Rethinking Nativeness: Toward a Dynamic Paradigm of (Non)Native Speakering. Issue 4 (1st October 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Aneja, Geeta A.
• Is Part Of: Critical inquiry in language studies. Volume 13:Issue 4(2016)
• Page Start: 351
• Page End: 379
• Publication Date: 2016-10-01
• Subjects: Language and languages -- Study and teaching -- Periodicals; 418
• DOI: 10.1080/15427587.2016.1185373
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1542-7587

Abstract

Abstract : The "NNEST Movement" has been instrumental in documenting the privilege of native speakers, the marginalization of their nonnative counterparts, and the factors that may influence an individual falling into one category or another. More recently, scholars have adopted a poststructuralist orientation toward language and identity that resists dichotomized framings of language and language users. This article extends the poststructuralist orientation to consider how and why such abstract idealizations of native and nonnative speakers—what I term (non)native speakered subjectivities —emerged historically and are continuously reified and (re)produced through everyday discourse. Throughout this discussion, I weave illustrative examples from a participant in a semester-long ethnographic study that took place in a graduate teacher education program. In the conclusion, I consider implications for future theorizations of (non)native speakering as well as possibilities for increasing equity in the field of ELT.