitly racial in nature. Patrick O’Donnell (2017) argues that the aforementioned expressions are not code words but racialized terms . O’Donnell characterizes the difference between racialized terms and code words in the following way:

• Racialized terms involve direct or predicative relations between a term and a racialized group whereas code words involve indirect inferential or associational relations, and
• Racialized terms elicit racial resentment by making salient race-specific interpretive options, whereas code words function by making salient race-neutral interpretive options (2017, 28).

O’Donnell agrees with Khoo that code words are picked out according to their contextual cognitive-pragmatic role, while claiming that this role differs between code words and racialized terms.

Determining whether dogwhistles or coded language count as merely contentious claims that must be tolerated or as hate speech subject to regulation has implications for broader discussions. The subtlety of coded language, for instance, calls its status as hate speech into question. The impact coded language has on an audience lacks the kind of immediacy often attributed to hate speech. Lawrence (1993), for example, notes that hate speech is often experienced by targets as a slap in the face. On the other hand, Mendelberg’s account suggests coded speech can incite racial resentment, and so it may be more aptly considered similar to propagandistic hate speech, discussed above. (For more on this point, see Jason Stanley (2015).) This would appear to get us closer to how hate speech is purported to function, namely, by inciting racial hatred. Whether it is close enough is of course open for debate.

That hate speech and pornography are discussed so frequently together in philosophy might, at first glance, seem surprising. But given the overlap made in the arguments made by anti-porn feminist about pornography and anti-racist theorists about racist hate speech, the two are now intimately linked—for better or for worse. (One important fact that led to this development is, of course, the ruling that pornography is protected by the US first amendment as speech [see Miller v. California (1973)].) According to anti-porn feminists, much of what is said of racist hate speech and the harms that befall its targets also applies, with the appropriate changes, to pornography and women—including, it’s worth emphasizing, women of color.

Many of the important initial moves in this literature were crafted by feminist legal scholar Catherine MacKinnon, along with Andrea Dworkin. One of MacKinnon’s most significant claims that has received sustained philosophical attention is the idea that (degrading and misogynist) pornography silences women. With some modifications, a similar claim may be applied to hate speech, namely, that hate speech silences its targets. However, as the literature has focused on the case of pornography and women, it’s worth examining these arguments in detail first.

This silencing argument begins with MacKinnon’s observation that there are “words that set conditions” for other speech acts’ successes or failures (1993, 63–68; see also Hornsby and Langton, 1998, 27). That is, there are some speech acts that fix the possibility of other speech acts. In other words, they make it possible for some persons to perform some speech acts, and make it impossible for others. This is most evident in formal settings, like a legislature, where the formal rules determine who may speak when, and in what manner. Pornography, the argument continues, does just this. It sets rules of behavior that, in effect, inhibit the speech of women. The result of which is that the speech acts of pornography—performed by those who produce and distribute it—create a climate that undermines women’s capacity to perform certain speech acts of their own. The speech of some (pornographers), therefore, curtails the speech of others (women).

In an influential account of the phenomena of silencing, Langton (1993) deploys speech act theory to examine the case of sexual refusal. According to the silencing argument, pornography depicts women as not (genuinely) refusing sexual advances with utterances of ‘no.’ Indeed, according to the myths perpetuated by pornography (among other social influences), a woman’s ‘no’ is not a refusal, but rather part of an elaborate sexual script. As a result, when a woman says ‘no’ in a non-pornographic context, intending to refuse a man’s sexual advances, she may find herself unable to be heard—that is, her words won’t have the force and effect she intends, and her hearer will not take her to be refusing. She may find herself silenced in this particularly horrendous way, unable to use the standard methods of refusing another’s sexual advances. The claim is that this occurs as a result of pornography silencing women’s refusals in the context of sex. It renders their words powerless.

In making this argument, Langton relies on the distinction between locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts, and, correspondingly, locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary silencing. A couple examples will explain these distinctions quickly:

When X says, ‘Shoot him!’ they are, we can see quite quickly, both saying something: ‘shoot him!’ and at the same time doing something: ordering the hearer to fire. In Austinian terms, we can say that X performs the locutionary act of making an utterance with a certain meaning, and at the same time is performing an illocutionary act of ordering the hearer to fire. In addition to these two things, the speaker is also, with their words, bringing about a number of effects, which Austin termed the ‘ perlocutionary act.’ In this case, leading to some unfortunate soul to be shot. (Adapted from Langton, 1993, 295, and Austin, 1962, 101)

To be clear, these three acts—locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary—all occur as part of a single utterance and serve to bring out different aspects of any speech act. Austin (and many after him) paid particular attention to the illocutionary act of an utterance, as this, he said, corresponds to the force of an utterance. That is, what someone is doing with their words.

