Rights: whose English is it anyway?
"According to some, native speakers have the unwritten right to make authoritative statements about what you can and cannot say in English and, therefore, to correct non-native speaker usage."
Paul Roberts
Thursday January 24, 2002
Guardian Unlimited
Do you think native speakers have that right? If so, do you think they may need to relinquish it in the near future?
.. How so? I'll correct you if you're saying something WRONG. In fact, I think native English speakers SHOULD be more aggressive to correct those who speak in an incorrect form of English. I remember my Spanish teacher complaining about this, too. He said that those who speak Spanish incorrectly are immediately corrected and it won't fly just to have a grasp of the language. He said that English speakers are too passive when somebody speaks the language incorrectly.
<<In fact, I think native English speakers SHOULD be more aggressive to correct those who speak in an incorrect form of English. >>
It depends on which native speaker it is that is correcting you. Many nonnative speakers use English with more competence than many native speakers. Now that's fact.
Speaking from a British perspective in this particular topic - well, as far as the "correct" use of the English Language is concerned - I have now come to the conclusion that many people (non British) who have learned English as a foreign Language actually speak it "more correctly" than do many so called native born British people. Their use of grammar is better and in many cases so is the use of words in the proper meaning, and with the right sentence construction. No kidding. That is obviously best explained by saying that they have learned the Language from scratch, as learners, at whatever age, in the way the Language should be spoken - text book style I suppose, while the native born are much more likely to be more slip-shod and use colloquialisms on a wide scale.
It's no secret that too many people of school leaving age emerge from full time secondary education in the UK barely literate or numerate, even though full time education is compulsory from age four or five up until the age of sixteen for those who do not enter further education. I believe this is the worst rate in the whole of Europe - correct me if I am wrong. God knows how that happens all along the line or what they've been doing all the while they were supposedly at school, but it's a fact. Even so they certainly are streetwise enough to know all about their "rights" but not so hot on their "responsibilities".
There's currently no " "Royal Academy of the English Language" (UK) or "English Language Regulatory Agency" (US), to definitively say what's right and wrong. (Perhaps the EU might come up with an agency like this?)
Without the RAEL or ELRA, the best native speakers can come up with suggestions like:
- "I'd never say it that way."
- "Around hear, they don't usually say it like that."
- "I still can't figure out what your sentence means."
etc.
<No, it definitely isn't, unless you're counting kids in "many native speakers". >
Here, you have no idea of what you are talikng about, Josh. It is true that many nonnative speakers have competence in the language, in using good grammar, have a wider vocabulary, than many native speakers.
The fact that English is somebody’s second or third language does not of itself imply that their competence is less than that of a native speaker.
- "Around hear, they don't usually say it like that."
"Around here", hopefully. ;-)
<< The fact that English is somebody’s second or third language does not of itself imply that their competence is less than that of a native speaker. >>
That's true, but the fact remains that most people who learn a second language are going to, frankly, suck at speaking it. It's certainly true that *some* foreign speakers do surpass the average native speaker, but they are surely well in the minority.
- Kef
"Around here", hopefully. ;-)
Yes.
<It's certainly true that *some* foreign speakers do surpass the average native speaker, but they are surely well in the minority. >
Obviously, the question is: do or should native speakers have "the (sole)unwritten right to make authoritative statements about what you can and cannot say in English"?
<That's true, but the fact remains that most people who learn a second language are going to, frankly, suck at speaking it.>
The real revelation here is that there are many native spakers who also suck at speaking the language. Therefore, the term "reach native speaker competence" has no value.
Isn't native speaker competency said as a 'state of mind' rather than actual level? ie, it feels natural for you to use it, maybe you are dumb and can't write formally, but that's because you're dumb, not because you 'don't speak English'?
Damian,
I've heard this a lot, but I believe that there is equivocation going into that statement. If you are talking about in terms of very efficient speech and proper (read: prescriptivist) grammar, then yes nonnative speakers, or certain ones, usually do better than the native speaker. If you're talking about being able to be very flexible in your grammar while still sounding "right" then the native speaker will almost always win. I know alljapaneseallthetime.com mentions this in a couple articles:
http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/isnt-real-japanese-too-hard-for-beginners
http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/how-to-banish-boredom-from-sentence-mining-sentence-picking#comments
"What else…YES! I call it “doping”. In semiconductor production, doping refers is the process of deliberately introducing impurities into an extremely pure material in order to obtain better/desired performance properties. In learning a language, doping is the process of almost “dumbing-down” or de-streamlining your spoken language by introducing inefficient elements that have function but no meaning, and serve to make it more natural and native-like. You see, foreigners, tend to learn from texts and textbooks. And text is much, much more efficient (”pure”) than speaking. In text you get straight to the point:
A) “This is an example”. [4 words, 0 long pauses]
But in speech, you amble zig zigzag-zag toward your point:
B) “Well, um, this is, like, an example or whatever…kind of, I dunno”. [13 words, 1 long pause]
Native speakers are wasteful and inefficient. This is why the Borg in Star Trek despise human communication. In my experience, native speakers use perhaps 2 or 3 times the number of words they “need”, and all that extra baggage has no lexical meaning. “Um” does not mean anything. “Like” does not really mean anything. It’s all just filler."
<A non-native speaker may equal this, but not surpass it, because that isn't possible. Language proficiency is the capacity to speak the language; the language is spoken by native speakers; ergo, no one can speak 'better' than native speakers. >
And your conclusion is based on...?
<Do you think native speakers have that right? If so, do you think they may need to relinquish it in the near future? >
Josh, you are normally concerned when a thread begins to go astray, so I'll remind you about the thread question:
"According to some, native speakers have the unwritten right to make authoritative statements about what you can and cannot say in English and, therefore, to correct non-native speaker usage."
Do you think native speakers have that right? If so, do you think they may need to relinquish it in the near future?
Can you answer that one?