With this in mind, we can see that there are, in fact, many ways one could silence someone. You could literally gag or threaten someone to prevent them from speaking at all, which would achieve a type of locutionary silencing. Alternatively, you could let them say what they wish, recognize what act they are performing, but prevent them achieving their goals, and in doing so achieve a type of perlocutionary silencing. Finally, a third alternative occurs when one speaks and is prevented not only from achieving their intended effects, but also is prevented from performing the very action they intend to perform (Langton, 1993, 315). It is this third alternative—illocutionary silencing—that is said to occur when a man fails to even recognize a woman’s ‘no’ as a refusal, owing at least partially to the influence of pornography.

The specific mechanics of silencing—along with the underlying theory that best explains the phenomena—is subject to much dispute in the literature, and numerous accounts with different essential features have been offered (see Langton (1993); Langton and West (1999); Hornsby (1994); Hornsby and Langton (1998); Maitra (2009); McGowan (2004, 2009, 2014); Mikolla (2011; 2019), among others).

Laura Caponetto (2021) distinguishes four different types of silencing, demonstrating the breadth of the concept. First, there is essential silencing, which consists in the hearer’s failure to recognize the illocutionary point of a speech act. Second, there is authority silencing, where a hearer fails to acknowledge a speaker’s authority in a relevant domain. Third, there is sincerity silencing, when the speaker’s utterance is inaccurately taken as insincere. Fourth and finally, there is seriousness silencing, which consists in the hearer’s failure to acknowledge the speaker’s words as appropriately serious. Given these fine-grained ways of understanding silencing, a broad, comprehensive definition of silencing may be put as follows:

Illocutionary Silencing A speaker S putting forth a speech act A addressed to a hearer H is illocutionarily silenced iff (i) H fails to recognize the obtaining of some conditions for A ’s success; (ii) S ’s attempt at A -ing meets the conditions that H fails to recognize; (iii) normal input and output conditions are met; (iv) the recognition failure on H ’s part is systematic. (Caponetto, 2021)

In nearly all discussions of silencing, one common piece of contention concerns the notion of ‘uptake.’ On different understanding of what uptake consists in—ranging from the hearer’s recognition of a speaker’s intent, or the type of speech act being performed, up to the material consequences of a speech act—we are led to different conclusions about whether a speaker was silenced or not. Disagreement about the conditions of uptake poses difficulty, therefore, for many accounts of silencing. Drawing on these difficulties, Samia Hesni (2018) has argued that the standard account of silencing needs significant retooling, in part because the necessary distinction between illocutionary silencing and perlocutionary silencing cannot hold, as it relies on a problematic—and arguably conceptually untenable—notion of uptake (Hesni, 2018, 957). In an attempt to avoid these difficulties, we might prefer an account of silencing that uses a Gricean, rather than Austinian or Searlian framework, bypassing the need to fully differentiate the illocutionary from the perlocutionary (see Maitra, 2009).

While much of this literature is explicitly focused on pornography’s potential to silence women in the realm of sexual refusal, the notion that racist hate speech may similarly play a silencing function has also been put forward. For example, in a classic paper on the topic, Lawrence wrote that:

Racist speech … distorts the marketplace of ideas by muting or devaluing the speech of Blacks and other despised minorities. Regardless of intrinsic value, their words and ideas become less saleable in the marketplace of ideas. An idea that would be embraced by large numbers of individuals if it were offered by a white individual will be rejected or given less credence if its author belongs to a group demeaned and stigmatized by racist beliefs. (Lawrence, 1993, 78–79)

Using the above framework, we might therefore say that racist hate speech can itself constitute words that set conditions for the success of other speech acts, and in doing so undermines the speech of its targets—and in some cases, effectively silencing them. That is, racist hate speech may, in cultivating an environment hostile to the voices (and lives) of many, can lead to both locutionary and illocutionary silencing in a way that threatens their freedom of expression. And as is noted above in the section on the harms of hate speech, one long-term consequence of racist hate speech may be the target’s partial withdrawal from certain aspects of public life, including public discourse (West, 2012, 237). One further harmful effect of hate speech, then, is its targets’ silence.

Another way in which racist hate speech might silence is more immediate. Returning to the distinction between propagandistic hate speech on the one hand, and assaultive hate speech on the other, where the latter consists in hate speech uttered directly to its target, we may note that hate speech often serves as a type of attack. So, despite the common refrain of ‘more speech’ offered as advice, conceiving hate speech as a personal attack demonstrates how it, in fact, threatens the speech rights of its targets. As Lawrence puts it: “The visceral emotional response to personal attack precludes speech” (1993, 68). He goes on:

Attack produces an instinctive, defensive psychological reaction. Fear, rage, shock, and flight all interfere with any reasoned response. Words like ‘nigger,’ ‘kike,’ and ‘faggot’ produce physical symptoms that temporarily disable the victim, and perpetrators often use these words with the intention of producing this effect. (ibid.)

So, in both cultivating an environment in which the speech of marginalized groups is systematically devalued, or in serving as an immediate threat, hate speech can be said to silence its targets.

As is the case with pornography and silencing, the details of the mechanisms that sustain this type of silencing, along with what particular type of silencing racist hate speech results in, are subject to dispute. But, just like in the pornography debate, the plausibility of the silencing argument lies partly in how it reframes the overall question surrounding regulation. Rather than simply being a source of harm that merely infringes on the equality rights of its targets, if hate speech silences then it also infringes on the speech rights of its targets (West, 2012). As a result, it is not simply a question of balancing the speech rights of hate speakers against the wellbeing of their targets, but of competing claims to (substantive, and not just formal) freedom of expression. And given the importance that most liberal democracies place on freedom of expression, the challenge presented from hate speech is of central importance. For this reason, the silencing question is one of the most disputed aspects of hate speech and has generated great attention.

5. Counteracting Hate Speech

On the presumption that hate speech is harmful—both particularly harmful for the members of targeted groups, and also generally harmful to democracy—the natural question that follows is: what should we do about it? This question, however, rests on several sub-questions—some empirical, some conceptual—that themselves admit of rich dispute. For example, depending on how one conceives of the value and point of free expression—to better seek the truth, to respect autonomy, to ensure democracy, etc.—different answers to the hate speech question will seem more worthwhile than others. The same consideration applies to empirical matters as well, which are often difficult to properly assess in the absence of uncontroversial data. This means that relatively straightforward empirical questions—does genocidal speech pave the way to actual genocidal violence; do governments abuse hate speech regulation to punish political rivals and disfavored minorities; and others—rarely receive unanimous agreement. Despite these challenges, many theorists have addressed the question of how to counteract hate speech, and what form that response ought to take.

We can divide the most common answers into three broad categories: (1) legally restrict it in some form, as a justified exception to free expression; (2) permit it on the basis of free expression, holding that the harms of censorship outweigh the harms of hate speech; or (3) permit it, but take explicit measures to undo the harm of hate speech.

First, the case for banning hate speech. While this position may be anathema to many (especially in the United States), it is the consensus position of most democratic nations around the globe, as well as the explicit position of the United Nations. In the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights , Article 20 requires a ban on hate speech—or, in their words, “any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law” ( Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ; see also, Article 4 of Convention on Racial Discrimination ). It is worth noting the position of the United Nations and other democracies on hate speech in part because of the contrast they serve for the dominant position in the United States, which recognizes some exceptions to the right to free expression (e.g., obscenity, libel, child sexual abuse material), but not generally on the basis of (racial) hate. Moreover, these exhortations to criminalize hate speech from the United Nations sit alongside commitments that maintain the importance of freedom of expression. For instance, Article 20, quoted above, is immediately preceded by Article 19, which affirms right to freedom of expression ( Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ).

The standard justification offered for restrictions on freedom of expression are based on the necessity of (a) respect of the rights or reputations of others; and (b) reasons of national security or of public order. In other words, a ban on hate speech may be thought to follow from the recognition of the harms it presents, both to the dignity of minority-members of a nation, as well as their physical safety. This position maintains, then, that restrictions on hate speech are a legitimate—and necessary—exception to an otherwise wider understanding of free expression. (For some theorists, it’s worth noting, hate speech is best not understood as the type of speech that free speech protections are meant to include—e.g., it serves no purpose in the pursuit of truth—and so is not in fact an exception to a free speech principle, but simply not included in a proper understanding of the scope of free speech.) This view naturally follows from the understanding that multiple values and rights must be balanced against each other. This is true both of countries that explicitly prohibit hate speech in order to protect minority rights, as well as in more ‘speech-friendly’ nations like the United States, where speech that is aimed at and likely to result in “imminent lawless action” may be legitimately restricted (see Brandenburg v. Ohio ).

However, most advocates for legally restricting hate speech believe that its proper scope is wider than what US law currently allows. Parekh, for example, rejects the position that hate speech may only be restricted when there is “imminent danger” of violence on the grounds that this understanding is too short-sighted. Moreover, he says,

no action occurs in a historical vacuum, and every action produces consequences not inherently but against a particular background. … Imminent danger occurs against, and is imminent because of, the prevailing social climate, and consistency demands that we concentrate our efforts not only on fighting the immediate source of danger, but also on changing the climate. (2012, 45–46)

On the understanding that the threat of hate speech is not exhausted by cases that concern “imminent danger,” we might then ground the prohibition of hate speech on the basis that this may reduce speech that causes harm to its targets, beyond those most immediately affected. Of course, there is also an important role to be played by non-legal means (e.g., moral and social pressure) in erasing or reducing these harms, so legal bans are best understood as part of a broader approach to the ills of hate speech. Furthermore, advocates of bans describe the expressive dimension of these laws as themselves providing a reason in favor of legislation (Waldron, 2014). The law, in this sense, serves as a public statement on a community’s values, and has educational and symbolic importance in itself (Parekh, 2012, 46). (For an overview of expressive theories of law, see Anderson and Pildes, 2000.) A ban on hate speech, therefore, is intended both to reduce harms directly, by decreasing instances of hate by the threat of law, as well as indirectly, by shaping the community’s moral norms through an expression of value.

Though many would agree that hate speech can have destructive effects, and that there is a moral imperative on the state to cultivate something like respectful relations between its members, objections to hate speech bans abound. In a wide-ranging response to these concerns, Parekh (2012) considers (and rejects) six common objections to the prohibition of hate speech. These six objections are: (1) that the harm of hate speech, while real, is relatively minor and a small price to pay given the interest of democratic nations; (2) that bans are not the answer, but rather “better ideas” and “more speech” are; (3) that a prohibition would have a dangerous “chilling effect” and that hate speech bans are a slippery slope to all sorts of unwanted restrictions; (4) that bans give the state too much power to judge the content of speech and decide what can or cannot be said, threatening state-neutrality, skewing political debate, and infringing on individual liberty; (5) that bans are an objectionable form of paternalism or moral authoritarianism, and is incompatible with the assumption that humans are responsible and autonomous individuals and that society is made up of free and equal citizens; and finally, (6) that bans are ineffective at changing attitudes and removing the hate from the hate speaker’s heart, with the result that bans have the effect of moving extremists underground, alienating them from wider society, and in doing so rendering us ignorant of their violent potential and impotent to engage in effective de-radicalization.

Each of these concerns merits more space than can be given to them here. Still, considering these objections to bans and the responses available, even briefly, is illustrative of the theoretical concerns bans on hate speech bring forth (see the list of references for fuller development of the relevant theoretical and empirical issues). Again following Parekh (2012, 47–54), we can approach these objections as follows.

In response to (1), the objection that the interests of a vibrant democracy outweigh the harms imposed by hate speech, it may be argued that hate speech does not embody the values of free speech but, in fact, undermines them by promoting irrational fears and hatred over reasoned arguments and public scrutiny. How powerful one takes this response to be depends directly on what one takes the value and justification of a right to free expression to be, which is of course a matter of dispute.

One response to (2), the common ‘more speech’ objection, is to note that the “marketplace of ideas” is not neutral, and likely requires some regulation (just like a marketplace of other goods). This is what a ban does, and so may be considered to be helping ensure ‘fair competition’ by countering prevailing prejudices, and encouraging greater participation from the members of communities targeted by hate speech. In other words, bans on hate speech may promote greater freedom of expression, by preventing the type of silencing considered above.

While acknowledging the worries of (3), namely that of a ‘chilling effect’ or a ‘slippery slope,’ represent an important objection, we may respond by noting that the problems these signal rest on the vague wording and inconsistent or biased application of hate speech bans. They are not, therefore, direct objections to hate speech bans as such. The remedy, therefore, lies in correcting these aspects of a ban, rather than abandoning it altogether. Moreover, the appeal to a ‘slippery slope’ may be inapt, as it implies that once one type of speech is prohibited, society cannot help but prohibit even more types. But we have no clear reason to suppose that this is the case, as existing bans on defamation have not led to bans on fair critical comment, for example.

The worries at the core of objection (4) represents a well-founded fear of the state, and so must be taken seriously. But, to defenders of hate speech bans, its understanding of the threat that hate speech bans pose to state-neutrality is nonetheless flawed. It fails to recognize that the state often already judges the content of speech (e.g., in banning commercial fraud, criminal solicitation, public displays of obscenity) and often elides neutrality when it speaks in favor of certain positions (e.g., the value of human dignity, equality, liberty). While any defense of hate speech bans must reckon with the possibility of further empowering the state, opponents ought not misrepresent the status quo, exaggerating the reality of state-neutrality.

Objections grounded on the threat of paternalism or moral authoritarianism, like (5), are similarly serious. However, one response on behalf of bans would be to point out how autonomy is always exercised under certain conditions and requires various external circumstances for its development and use. When appealing to personal autonomy, therefore, we should not idealize too greatly so that its real-world exercise is ignored. Rather, the threats that racism and bigotry pose for autonomy must also be acknowledged, alongside praise for our rational faculties.

One response to (6), that bans are ineffective at changing attitudes, is to admit the law cannot change attitudes (like hatred) directly and maintain that this is no knock against the law, and indeed is no problem for hate speech bans. The aim of these bans, in most cases, is not to prevent hatred but to prevent the harm that the public expression of hate can cause. The indirect effects of such a law, however, are an empirical matter, and it is unlikely they admit of a single, general answer, but are highly context-dependent. The subject of the practicability of hate speech bans deserves special attention, however. Opponents to bans may worry that the suppression of hate speech is likely to backfire, not only by failing to reduce hatred, but by increasing the sense of oppression and victimization that many bigots thrive on, leading to an escalation of racist violence (Baker, 2012, 77). Again, as an empirical hypothesis, it cannot be settled simply from the armchair. Still, a further response available on behalf of hate speech bans would be to question the legitimacy of this objection. If, by hypothesis, bans generated an increase in violence, it would still be the responsibility of the state to manage this violence effectively. The role of the state is not exhausted by implementing a ban, but must be seen alongside its enforcement.

This, however, leads to a slightly different objection. The opponent of bans may worry that the enforcement of laws against hate speech would divert the state’s energies away from more effective measures against hated, such as “those directed at changing material conditions in which racism festers, material conditions of both the purveyors and targets of hate” (Baker, 2012, 77). That is, the energies and resources that would be directed towards establishing and enforcing hate speech bans may be better spent on alternative policies. The guiding thought rests on two important points. First, that the intended ends of hate speech bans (e.g., reduction in the harms of hate speech that fall on those targeted by it, mitigation of the expansion of racist attitudes, lessening occurrences of violent hate crimes) may be more effectively achieved via different means, such as reducing inequality, improving social safety nets, political empowerment, and more. Second, though the state can do more than one thing at once, it is nonetheless working with limited resources, and efficiency is a value. That these alternative policy options may indeed be more effective is an unresolved empirical matter. And it remains an open question whether indirect approaches like this would fail to achieve the expressive ends of hate speech bans, which more directly communicate to those targeted by hate speech that they are valued members society.

Many of the claims made above, both on behalf of bans and in opposition, raise theoretical and empirical issues whose proper examination spans many articles and books. Suffice to say that the debate over bans is a highly contested one, and each position rests on an understanding of such issues as the value of free expression, the harm of hate speech, the likely effects a ban might have in a particular context, and so on. For instance, one who believes that free expression is valuable in part because of its role in democratic decision-making may maintain that specifically political speech deserves increased protections, and that some of what others regard as hate speech might fall into this category, escaping regulation. Alternatively, one may view the immunity for political speech as perhaps a red herring. On the speech act theoretic framework outlined above, some forms of racist hate speech are functionally identical to a ‘Whites Only’ sign hanging in a public restaurant (McGowan 2012; McGowan and Maitra 2009). The latter expresses a political opinion in the same way as the former expression does, but it is also regarded as unlawful racially discriminatory. The same considerations—legal sanction—might therefore apply to the verbal utterance as the written sign, and the appeal to the political content of the message is irrelevant.

The preceding summarizes the two main positions in the debate over hate speech: on the one hand, there are those who defend prohibitions, and on the other, those who maintain hate speech as protected under a wide conception of freedom of expression, and so oppose laws that aim at its prohibition. A third position aims to avoid some of the impasses that haunt this debate. On this view, this impasse is the result of a failure by those who oppose hate speech bans (and, as a result, tend to favor ‘more speech’) to acknowledge the strength of one of the main arguments from those who advocate for bans, namely, that hate speech is a type of assault that often renders one unable to respond. This, along with a failure of those who defend bans from considering non-punitive options for mitigating the harms of hate speech, leads to stalemate. On this understanding, both sides of the debate over bans see the only alternatives as either increased governmental powers to punish, or absent that, ‘unsupported’ counterspeech on the part of those targeted by hate speech (see Gelber, 2012a; 2012b).

By contrast, the “supported counterspeech” alternative aims to recognize the specific harms inflicted by hate speech and provide state support to empower those who are harmed. Gelber, an advocate for this alternative, places it within the capabilities approach originally developed by Amartya Sen (1992) and Martha Nussbaum (2000; 2003). “If hate-speech acts harm their targets’ capacity to develop human capabilities,” Gelber says, then “this is what needs to be remedied” (2012a, 54). The impetus for this approach therefore begins from the idea that we must think about remedies to hate speech beyond restrictions and punishment, as neither of these approaches achieve the goal of empowering the target of hate speech. (This is especially true of the latter, punishment, which also carries with it all the negative consequences that anti-carceral advocates have noted.) The supported counterspeech policy is therefore not focused on hate speakers, but rather the targets of hate speech more directly.

The core of this approach lies in an enlarged conception of counterspeech as well as a commitment by the state to provide the material conditions necessary for this speech. In practice, this would mean that the state is committed to responding to an incident of hate speech by empowering its targets to engage in more speech, after the fact. The specific forms this support may take will depend on the conditions of different contexts, along with calibration for the specifics of the incident it is meant as a response to, as well as the needs of the particular communities. Still, to give a sense of what this may entail, examples of the sort of supported counterspeech that this position recommends include things such as: assistance in the production of a community newsletters, op-eds, radio broadcasts, or television advertisements; the development of antiracism awareness programs, or anti-hate-speech workshops; subsidizing community-led art projects; etc.

In each case, the aim of supported counterspeech is to empower the targets of hate speech, and to increase their capacity for engaging in counterspeech. The goal is thus to undo (as much as one can) the specific harms of hate speech, while avoiding the pitfalls of “private remedies” (as critiqued by Matsuda, 1993). While supported counterspeech could be taken as either an alternative to bans or a supplement to them, it remains an under-explored avenue for considering responses tailored to the particular harms of hate speech.

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• Parekh, Bhikhu, 2012, “Is There a Case for Banning Hate Speech?” in Michael Herz, and Peter Molnar (eds.), The Content and Context of Hate Speech: Rethinking Regulation and Response , Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 37–56.
• Popa-Wyatt, Mihaela, and Jeremy L. Wyatt, 2017, “Slurs, Roles and Power,” Philosophical Studies , 175(11): 2879–2906.
• Post, Robert, 2009, “Hate Speech,” in Ivan Hare and James Weinstein (eds.), Extreme Speech and Democracy , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Reichman, Ammon, 2009, “Criminalizing Religiously Offensive Satire: Free Speech, Human Dignity, and Comparative Law,” in Ivan Hare and James Weinstein (eds.), Extreme Speech and Democracy , Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 331–355.
• Richard, Mark, 2010, When Truth Gives Out , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Saul, Jennifer M., 2018, “Dogwhistles, Political Manipulation, and Philosophy of Language,” in Daniel W. Harris Daniel Fogal, and Matt Moss (eds.), New Works on Speech Acts , Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 360–383.
• Sbisà, Marina, 2009, “Illocution and Silencing,” in Bruce Fraser, and Ken Turner (eds.), Language in Life, and a Life in Language: Jacob Mey—a Festschrift , Bradford: Emerald, pp. 351–357.
• Schwartzman, Lisa H., 2002, “Hate Speech, Illocution, and Social Context: A Critique of Judith Butler,” Journal of Social Philosophy , 33(3): 421–441.
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• Tesler, M., and D. O. Sears, 2010, Obama’s Race: The 2008 Election and the Dream of a Post-Racial America , Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Tirrell, Lynne, 1999, “Derogatory Terms: Racism, Sexism, and the Inferential Role Theory of Meaning,” in Christina Hendricks, and Kelly Oliver (eds.), Language and Liberation: Feminism, Philosophy, and Language , Albany: State University of New York Press, pp. 41–79.
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• UN General Assembly, International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination , 21 December 1965, [ available online ].
• Waldron, Jeremy,2014, The Harm in Hate Speech , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• West, Caroline, 2012, “Words that Silence? Freedom of Expression and Racist Hate Speech,” in Ishani Maitra, and Mary Kate McGowan (eds.), Speech and Harm: Controversies over Free Speech , Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 222–248.
• Whine, Michael, 2009, “Expanding Holocaust Denial and Legislation Against It,” in Ivan Hare and James Weinstein (eds.), Extreme Speech and Democracy , Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 538–556.
• White, Ismail, 2007, “When Race Matters and When It Doesn’t: Racial Group Differences in Response to Racial Cues,” American Political Science Review , 101(2): 339–54.
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• Wistrich, Robert, 2012, Holocaust Denial: The Politics of Perfidy , Berlin: De Gruyter.

How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

• Swanson, Eric, 2015, “ Slurs and Ideology ,” unpublished manuscript
• American Library Association, “ Hate Speech and Hate Crime ”
• European Commission against Hate Speech and Violence
• UN Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech
• UNESCO, “ Countering Online Hate Speech ”
• Rights for Peace, “ Hate Speech ”
• Anti-Defamation Leage, “ Resources for Responding to Hate Speech in the Community ”
• Library of Parliament Research Publication, “ Hate Speech and Freedom of Expression: Legal Boundaries in Canada ”

cognitivism vs. non-cognitivism, moral | freedom: of speech | pornography: and censorship | respect | semantics: proof-theoretic | speech acts

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5 Connected Speech Secrets for Fast, Native English Pronunciation

What is Connected Speech?

Learn how connected speech will help you to speak English faster, more fluently, and much more like a native speaker. Unfortunately, many language learners don’t know about this subject, but we should! First of all, let’s make sure we have a basic understanding. What is connected speech?

Connected speech means that when we speak a language, words have some effect on each other. We do not always pronounce words completely separately with a neat pause in between. In fact, many words affect each other when you put them into phrases and sentences. The end sound of one word often affects the beginning of the next word.

Connected Speech Includes Many Sub-Topics

There are many different ways that connected speech happens. Sometimes sounds are added, or omitted, or changed, in different ways.  It is actually a big subject and we could spend a long time talking about the several sub-topics in it!

In this lesson, you’ll learn a bit about five different kinds of connected speech: catenation or linking, intrusion, elision, assimilation and geminates.

Catenation or Linking

Catenation, or Linking is probably what most people think of first when they think of connected speech. Linking happens when the end of one word blends into another. When the last sound of a word is a consonant and the first sound of the next word is a vowel, you get linking.

For example:

I want this orange –> thisorange

I want that orange –> thadorange

This afternoon –> thisafternoon

Is he busy? –> Isi busy?

Cats or dogs? –> Catserdogs?

Intrusion means an additional sound “intrudes” or inserts itself between others. It is often is a /j/ or /w/ or /r/ sound between two other vowel sounds.

He asked –> Heyasked

She answered –? Sheyanswered

Do it –> Dewit

Go out –> Gowout

Shoe on –> Shoewon

Elision means when a sound disappears. Basically, a sound is eaten by other stronger or similar sounds next to it. This often happens with a /t/ or /d/ sound.

Next door –> Nexdoor

Dad take –> Datake

Most common –> Moscommon

Assimilation

Assimilation means two sounds blend together, forming a new sound altogether. This often happens with /t/ and /j/ which make /ʧ/ and with /d/ and /j/ which make / ʤ  /.

Don’t you — donʧu

Won’t you — wonʧu

Meet you — meeʧu

Did you — di ʤu

Would you — wu ʤu

Finally, geminates are like twins — two same sounds back-to-back. Often when one word ends with the same letter as the beginning of the next word, you should connect the two words in your speech.

Social life –> socialife

Pet turtle –> Peturtle

These five points and examples may make you feel like you have a lot to study!

Try learning the International Phonetic Alphabet so that you can take notes about how words sound together. Or, you could keep an audio journal on your smart phone where you record how words and phrases sound with connected speech.

Here is a cool tool you can try making English sentences into IPA . Keep in mind that sometimes real life pronunciation will be different because of variations.

If you liked this lesson, you’ll love my lesson about pronunciation and the “schwa” sound. Click here to view it now. 

And click on our video lesson below if you’d like to hear more about connected speech!

Would you like training to improve your English speaking faster? pre-register today for information about the Complete Go Natural English Course, Fluent Communication!

How to Stop Translating in Your Head and Start Thinking in English

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[ ney -tiv ]

one's native land.

native ability;

native grace.

Synonyms: congenital , inbred , innate

Native guides accompanied the expedition through the rainforest.

native pottery.

Synonyms: aboriginal , autochthonous

Native customs;

Native dress.

a native New Yorker.

Her native language is Greek.

a native speaker of English;

native command of a language.

a native government.

the native quarter of Algiers.

the native beauty of a desert island.

Synonyms: original , genuine , real

He returned to his native Kansas.

Hundreds of species of plants and trees native to central Texas are displayed and nurtured in the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, south of Austin.

the difference between native and industrial diamonds.

native copper.

to deprive people of their native rights.

native applications for 64-bit PCs;

native mobile apps.

to view the file in its native format.

• Archaic. closely related, as by birth.

the natives of Chile.

Synonyms: Aborigine

Antonyms: alien

• Native. Sometimes Offensive. Indigenous ( def 2 ) . the current entry.

a native of Ohio.

• an organism indigenous to a particular region.
• British. an oyster reared in British waters, especially in an artificial bed.

Capricorn natives are practical, collected, and reliable allies to have in a crisis.

/ ˈneɪtɪv /

my native city

a native strength

a native German

kangaroos are native to Australia

the native art of the New Guinea Highlands

• (of chemical elements, esp metals) found naturally in the elemental form
• unadulterated by civilization, artifice, or adornment; natural
• archaic. related by birth or race
• go native (of a settler) to adopt the lifestyle of the local population, esp when it appears less civilized

a native of Geneva

the kangaroo is a native of Australia

• a member of an indigenous people of a country or area, esp a non-White people, as opposed to colonial settlers and immigrants
• offensive. any non-White

/ nā ′ tĭv /

• Living or growing naturally in a particular place or region; indigenous.
• Occurring in nature on its own, uncombined with other substances. Copper and gold are often found in native form.
• Of or relating to the naturally occurring conformation of a macromolecule, such as a protein.

Discover More

Sensitive note, derived forms.

• ˈnatively , adverb
• ˈnativeness , noun

Other Words From

• na·tive·ly adverb
• na·tive·ness noun
• non·na·tive adjective noun
• non·na·tive·ly adverb
• non·na·tive·ness noun
• pro·na·tive adjective
• qua·si-na·tive adjective
• un·na·tive adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of native 1

Idioms and Phrases

After living on the island for a year, we went native and did without air conditioning just like the locals.

I don’t usually drink alcohol, but at the frat party I went native and played beer pong with everyone else.

Example Sentences

That limits the amount of access native speakers have to tech tools in their language.

Unlike Facebook’s previous shopping products, the latest storefronts will be native to the platform.

She also brought with her the native advertising playbook from Forbes.

Across board branded content revenue for publishers will be down between 20% and 40% this year, according to tech company Polar, which helps publishers with branded content and native advertising.

The NBA is smitten with mascots native to land, the most popular classification across the board.

He had shot and wounded his ex-girlfriend early that morning in Baltimore and headed for his native Brooklyn.

While the Clovis, California native may not have completely believed that, he wasn't about to sit around and find out.

They were conducted entirely in Hebrew, a language the U.S. native does not speak, although he was provided a translator.

Hornbuckle, on the other hand, says the policy will not put Native American nations in danger.

And household earnings for illegal immigrants are considerably lower than that of native-born and legal immigrants.

His 6,000 native auxiliaries (as it proved later on) could not be relied upon in a civil war.

She came to know the peculiarities of nearly all native trees.

A native of Haarlem on Zandam, the date of her birth being unknown.

The history of that terrible hour is brightened by many such instances of native fealty.

“We shall make Mr. Pickwick pay for peeping,” said Fogg, with considerable native humour, as he unfolded his papers.

Related Words

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

Home » Language » English Language » Words and Meanings » Difference Between Native and Indigenous

Difference Between Native and Indigenous

Main difference – native vs indigenous.

The two terms native and indigenous have similar meanings; they both refer to living or non-living things that belong to a particular place by birth. Even the dictionary definitions of these two terms overlap to a great extent. For example, the Oxford dictionary defines indigenous by using the term native. Thus, native and indigenous are similar in meaning. However, there is a subtle difference between native and indigenous in terms of usage. The main difference between native and indigenous is that indigenous is often used to the non-white, original inhabitants of a place and the usage of native to refer to non-white, original inhabitants of a place can cause offense.

This article covers,

1. What Does Native Mean? – Definition, Meaning and Usage

2. What Does Indigenous Mean? – Definition, Meaning and Usage

What Does Native Mean – Definition, Meaning and Usage

The term native is derived from Latin nativus; the affix nat- refers to birth. Thus, native can be defined as belonging to a particular place by birth. The adjective native can be used with plants, animals as well as people. As a noun, native specifically refers to people born in a specific location. The following examples will help you to understand the different meanings of native.

She is a native of Montreal.

They returned to their native country after 25 years.

California Fremontia is a flowering shrub native to southwestern North America.

Bengal tiger is native to the Indian subcontinent.

This island is home to several native species of flowering plants.

The temperature was unbearable even for the natives.                     

Although the term native is used to refer to people born in a particular place, the term native is also used to refer to non-white, original inhabitants of a country. However, this usage may sometimes cause offense due to its associations with a European colonial outlook.

Joshua tree is native to arid southwestern North America.

What Does Indigenous Mean – Definition, Meaning and Usage

Indigenous is an adjective that can be defined as “produced, living, or existing naturally in a particular region or environment”. This term indigenous can also be used to refer to plants, animals, and people. Look at the following examples to understand the meaning of the term indigenous.

Marigold is indigenous to southern Europe.

Several indigenous groups live in that area.

Discrimination against indigenous people is punishable by law.

Indigenous plants cannot be taken out of the country.

The term indigenous is often used to refer to non-white, original inhabitants of a country. Government institutions, as well as organizations like United Nations, generally use this term to refer to these people. This is considered to be more polite and politically correct than native.

However, finding out the name preferred by the particular group of people and using that name instead of using general terms like native and indigenous is always a better and respectful method.

European settlers with Indigenous people in South Australia

Parts of Speech

Native is a noun and an adjective.

Indigenous is an adjective.

Definition 

Native can be defined as “belonging to a particular place by birth.”

Indigenous can be defined as “produced, living, or existing naturally in a particular region or environment”.

Native can be used with plants, animals as well as people.

Indigenous can also be used with plants, animals as well as people.

Native specifically refers to people born in a specific location.

Indigenous is not used as a noun.

Native is not much used to refer to the non-white, original inhabitants of a country.

Indigenous is often used to refer to the non-white, original inhabitants of a country.

Image Courtesy:

“Joshua Tree NP – Joshua Tree 2.” By Jarek Tuszyński (CC BY-SA 3.0 ) via Commons Wikimedia

“Alexander Schramm – A scene in South Australia – Google Art Project” By Alexander SCHRAMM (1813 – 1864) (Australia) at Google Cultural Institute maximum zoom level, (Public Domain) via Commons Wikimedia

About the Author: Hasa

Hasanthi is a seasoned content writer and editor with over 8 years of experience. Armed with a BA degree in English and a knack for digital marketing, she explores her passions for literature, history, culture, and food through her engaging and informative writing.

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Meaning of speech in English

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speech noun ( SAY WORDS )

• She suffers from a speech defect .
• From her slow , deliberate speech I guessed she must be drunk .
• Freedom of speech and freedom of thought were both denied under the dictatorship .
• As a child , she had some speech problems .
• We use these aids to develop speech in small children .
• a problem shared is a problem halved idiom
• banteringly
• bull session
• chew the fat idiom
• conversation
• conversational
• put the world to rights idiom
• take/lead someone on/to one side idiom
• tête-à-tête

You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

speech noun ( FORMAL TALK )

• talk She will give a talk on keeping kids safe on the internet.
• lecture The lecture is entitled "War and the Modern American Presidency."
• presentation We were given a presentation of progress made to date.
• speech You might have to make a speech when you accept the award.
• address He took the oath of office then delivered his inaugural address.
• oration It was to become one of the most famous orations in American history.
• Her speech was received with cheers and a standing ovation .
• She closed the meeting with a short speech.
• The vicar's forgetting his lines in the middle of the speech provided some good comedy .
• Her speech caused outrage among the gay community .
• She concluded the speech by reminding us of our responsibility .
• call for papers
• extemporize
• maiden speech
• presentation
• talk at someone

speech | Intermediate English

Speech noun ( talking ), examples of speech, collocations with speech.

These are words often used in combination with speech .

Click on a collocation to see more examples of it.

Translations of speech

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Word of the Day

injury to someone caused by severe cold, usually to their toes, fingers, ears, or nose, that causes permanent loss of tissue

Keeping up appearances (Talking about how things seem)

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Definition of native adjective from the Oxford Advanced American Dictionary

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The Oxford Learner’s Thesaurus explains the difference between groups of similar words. Try it for free as part of the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary app